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Encore

Professional grade music composition software for Windows and Mac

6.5

237 Votes

  • Category Music
  • Program license Trial version
  • Version 5.0.6
  • Size 27.69 MB
  • Works under: Windows XP
  • Also available for Android 
  • Program available in English
  • Program by Gvox

In today's world, there seems to be an app or program for everything, and with the Encore program for the Windows OS, people who compose music with written notes now have a program to help them streamline and simplify the processes by which they create beautifully orchestrated music.

An Overview of Encore

Composing music isn't typically easy and surely isn't typically fast. The average composer sits with their instrument, writes some notes, plays those notes, and then works on composing the music. The longer the piece, the more writing it takes. Even if the notes repeat, they still have to be manually written in order for the composition to be completed. This is why a program like Encore is such a godsend to composers. With the help of a computer program, much of that tedium can be handled by the digital process, so the composer can simply focus on finding the right notes. In other words, you find the music notes you want as a composer, and the program itself will handle constructing the composition for you.

The notations that the program handles are surprisingly accurate, and it can also be handled two different ways. You can play your music directly into the program itself, which is just astonishing when you think about it, or you can upload your MIDI files and work with the program to clean up or extend your composition.

Features of Encore

Upon initially downloading the Encore program for Windows, you may notice that it looks a bit complex. There are a lot of tools there; the interface is full of bells and whistles and certain terms that you may not know unless you're actually a composer. So if you're just getting this program because you want to start composing music, the learning curve is unfortunately going to be incredibly steep. However, if you already know how to compose music, what you're going to find is that the interface is actually axiomatic and very easy to comprehend. The biggest issue you may have here, if you already compose, is figuring out how to do all the editing inside of your MIDI files once they're uploaded. But this is something that you should be able to figure out fairly easily.

The program itself is a little on the large size, but it doesn't necessarily require a lot of power to run. So you can have this program on and working without bringing your PC to a creeping crawl. However, you should know that you're going to need some sort of third-party recording device if you're using Encore to play your music. It's not as if you can play your piano and your PC is just going to “hear” it; you obviously need something to transmit that music into the program. So this isn't some plug and play program; you're going to need some level of set-up here.

Pros and Cons of Encore

Pros

  • Very easy set-up
  • Allows for music to be played into system
  • Great time-saver for compositions

Cons

  • Big learning curve for newbies
  • Free version doesn't offer much
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