Nor, these fonts look beautiful. Looking forward to it.
One of the ways to reward him for all this great work is to purchase at least a few fonts with the commercial license, even if one doesn’t plan to use them out of the personal use.
Paolo
Yes, I have learned this the hard way already by prematurely purchasing fonts when I didn’t quite understand what “SMuFL compliant” meant, which is why I asked about documentation.
Hi,
I’d like to add my latest engraving music fonts I was developing since last summer to the list of SMuFL fonts in this thread.
Soli & Tutti (Soli’s sister font) two elegant engraver music fonts made from scratch, yet more robust than some other music fonts, but more accurately representing the look of a smooth engraved music featuring almost 2000 glyphs and work with Dorico™ Pro versions as an alternative to Bravura font. Soli comes with a lighter look while Tutti comes with a thick appearance.
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I wonder whether a SMuFL font can be made with only quadratic curves used.
Intel CPU takes more time drawing cubic curves (comparing to how fast quadratic curves are drawn), and I am afraid this affects Dorico UI responsiveness when editing large symphony projects. If that’s true, then I would like to find a way to build a quadratic-curve-only Bravura.
As this thread keeps coming up in searches, I thought I’d update (Apri 2021) the current state of SMuFL fonts.
COMMERCIAL FONTS:
Music Type Foundry has six SMuFL fonts:
LS Iris (‘handwritten’)
MTF Arnold
MTF Beethoven
MTF Cadence
MTF Haydn
MTF Scorlatti (SCORE-a-likey)
November2 is available from KLEMM Music.
NorFonts has Soli and Tutti, as well as several handwritten fonts: BopMusic, RealScore, LeadSheet, NorPen.
OPEN SOURCE / SIL LICENCE FONTS:
Leland: MuseScore’s new SCORE-inspired font. (‘Still under development’)
Leipzig: created by the RISM musicology project.
Sebastian: Ahem, if I may. Florian Kretlow’s designs, modified and collated by yours truly.
Figurato: only Figured Bass numerals, but still SMuFL-compliant. Can be selected in Font Styles, without need of a JSON metadata file.
OTHER BUNDLED FONTS:
AloisenU: Sonata-a-likey font used in Overture. No official support for other apps. You’ll have to download the app to get the font, and no JSON file provided.
MakeMusic accidentally released some documentation to show that they were creating a SMuFL version of Maestro back in 2017, though there’s still no sign of it in Finale. Perhaps some future release will have it. Who knows whether Sibelius will take up SMuFL compliance at some point?
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so one question about Leipzig…there is no otf file there, there is a TTF file and a RFD file. Same goes for the mscore font. There is a json file, but no OTF.
What’s the procedure to install those…use the TTF and json?
I found a better site fo Leipzig…where I found an OTF version. Don’t know if this is the most up date or not…but its here:
Also found @benwiggy 's json for AloisenU here:
http://notat.io/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=259&sid=daae311b5db950d225aac531a96132a0&start=10
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TBH, Leipzig is not only very incomplete (missing the augmentation dot, for starters), but a lot of the glyphs are quite crude.
For the record, I think Sebastian is excellent as well. In some engraving jobs it’s my preferred font, hands-down.
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Shucks, you guys…
I’ll be posting a 1.04 release when I have ‘a moment’, with an increased glyph count and lots of tiny tweaks.
Most noticeably, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the ball of the G clef needed to be a tiny bit lower down.
I’ve got also got a couple of other fonts in the works…
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So one question I have for some of you that do copy work, how do you go about deciding which font is best for a project? I have a hard time picking a favorite, there is a collection of awesome looking fonts in their own way I can’t pick just one but I also am kind of clueless about how or why I might choose one over another for a particular project. What are the key point that come back from clients or session musicians which gravitate towards different fonts for different reasons?
In my opinion, the font should have symbols and characters which are clearly legible and straightforwardly designed. Especially if they’re a “hand copied” style. No personal quirks of the designer. You need strangers to be able to decipher what’s written on the page.
Yes of course, that is a given for any font.
Take the handwritten ones out of the discussion for a moment, What I’m wondering is, when would someone choose a narrower note head vs fatter one, etc. Are there any objective decisions that can be made or is it purely a matter of your mood on any given day?
I think it’s difficult to quantify, as it just depends on how a particular font or project strikes you.
But honestly, I think we can obsess about fonts where the vast majority of users (even musicians) wouldn’t see the difference, or if it were pointed out to them, they wouldn’t care.
So most music fonts are fine, and it’s more about the skillful engraving. Except for Opus. Don’t use that. /hot take
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Now, wait a minute… some of my best work happens to have been made with Opus.
…
Oh, right. I don’t care about music fonts. – Never mind.
Yea totally, well I just like them all pretty much for different reasons and really have a hard time deciding which would be the “best” one. I was just curious if publishers or other types of customers have expressed particular concerns or preferences?