The Passport website now shows that Don Williams, the original programmer of Encore music notation software and Master Tracks Pro, has acquired the assets from GVOX and will revive Encore with a version 6.

I used Encore from the late 1980s and was a beta tester from two decades. This could be good news, as Encore was always the most user-friendly of the notation software solutions out there. It's been stuck on version 5 for well over ten years, and the shareware/pirated versions out there appear to be even worse, version 4.

Encore became a horrible buggy mess in the GVOX years. In 2013, I wrote four songs for a symphony orchestra and cannot believe the amount of my wasted time from crashes. Even now I hold my nose and fire it up once in a while to load one of the thousands of older scores I wrote using it, and then convert it to Music XML so I can get out of Encore. It may be too late for them, though; most of us abandoned Encore years ago. I use Notion by Presonus and it will take a phenomenal rewrite of Encore to coax me back.

Still, it's something to watch, here: https://passportmusic.com/

I still have an old copy of Encore, and it fulfills my needs for head charts just fine.

I also still use Master Tracks Pro as a sequencer. I like it because it has great editing functions, and without the option of audio, it is fast, and every dialog box is one click away from the menu. There are no sub-menus and sub-sub menus.

The problem is the GVOX version is a little buggy, and the Passport Version quit working on Win10. So I'll ask him to revive MTPro right now.

Thanks for the heads-up.

Notes ♫

Sadly "Contact Us" doesn't work yet. But I'll keep trying.

Notes ♫

Yes, “coming soon”.

I assume the Tracy Collins referenced on the Passport Music Software about webpage is Tracy Collins of +++ Indiginus +++ virtual instrument fame.

Without pointing out the obvious.......well, maybe I am seeings how I mentioned it...

Encore kinda means coming back, doesn't it? So the return is very appropriate.

The only question is..... how many encores can we expect?

We don't know very much now, of course.

My first exposure to Encore was on the Mac, before it became available for Windows.

Slight update: the site now says that Encore 6 will be available for Windows and Mac 64-bit, Fall 2022.

Hey! Notes I think they heard you:

Sonic Scores plans to update Encore and Master Tracks Pro software to today’s standards while adding a few critically needed features.

That would make me very happy.

Do you have a source for this info? I would like to read more.

+++ THIS +++ webpage, second sentence from the top.

Thanks, Jim & Joe. That's the About info on the same site. I just didn't remember Sonic Scores, only GenieSoft, GVOX (which they left out entirely?) and Passport. Appreciate it.

It was on the web page.

Yes, thanks. When the page first went up, there wasn’t much detail and it just mentioned Don Williams. I’m more encouraged by the announcement now.

Three-month update: there is no update. There is a user forum you can join, but no further word on the availability of Encore 6.

I met Don Williams, the guy who created the original and is now in the process of updating Encore and Master Tracks Pro a few weeks ago.

He lives not too far from me, and came out to listen to us after I joined the forum.

We chatted a bit and he said the people who bought Encore and MTPro messed the code up quite a bit, and it's going to take a lot of work to get them right, but he's working on it.

I told him when he gets MTPro up, I'll be his first customer. I still use MTPro for MIDI sequencing. It's extremely fast and efficient, and has great editing features.

So I'm being patient.

Notes ♫

Thanks Bob. No question, the original Encore I used since the mid 1990s was amazing.

During the time I was a beta tester, GVOX let it deteriorate. There was even a battle between the company and a group of beta testers who developed a better version. I couldn’t live with the bugs and converted to Presonus Notion in 2020. Still, I welcome Don Williams back and can’t wait to check out Encore 6.

I still have a pre-GVox version of Encore.

It does what I need, which is mainly "head charts". I don't even print them, but do screenshots, trim and turn them into tiff files and read them on the computer.

We have over 650 songs now, and I don't have the time to memorize that many, I would rather spend the time learning new songs, because that keeps the audience from being bored with us. So either words on a head chart on screen gets me by. Sooner or later, if I play them enough, the get semi-memorized and all it takes is a few glances at the screen to get me by.

Sometimes the ancient version Encore is a bit awkward to use, but it's but-free.

When GVox bought Encore and MTPro, I bought MTPro, and after the bugs (some of which they fixed) I decided not to upgrade Encore.

When Don releases a new Encore, I'd probably buy it because with the improvements in interfaces in the past few decades, I'm sure it'll be easier to use.


Insights and incites by Notes

I have only around 100 songs, but we do the same because the screen allows us to index and/or search for a song, and we're not all leafing through folders or fake books. Most such apps allow playlists if one wants them.

The only time I use paper is if I'll be in sunlight as the screen struggles with that.

Some of the 650 songs rarely, if ever, get played.

We got together in 1985 and decided to play the adult/retirement market here in South Florida. It's a big, steady market and until COVID we were never out of work.

But at that time, the majority of the audience wanted to hear Frank Sinatra, Glenn Miller era songs. We rarely play those anymore.

But those people died off and what were once younger people entered the adult/retirement audience. So we learned early rock songs, and as the years went on, classic rock, to whatever the current audience asks for.

About as old as we get now is Elvis Presley era songs, about as new as we get is Adele era songs.

We mix in some Country from Ernest Tubb to Zac Brown and play a lot of Baby Boomer Classics from the Beatles onward.

On our beach-side gig we get to mix in some Bob Marley, Jimmy Buffet, Arrow, and other Caribbean songs.

We learn new songs all the time. Whatever gets requested often, if we can cover it, we work it up.

Our songlist: https://www.nortonmusic.com/cats/songlist.html

I've omitted a dozen or two songs that we would rather not be asked for, because they are in medleys and if someone looks at the lists and requests one that is in the middle of a medley, we down't want to disappoint them.

I like playing a variety of genres. I have to put my head in the different places to be authentic, and that keeps things interesting.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

Encore 5 user ~
Miss many features that others are requesting, but mainly I'm very tired of Encore's crashes and lack of auto backup of files (causing work to be lost).
My quandary is, to address this I had planned to buy Overture (written by Don Williams), but now I wonder if I should wait until Encore 6 (also by Williams) is released instead?
Any insights?

Welcome to the forum!

I think we need to wait until Encore 6 is released to be able to comment on this good question. I looked at Overture a few years ago but did not find it as user friendly as Encore; however, that was a very superficial look.

As a decades-long user of Encore until 2020, and a decades-long beta tester for them, I suffered a lot of pain with those crashes. I composed for a symphony orchestra concert using Encore 5, and in the process learned swear words I didn't even know before.

This made me laugh out loud!

I’m glad someone got to laugh.

Only laughing at the swear words you didn't even know, not the trouble you had doing the work, of course! That is never a laughing matter.

Oh, I know. Thanks!

Since I switched to Notion by Presonus, not a single crash or loss of data in two and a half years.

I use Encore for 'head charts' and it suits that purpose just fine. I'm still using the last Passport version.

Don Williams, the author of Encore and Master Tracks Pro came up to listen to our duo, and we talked for a bit. He said the job to updated the code on Encore and MTPro is bigger than he anticipated, as there were a lot of revisions GVox made that he didn't think were good.

So patience is the key here.

I'm waiting for an update of Master Tracks Pro, which he do after Encore, so I figure I'm in for a very long wait.

Notes ♫

That’s helpful, Bob. “Late fall” is nearly gone. As a beta tester for several decades, I saw exactly what was done to Encore. We testers were not happy. One subset of the group (that I did not join) became so fed up, they created their own unofficial version. It was better.

OK, 'Late Fall' is definitely gone. No change, except their Forum is getting more anxious posts. It's amazing how many of us have old scores in Encore we would like to use. I have had some limited success firing up Encore just long enough to Export a score using Music XML.

I hope there is some progress soon.

Notes, any update from your neighbor?

When Don came out to see us, he said the code was messed up pretty badly. So being impatient isn't going to help. Of course, that won't stop me from being impatient.


Insights and incites by Notes ♫

Thanks, Bob. I can vouch for the code being messed up pretty badly!

Hi Matt and others :-)

I'm somewhat new to posting replies, but here goes ...

I was happy to read your posts, Matt, about Don Williams possibly resurrecting Encore. Since the mid-90's, I used Encore for the Mac to compose and meticulously notate over 550 songs, including a 2 hour choir cantata on the "Old Testament" book of Isaiah.

To be able to continue using Encore, I've had to keep one of my Macs running with the old OS. But here's the marvel … I've found that when running Encore using MOJAVE OS, the program is FAR MORE stable than it was with MANY of the operating systems before that. I still make TONS and TONS of backups of songs I'm working on while editing them, since crashes still happen — particularly if I'm not just writing with a melody staff, but with a piano staff as well — but I'm amazed at how many of my old scores continue to open well (and edit well) with this current setup.

Incidentally, just to let you know: when I click on "About Encore", it lists the version I'm using as 5.0.6.1303M, which I was told was the most recent version. And immediately below that, the "About Encore" window lists the version as 5.0.7. That's a bit strange, I know, considering the more detailed version-identification above the "5.0.7" lists it as "5.0.6 …"

In any case, I thought I would pass this information along. My life is super busy with other matters, thus, as I continue to write music, I am still using Encore rather than learning a new program. But that's also because I want to still be able to edit and improve earlier compositions.

By the way, I've also been working hard, going through ALL my Encore compositions, generating PDF's and primitive XML files from each of them just in case I must one day fully bail from Encore. Should that day ever come, and I suspect it will, can you guys offer suggestions re: the best way to convert my PDF scores to a quality XML file? (I created the PDF scores using Encore's print function on the Mac.) Typically, my scores contain not only a melody line, chord symbols, lyrics, and a notated piano introduction, but also many "text" boxes as well. Thus, the better the PDF to XML converter the better. As you know, the XML files exported by Encore are exceedingly basic, not even retaining lyrics or chord symbols.

Thanks! And all the best to all of you! It would be such a blessing if Don W. was given strength and wisdom to "resurrect" our favorite app!

:-) Mark

P.S. This may be old news to you, but here's a tip just in case: I've found that when an Encore score crashes, I must (1) go back to a prior version since the version that just crashed got even more corrupted by the crash, and (2) I sometimes find that if I select several lines of my score in a suspected problem area and "cut" all of that area's note and etc data, then rebuild the section from scratch, it clears the problem and the score no longer crashes. I also find that some scores begin to crash when I move a staff up or down and then do a save. When that happens, I just go back to an earlier version prior to me moving the staff.

Hi Mark. Welcome to the forum.

Where to start?

I learned Encore on a Mac but for nearly 30 years I used it daily on a Windows machine. I was a beta tester for most of those years. I gave up on Encore in 2020.

Most of my crashes were from moving text.

The discrepancy in version numbers for the Mac is well known. You might enjoy reading the comments on the new Encore site forum. Mike Halloran is a member here and there, and he knows about the versions.

The Encore forum had one and only one post in over twelve months from Admin. A few weeks ago, Admin said this Thanksgiving is the new target release date.

I use PDF to Music Pro if it’s a Finale printout, and it sometimes works on published scores. For most printouts I use Scan Score Pro.

Yes, it may actually come back with November, 2023 as a target. I am in touch with Don and we've discussed what will and won't be included but I have not seen any of the work in progress. The Admin is Don.

I normally use Finale these days. Notion has not kept up though Fender has announced they're working on it. I am not a fan of Dorico's workflow and consider MuseScore as useless as always. Layout in Overture is time consuming—might as well be Finale—and Sibelius... yikes! Even my wife is using Finale for her work, fortunately, she has 24/7 tech support

Nothing equals Encore for the "down and dirty" lead sheets and church work that makes up over half my notation work. The 5.0.4 Windows version is too buggy and, though the 5.0.7 Mac version is remarkably stable over Mojave, it's unable to run over 64 bit MacOS (Catalina and later) and the slurs, when printed look cartoonishly bad (on screen, they're good—go figure). I keep an old Mac around just to run it.

Anyway, the Passport Music site is here. Encore, MasterTracks Passport Music and the Forum is where Andre and I answer questions. We are both volunteers, however and neither of us are affiliated with Passport Music or Don Williams.

Just curious what is useless about MuseScore. I know nothing about writing scores, and am a competent pianist (I can read music, but I realize there's more skill in designing and writing this stuff than in merely reading it) but not a competent score writer.

Some people find MuseScore just fine for their needs, and it’s free. It’s always being improved by a lot of folks, and I think they did a great job with the font released with the latest update.

The best choice of notation software depends on your budget and what you want to do, and for those of us who use computer notation programs professionally, the workflow we prefer and the programs we learned on.

The Encore site just changed the expected release time from "Thanksgiving 2023" to "Winter 2023".

And there is, for the first time, some detail about what's coming.

Go here, and be sure to click on "Load More" at the bottom:
https://passportmusic.com/development/

- Just bumping this thread to report that nothing new has happened yet.

The website still states that Encore 6 will be released in Winter 2023. Whichever hemisphere you are in, that's over.

The 'development' info that was so promising has not been updated since fall 2022.

We can still hope.

I think Don Williams may have found the task to be much more than he anticipated.

The one time I met him he said the previous owners messed up the code really badly.

I want an update to Master Tracks Pro, and he said he needs to finish Encore first. I don't know if I can wait that long. But as long as I have a pre-Windows 10 computer still running, I can sequence backing tracks for my duo on the fastest MIDI sequencer I've ever tried. Since it has no audio, nothing but MIDI, the interface is clean, there are no menu->sub-menu->sub-sub menus to wait for. And the editing tools are great.


Notes ♫

Bob, I meant to comment on this earlier in the thread. My version of Encore runs on Windows 10 and on Windows 11.

Of course, it still crashes if you look at it funny, but as long as I don't try to move text, I can live with it.

Problem is, I cannot make a definitive statement that Encore will work for you on Windows 10 or 11. I don't recall running it as compatible with Windows 7, but it's been many years and I may be wrong. Also, not only did I beta test for decades, but I briefly tried the version of Encore developed by the 'skunks', a small and highly capable bunch of Encore users disgruntled with the lack of developemnt and leadership at the time (around 2013 to 2016). I might be running one of their modified versions. My Help, About says Copyright 2014 and the build is Encore 5.0.4.795.130

Thanks, I may try again.

Win 10 has been updated quite a few times, and is now an updated 11, so it just might work.

Gigs slow down next month, so sooner or later I'll have time (I did 22 in March and 18 so far on the calendar this month). The 'season' is just about over, so I don't think it'll last much longer.

Meanwhile, I have an old ThinkPad running Win XP that is still working fine.

Notes ♫

When I think of ThinkPads, I think of you. 😎

They are bullet proof. I just retired one I bought in 2002. It still works, but it's very slow with modern apps. The one I'm using MTPro on has IBM and Lenovo logos on it.

On stage, where there is no room for a mouse, that little eraser head pointer works much better than the glide strip.

Unless they cheapen the product, I'm a faithful customer.

Notes ♫