SmartScore Music-to-XML Music Notation Recognition 4+

Works but flawed and unsupported

The program basically does what it says, though not without some serious flaws. For one, it's supposed to be able to output directly to Finale. It doesn't. When you click the Finale button, it outputs to nothing. Clicking the "Save as MusicXML" does work, and you simply import into Finale from that file. However, if you're going to advertise that feature, then make it work.

On a more serious note, it doesn't handle complex rhythms at all. When I have a piece of music in 3/4 with four quarter notes over those 3 beats, it just tries to create a phantom 4/4 measure and fixing this becomes something of a nightmare.

Finally, the program seems to be basically unsupported: it hasn't been updated since 2016, and when you go to their site, they say that they only have limited support...by phone, limited hours. For this kind of service, that program should be half the cost, and they should state upfront that they have no intention of updating the app.

Developer Response ,

We do support Music-to-XML. There is an e-mail link provided in the Tips & Hints page. Frankly, there isn’t much to support since M2XML is essentially a “black box”: PDF in -> MusicXML out. But we’re available and ready to respond should questions arise.
Remember...Greyscale and Black and white PDFs only. And be sure no cover pages or tables of content. Music pages only!
Cheers !

First attempt: some glitches but usable

I just downloaded this because my old version of Finale -- which I was keeping around in addition to an up-to-date version because it supports scanning -- will no longer run on MacOS Catalina.

As a first test, I asked SmartScore to read a PDF score I had previously generated in Finale (so it's utterly clean and modern, a "best case" test). As other reviewers have pointed out, the "export to Finale" button doesn't actually work -- you have to export to MusicXML and then import the MusicXML into Finale -- which is a minor annoyance.

SmartScore misread the 9/8 time signature as C, but most of the measures show up in Finale as "9/8 but use C for display", which is easily fixed (much easier than if it had actually tried to force the notes into 4/4). All the notes seem to be correct, and most of the lyrics, but there's an empty measure and a double-bar inserted at the beginning of almost every system. Again, easily fixed in Finale, but why is it doing this?

It tries, but it really doesn

It makes a sincere attempt at turning printed music into MusicXML, but the results are pretty bad. Even when it gets it mostly right, there is still some sort of error in every measure. It is fast, but I'd prefer if it spent more time and did a better job. The user interface is very minimal: just a couple of dialog boxes.

Developer Response ,

Something is wrong with the scan(s) you were working with. Please send the PDF file to tech@musitek.com. We will get right back to you with an explanation and fix. Music-to-XML works very well under normal circumstances. In those cases where it doesn't, it is almost always due to the way the original image was scanned in. The most common faults we see in scanning are: - Too low a resolution (some scanners default to 72 dpi). 300-400 dpi is expected. - Color (RGB) scans distort image. Scan in GREYSCALE. - Dithered scans. Never select "Halftone" as an option. - Sloppy scanning: Skewed pages, light leaks, image out of range of scanner bar Once you understand and fix the problem, you will have terrific results.