Importers for foreign score writers; here: Encore

[bmarwell]

Your idea

Hello everyone,

most of us have still scores from their previous notation software / score writers lying around. In my case, it is encore and the cheap variant of it sold in the 90's by Data Becker in Germany.
However, the MusicXML export was always broken. It might just be easier to write an importer for this.

Problem to be solved

Import native .mus and .enc files from Encore 5 (and possibly Encore 4)

Prior art

./.
But same applies to other music notation software, most notably finale (which luckily has somewhat proper musicXML support), Capella etc.

Additional context

• This would easily qualify for an open source bounty program.
• Technically, instead of an importer, a converter written in ANY language (C, Rust, Go, Java, Perl... you name it) could also do the job.

Checklist

• This request follows the guidelines for reporting issues
• I have verified that this feature request has not been logged before, by searching the issue tracker for similar requests

[Jojo-Schmitz]

This only works if the format is documented rather than being a propriatary and closed source format.
Or if someone revere-engineers ithe format...

[bmarwell]

Yes, I was thinking of reverse-engineering. I could offer some of the scores, I have a lot of chorales which are public domain.

[Jojo-Schmitz]

See also https://musescore.org/sites/musescore.org/files/2022-02/How%20to%20Convert%20Encore%20and%20Overture%20Scores%20to%20MuseScore.pdf

[Jojo-Schmitz]

And https://musescore.org/en/node/4734, along with https://github.com/lvinken/Enc2MusicXML, seems @lvinken did quite a bit already (and quile a long time ago)

[mikehalloran]

The source code to Encore is proprietary and I know the person who owns it. From the EULA

_```
You acknowledge that the program contains trade secrets of Passport Music Software, LLC. In order to protect such trade secrets, you may not decompile,
reverse engineer, disassemble or otherwise reduce the Program to a human perceivable form. You may not modify, adapt, translate, rent, lease, loan, resell for
profit, distribute, network, or create derivative works based on all or any part of the program or documentation.

Encore 5 for Windows supports MusicXML 1.1 while the Mac version supports v.1.3 — includes some text but no expressions or lyrics.
 
Don't get me wrong—I'd like to see it. One of the issues is that Encore cannot be opened in a 64 bit macOS. 

[cbjeukendrup]

For understanding the file format, it is not necessary though to reverse-engineer the program. I expect it would help mostly a matter of creating simple files, saving them, making simple changes, saving again and looking at the differences.

Maybe that is legal, but of course I don't know what the rest of the Encore EULA says about that. In any case, I personally think that before implementing something like this into MuseScore itself, some careful consideration will have to be given to the ethical aspects.

(With Finale, it may be a different story, both because it's been abandoned now and because it's from a big company.)

[mikehalloran]

I will give the owner of Encore a heads-up on this thread.

You are quite mistaken that Finale is abandoned. It has been discontinued and that is not the same thing. The announcements are that it will have limited support for the next year and that the license servers will remain active for "the forseeable future". Users who opt for the crossgrade to Dorico Pro 5 will get a copy of Finale 27, the only version includes xml 4, for no additional charge.

https://www.finalemusic.com/blog/end-of-finale-new-journey-dorico-letter-from-president/

As for MusicXML—still owned by MakeMusic—version 4.0 is very good. MuseScore's implementation of xml 4 isn't bad but it could use a little more work — there's no reason to develop a new tool. The tools are free to use but the engineering requires work.

[bmarwell]

Hey all,

to the status of MusicXML: I exported a .enc file using Encore 5 to MusicXML and imported it to MuseScore 4.4. The result is that the overall score is recognizable, but with the following caveats:

• Random bars have random amount of extra rests at the end (e.g. in a simple 6/8 score, some scores had an extra 8th rest). This requires a lot of manual cleanup and is barely acceptable with bigger scores. However, this does not happen to all the scores I tried.
• Staff names are empty and not selectable in the instrument dialog (shortcut i), unless you right-click the staff and give it a name. That could easily be fixed within MuseScore
• Drums are on the wrong lines.
• Drums may have an instrument (strings) assigned to the stave
• Title is sometimes misaligned and contains extra characters
• Other text may have extra characters and be misaligned (placed randomly around the score)
• Text may be missing

Here is a screenshot of a simple 4-stave song. I haven't tried orchestral scores yet.
Oh, by the way, this is intended to be swing...

That said, I personally do not need the import function per se, but with the efforts made of giving Finale users a new home, I wanted to see if there is a chance for users of other notation software, too.

---

I can see the difference between reverse engineering a file format and a program, but we already have tools prior art. Not sure how that turned out legally, though. Most scores I have were written in a DataBecker variant of Encore, sold very cheaply in Germany. Would be interesting to see whether it contained the same licence text.

HTH, thanks and have a nice sunday!

[Jojo-Schmitz]

Attaching such .enc and MusicXML files (zipped) here might help

[shoogle]

We're unlikely to create importers for specific programs (rather than for general formats like MusicXML) but community members are welcome to try.

[mikehalloran]

It makes a difference whether that Encore 5 file was created on a Mac (Encore 5.0.7 -- xml 1.3) or PC (Encore 5.0.4 -- xml 1.1). The xml version was not so important but the implementation was better on the Mac. In addition, Encore 5.0.7 for the Mac only works properly when run over macOS 10.14 Mojave and that includes MusicXML export.

A common misconception is that MuscXML is something that is just added to an application and it works. It is instead a toolkit and success or failure depends on the integration of those tools into the application by its developer.