Harmony Assistant is a all-in-one software product with digital audio capabilities.

Here are some key features of "Harmony Assistant":

· Complete score editor, with unlimited number of staves
· Page mode editing
· Automatic harmonizer
· Accompaniments & drum patterns in a few clicks
· Tablature calculation for miscellaneous string instrument
· Tablature calculation for Harmonica, diatonic accordion, wind instruments...
· Completely scriptable application. Many open-source scripts are available, and you can write your own.
· Embedded softsynth : does not need any hardware other than a sound card.
· Digital Fx processors
· Midi, Kar, MOD, S3M... import
· Digital tracks (possible to import WAV, AIFF, MP3, OGG...)
· Digital track processing features : Wav-to-note pitch tracker, noise reduction, formant-compliant pitch change, multi-band equalizer...
· Export in miscellaneous digital file formats (WAV, AIFF, MP3, OGG...)
· Gregorian notation
· Chord diagram library for various instruments
· Enables to build custom instruments from digital recordings
· Lute tablatures
· Street organ card printing
· Used concurrently with Virtual Singer (available separately), Karaoke and multi-voices lyrics are actually sung.
· A freeware plug-in (Myriad plug-in) will enable visitors of your Web site to view, transpose, play or print your scores
· Several hours of free video tutorials will make your first steps easier.


What's New in This Release:

· The play start mark includes the line number (if the part is repeated several times)
· For each system, the staff base line, lyrics position, chord line position, bar number position, tablature position, staff height, display of the miscellaneous lyrics lines, left position of each system and right position of each justified system can be adjusted.
· This enables to adjust on a system basis the staff height and item layout. This can only be performed in page mode. Melody users can change these settings from the print preview.
· Title, comments and author markers are displayed in page mode to help aligning these items while moved.
· Independent setting for ledger lines, note stems, barlines, break symbols, slurs, effects between screen and printing/export (Global setup)
· New management for staff groups. Number of groups is not limited. A group is enclosed in a bracket, a brace, an incomplete bracket, a bold line or nothing. The horizontal position of this symbol can be adjusted.
· Each group defines the way bar lines of the enclosed staves are connected: without connection, standard connection, Mensurstrich connection. A complete and abbreviated name is related to each group, and position of these names can be adjusted finely.
· To add a group, click on the left of the system, outside the area of any object. To move horizontally a group symbol, click in its middle. To change the staves that are included in this symbol, click its ends. To edit group settings, click its symbol while pressing Shift key, or using the right mouse button. A tutorial explains this.
· New graphical object type: line. The matching tool is located in the "Miscellaneous tools" palette. A line can be plain, dotted, dashed or wavy. Its ends can be of different bracket shapes or arrows.
· Harmony. In split window mode, an option in the "Options" meny synchronizes all the sub-windows that display a scroll mode view.
· Harmony. New script for instrumentists: follow played staves
· New note head shape: hollow head.
· Now possible to play a few bars of metronome before music starts playing (Global setup)
· Digital instruments can now be made of up to four layers. These layers enable to select a different sound according to the played note velocity. If the velocity bounds for two layers are not consecutive, a cross-fade is performed.
· In instruments that use digital sounds, it is possible to give decay and release a partially logarithmic shape that can be adjusted from completely linear (0) to completely logarithmic (100)
· In instruments that use digital sounds, it is possible to start the sound decay only once the loop point is reached.
· New high-quality modes in the audio data calculation in order to reduce aliasing effects
· Lossless packing of digital tracks and custom digital instruments. This packing scheme is applied when the "Pack standard files" option is enabled in "Configuration>Global setup>Save"
· New setting for each grace note: velocity (power).
· "Display real duration" setting for rests. Such a rest will be always displayed using its real duration, even if the "pause fills the bar" mode is activated on the staff.
· Slur can be played by covering the piano white keys.
· Dynamics can be applied to all merged staves (default) or only to the staff that owns it.
· Possible to define whether a dynamic symbol is printed or not.
· "Midi import" section: check box to keep as is the MIDI sounds that do not belong to the GM2 standard (then they are switched to "user" mode)
· "Midi import" section: check box to keep as is the staff (track) names, as they are stored in the file.
· "Open Recent" menu: option to erase the menu content.
· Quick voice creation in a multi-voice staff through the voice menu. A tutorial explains this.
· Voice display using different colors (Edit>Multi-voice staves menu) A tutorial explains this.
· Quantizing: velocity taken into account on grace notes
· A click on the information icon of a sound in the GOLD sound base opens a Web pages that provides information about the instrument.
· Right-clicking (or Shift+left click) on most of the objects opens a menu that enables to edit this object (equivalent to a double-click)
· Dutch version of the program interface
· Harmony Assistant: Palette (Scripts>Notation>Miscellaneous>Accordion) to add accordion-specific symbols
· Harmony Assistant (Scripts>Digital Sounds>Clip restoration): script for rebuilding clipped data in a digital track.
· Harmony Assistant (Scripts>Digital Sounds>Generate Instrument Group): script for generating a custom digital instrument by mixing of several predefined sounds from the current sound base
· Harmony Assistant (Scripts>Digital Sounds>Force parameters in digital sound): sets the parameters of all samples in a user-defined digital sound. It enables to change attack, decay, release time, logarithmic transitions, infinite loop, or decay after loop values without having to edit all the samples one by one.

· Enhancements

· Management of melisma on rests
· Script editing: jump to function definition through the contextual menu.
· Offset between special beams and note stems can be adjusted (for tremolo). A tutorial explains this.
· Note setting editing: note moved through Ctrl+fleche and staff change.
· The maximum number of voices in digital output is now 512.
· Improvement in rendering of grace notes, trills, note groups (tremolo), note by note glissendo, grupetto, mordent: better timbre, layered instrument management, tempo change management...
· When clicked using the hammer tool or inserted on score, note velocity is taken into accound when playing echo.
· Windows: management of words by word movements, and keyboard selection range in text input areas. Processing of Ctrl+Ins as "Copy", Shift+Ins as "Paste" and Shift+Del as "Cut".
· Alignment selection for staff names that are written on several lines.
· Special patterns in text free objects.
· Virtual Singer: better timing of syllables sung on melisma.
· Now possible to define whether specific text is displayed in front of the tablature
· Now possible to insert symbols on regular staff in "Priority to tablature" mode
· New kind of free object: inverted bracket and brace
· Clef reminder at start of each line are now displayed in 100% scale, unless overriden by a "real" clef change at this bar.
· Better transposing of chord lines, especially in minor keys.
· Better transposing of notes when changing clef on a staff that includes hidden clef changes.
· Windows: When editing keyboard shortcuts, shortcuts that use the Alt key are forbidden
· Windows: in dialog boxes, jump to previous editable field through Shift+Tab

· Changes

· Because staff group management has changed, the selection of staves to be printed is made through File>Printing options.
· Staff groups from older files are converted when loaded, and follow the "brace then bracket" order, which is more standard.
· By default, a trill starts from the altered note pitch, not by the pitch of the main note.

· Fixes

· Mac OS X: crash when music stops playing in Quicktime output mode.
· Fixed crashes that could occur when printing embedded pictures in PICT (.pct) format.
· Fixed crash when the chord line contains a very long chord name and the chord diagrams are displayed or chords are played.
· Fixed problem in special text size (music symbols in a text object)
· Fixed freeze when performing operations on an empty digital track
· Fixed crash in rhythm editing
· "Liquescens" display in Grйgorian notation
· Windows 95/98/ME Clef symbols appearing at end of line while printing
· Gregorian editing
· Parameters of multi-voice staves
· Fixed crash in user instrument edit: search for decay and release on an empty sample
· In the script editor, a click on the empty area at the top of the window ran the script.
· Crash when using $L (lyrics insert) in page header and footer.
· Windows: Crash when editing some text objects
· Wrong accidental on the first note when applying a diatonic pitch shift (+/- one degree)
· Triplet beaming problem on scores that include time signature changes
· Display problem on notes that are beamed to a tied note over a barline (wrong management of the previous bar right margin)
· Windows: problem when closing some dialog boxes by a click on the close box.
· Windows: problem for moving grace notes on score using the "Select" tool.