About SharpEye Music Reader 2

• What Does It Do?
• System Requirements
• Screen Shots
• How Well Does It Work?
• Where Can I Download It?
• What Does It Cost?
• What Has Changed Recently?

What Does It Do?

SharpEye Music Reader is a music scanning program created by Graham Jones at visiv. You can use SharpEye to convert printed sheet music into a music notation  or MIDI file, which can then be imported into a music notation program or MIDI sequencer. This process is called music OCR by analogy with the more common text OCR, or OMR for "optical music recognition."

SharpEye Music Reader converts a scanned image of printed music into a MusicXML file, a MIDI file, or a NIFF file. You may either have SharpEye read BMP or TIFF files on your computer, or directly scan the music from TWAIN compatible scanners. (Most scanners are TWAIN compatible).

Used at its simplest, you drag an image file into a window, click on a button and wait for the conversion to take place. The output is shown in conventional music notation in another window. Click on another button to save the result as a MIDI file.

To use SharpEye with Finale, save your results as a MusicXML file. Then use the Dolet for Finale plug-in to read the MusicXML file into Finale 2000 or later.

Usually there will be some errors in the output: SharpEye has a built in editor for correcting them. Almost all the editing can be done with the mouse and delete key. The input image window automatically scrolls to the right place in the image as you edit. SharpEye also shows warnings for each bar which doesn't make musical sense. This acts a bit like a spelling checker and directs your attention to likely errors.

SharpEye does not cope with handwritten music.

SharpEye does not have facilities for transposing or printing the music. You need to use SharpEye with Finale or another program to do this.

System Requirements

You need a computer with Windows 95, 98, ME, NT4, 2000 or XP. SharpEye does use a fair bit of memory and processor time. A Pentium II with 32MB RAM is a reasonable minimum. Memory is much more critical than processor speed. If you want to process large images such as orchestral scores, or run other programs alongside SharpEye, you will probably need more than 32MB RAM, or the system can become totally bogged down.

You will need a scanner to scan the printed music in.

It is not essential, but you will almost certainly want a music notation editor which imports one of the file formats that SharpEye exports (MusicXML, MIDI, NIFF, and its own format) or a MIDI sequencer, so that you can make use of the output from SharpEye. Dolet for Finale allows you to use SharpEye with Finale 2000 or later.

Screen Shots

SharpEye 2 Music Editor

SharpEye2 Image Window

How Well Does It Work?

It is very difficult to convey how accurate SharpEye is in words. Graham Jones has always given accuracy the top priority during the development of SharpEye. Most people that we have talked to consider SharpEye to be the most accurate music recognition program available today. In the words of one of our customers:

This product is the finest music scanning and most accurate I have ever used. It is a miracle, well worth the price.

But we don't expect you to take our word for it. Try SharpEye, try others, and make up your own mind.

Where Can I Download It?

You may download the latest version of SharpEye Music Reader or our SharpEye/Dolet Bundle here:

• SharpEye Music Reader 2.58 (1.3 MB)
• SharpEye 2.58 /Dolet for Finale 1.5 Bundle (7.1 MB)

What Does It Cost?

SharpEye V2 costs $169.95 (USD). To use SharpEye with Finale, purchase the Dolet for Finale plug-in for $29.95 - a $20 discount when purchased together with SharpEye. These prices are valid at the Recordare Online Store. We accept orders from over 50 countries worldwide, accepting most major credit cards.

What Has Changed Recently?

Version 2.5 is now released! It recognizes staff braces, more dynamic marks, articulations, ornaments, tuplets, and font styles. There are also many improvements in accuracy, in editing, and in batch processing.

The version history gives complete details on the changes made since the initial MusicXML release 2.15 of SharpEye Music Reader. You can use this to decide whether to download and install a new version of SharpEye. It is easiest to just install the new version of SharpEye 2 to the same place as your previous installation; there is no need to uninstall the old version first.

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Copyright © 2002-2004 visiv and Recordare LLC.

Last updated August 23, 2004.