Passport Designs' Rhapsody Available for Mac

July 12, 1996 -- Passport Designs, Inc., announced that Rhapsody will be available for Mac platform in June of 1996. Loaded with a complete set of powerful notation tools based on the award-winning Encore, the preferred notation software of professional musicians and movie studios, Rhapsody gives users scoring capabilities for solo performers to small ensembles at an affordable price.

(Please note that Passport Designs has gone out of business, and some of their products have been taken over by G-VOX - www.gvox.com.)

"Rhapsody redefined expectations for music notation software at its price point on the Windows platform, and its interface has set the standard for notation software To say we're excited that Rhapsody is now on the Macintosh is an understatement," said Jon Medek, Product Manager.

Rhapsody lets musicians, arrangers, choral directors, small ensembles, students, teachers and hobbyists create music intuitively with its full set of composition, transcription and editing features. The built-in MIDI performance capabilities and page layout and printing features take musical projects toe completion by letting users customize and print high-quality sheet music.

"With Rhapsody people get a very strong notation product thee is also extremely easy-to-use, which is what makes it so popular," said Brent Silvery, marketing director of Passport Designs. "Since Macintosh users expect an intuitive interface and features that enhance their work style and creativity, we're expecting Rhapsody to quickly earn their respect." Composition and Transcription Features Rhapsody offers 32 staves with up to eight voices per staff for notating large scores, cross-staff beaming to extend beams across staves for multi-sraff instruments, automatic beaming of note groups, multiple voices, quick insertion or deletion of measures, pages, systems or staves anytime/anywhere in the composition, direct transcription of live input from MIDI instruments in real time, and the addition of guitar chord fret diagrams and chord names to scores and lead sheets, as well as other features, all designed to ensure that users traditional notation requirements are addressed.

Rhapsody's editing features include a toolbar for easy access to common commands, zoom in/out for precise control, insertion of objects anywhere on a page by clicking the mouse, transposition or changing of key signatures, meters or clefs at any. time, display of nested repeat structures including variable bar line types and multiple endings, automatic extraction of parts with control over lyrics and markings, and additional features that let users fine-tune their scores.

Music can be entered live through a MIDI keyboard, step-by-step using a mouse, or with a computer's QWERTY keyboard. MIDI performance features include play back of repeats, endings and coda phrases, play back of notes over MIDI as they are entered with a mouse, and the option of assigning of up to eight separate voices on each staff for play back over different MIDI channels, so users can hear accurate renditions of their music.

Rhapsody requires a Macintosh II or faster with 2.5 megs of RAM. A MIDI interface and keyboard are required for live recording.

Rhapsody for Macintosh will carry an SRP of $249.00 and will be available June 29, 1996 Users of Passport's MusicTime for Macintosh can upgrade to the new Rhapsody for $99.00.

For more information, visit their web site at www.gvox.com.