Overture is easy-to-use notation software that's powerful enough for use by professional musicians and composers. Overture's intuitive interface puts powerful editing tools and symbol palettes at your fingertips, so you spend time composing music instead of searching through menus and dialogs. You can enter notes quickly on-screen with your mouse or computer keyboard or record a MIDI performance for instant viewing. Most commands can be done with one simple command directly on the score.

Listen to some music created in Overture

Overture is great for demanding composers, arrangers, music educators, and students—those who want the flexibility to create complex orchestral, band, choral, lead sheet, and tablature scores, and do it quickly.

The Composer's Dream

Full VST/AU Integration...

Open the VST/AU Instruments rack and load any VST/AU instrument or effect. You can easily add controller and key switches using the pre-define libraries for most of the popular sample libraries.

Edit MIDI Directly on the Score

Now that your VST/AU Instruments have been loaded and your score has been entered, its time to do the final tweaking to get that great sound. Switch to MIDI data mode and your MIDI data is displayed above each track ready to be edited. Easily draw in or erase existing data right before your eyes with the score underneath.

Finally create a CD...

Now that you have high quality sound scores, you can save them as a wave file to be burned onto a CD or sent to a friend.

Good luck and hope to see you at the Grammy Awards with your award winning score.

Creating a New Score

Overture's new setup dialog lets you build your scores in one main dialog. You can choose standard instruments or templates for your tracks, and then set the title page, starting meter, time signature, etc., all within the dialog. You can set the default font to the Jazz font.

Auto Save

Set the interval to automatically save your score into a backup folder.

Read MusicXML Files

Open a MusicXML file created from Finale, Sibelius, or a scanning program.

Record To A File

Overture 4 allows the output of VST instruments to be saved as a WAVE file.

Import MIDI File

Importing MIDI files now has options for putting tracks in Score Order and for using the JazzFont as default MusicFont. The automatic spacing of staves has been improved.

Score Editing

Overture allows you to edit your score in an intuitive manner, unlike other programs, so there is no need to hunt through levels of dialogs or search the manual, just to make a simple change. Overture’s intuitive interface puts powerful editing tools and symbol palettes at your fingertips, so you spend time composing music instead of searching through menus. For complete orchestral arrangements, lead sheets, individual cues or even simple notation examples, there’s no faster way to create professional notation than Overture. Overture's new features only add more power, not confusion as in other notation programs.

Add Interval Function

Select notes and choose this in the Edit menu to add a 2^nd though a 9^th above or below selected notes.

Articulations

Choose Notes>Flip>Articulations command to move articulations to the opposite side of stem. Clicking on an articulation in the palette applies it to any selected notes.

Capo Setting

Guitar Frames can be changed using a capo command. The original chord name can be displayed above the new name or the new chord name can be displayed below the frame with the original above the frame.

Colors Themes

User can set your own workspace color themes.

Hand and Zoom tools on Tool bar

Separate tools for dragging page and for zooming in or out. The hand tool will drag individual staves when clicked on. When clicking on white space the entire page is moved. These are easily selected by typing ‘h’ or ‘z’.

Pedal Bracket

The pedal bracket can now be used as a regular horizontal bracket by deleting the middle point and using the flip command.

Quick Paste

Select a passage and Alt (option on Mac)-click to paste it into the score. Repeat this as many times as necessary.

Redo Pitches

Select a note and enable this in the Notes menu. Any notes played on the MIDI keyboard will replace the selected note and next note will be selected. The existing rhythms are kept.

Smarter Mouse Entry

Mouse entry automatically recognizes polyphonic rhythms and adjusts stems and voices to accommodate. Rests are automatically entered. The layout adjusts to accommodate notes based on allotment tables. In other words, measures wrap down to the next system to avoid crowded notes. This can be turn off by the user.

Selection Filters

Select a range and then filter out any symbols. This powerful note filter allows you to choose pitch, duration, velocity range, note head type and articulation. Also you can choose the starting point in a measure and the interval. For example: You could filter all quarter notes on the second and fourth beats that have a velocity above 90. You could then click on the accent symbol in the articulation palette to add an accent to the selected notes.

Show/Hide Palettes

One keystroke to show or hide all open palettes.

Split System

Splitting a system starts a new system at current measure.  Overture will try to keep this measure as a start of a new system whenever laying out a page.

Swing Marking

The tempo dialog has a setting to show swing. Two Eighths = Beamed Quarter/Eighths triplet.

Symbol Color

You can now change the color of symbols in the score - notes, lyrics, text, hairpins, dynamics, etc. This is particularly useful for emphasizing important score information especially in educational music. The symbols print in color, too.

Show Grid

The score background becomes a sheet of graph paper to help in aligning symbols.

Title Items

Title items can be place on every page, not just the first.

View Options

The View popup menu now has a Fit Page to Screen Width or Height.

Score Layout

The Page Dimensions dialog was rewritten to show the new layout of the score as score staff sizes are reduced. As you move the Score Size slider the score is automatically reformatted and shown in the score view area. You can view any page in the score to make sure you have to correct size.

Adding Text and Markings

Lyrics – Improved in Overture 4

Overture allows up to eight lyric verses and automatically spaces the lyrics to match the notes they’re attached to. Lyrics can be entered directly on the score using the Lyric tool or in a batch mode using the Lyrics Window. You can enter lyrics from other programs by copying them onto the clipboard and then pasting them into the Lyrics Window. Also in the Lyrics Window is a setting to display automatic verse numbers.

Dynamics Tempo markings

Overture makes entering, creating, copying and moving dynamics, tempo indications, and other text and markings intuitive and powerful. Overture automatically places dynamics below or above the staff as needed and avoids collisions where ever possible.

Chords

Enter chord symbols from the Chord Window or by playing them with a MIDI keyboard. Chords are independent from notes and can be placed anywhere.

Percussion Notation

Overture has always offered incredible simple percussion notation entry.

Extras

Overture also simplifies countless other text entry tasks like repeats and codas, cue notes, rehearsal marks, and tablature and fret boards for guitar and other fretted instruments.

Tool Bars

The first group of toolbars offers you the standard selection, cut and paste, copy and erase tools, and gets a lot of work done.

The next group controls individual note and note-modification entries - click and hold each one to bring up a detachable and floatable "palette" of options. From these palettes you can select every input possibility - note values (128th to triple-dotted whole notes, standalone and tied, tuplets, nested tuplets - even harp pedal settings), ornamentations, dynamic and articulation markings, notehead styles (standard, percussion, even gospel "picture" notes), string instrument tablature, guitar-specific markings (bends, hammer-ons, string numberings, etc.), jazz-specific-articulations like slides and flutters.

The next group covers text markings - dynamics from pppp to ffff, hairpins, tempo markings, free-form comments, and expression markings.

The toolbar finishes with options for clef selection, staff type, barline style (straight, repeat, bracketed, endings, etc.) and quantization options. In short, you've got at your fingertips anything you need to notate and annotate a score.

1. Overview
2. Unbelievable Control
3. Extensive MIDI Playback

Symbol Playback

Overture 4 has many new playback features not found in any other notation program. Articulations, ornaments, expressions, symbols, hairpins, dynamics, etc. can affect MIDI playback. The built in library defines how they affect the MIDI playback and is customizable for each score.

1. Articulations
2. Expressions
3. Glissandos
4. Chord & Guitar Frames
5. Symbols and Repeats

1. Editing MIDI Data
2. Precise MIDI Data
3. Adding Human Feel
4. External Sync

VST/AU Support

Your scores will now sound as if they were recorded in the studio. Any VST instrument or effect can be loaded, not just the small light library found in other packages. So you have a great string sample library but need a classical guitar. Overture is the only notation program that can load all VST instruments and effects. Overture has been tested with over 600 VST instruments and effects, so whatever you have, plug it in Overture and listen to your scores in CD quality. When you're ready, save your score to disk for burning onto a CD.

Overture 4 is now a full VST/AU Host.  Load up to 256 VST/AU Instruments and 4 effects. Any track's output can be assigned to any VST instrument loaded into the rack. The outputs from the VST/AU instruments are routed to a Pre Gain slider and then into the effects rack. Each output from each effect is sent to the next effect in the rack. The output from the last effect is sent to a Master Gain slider.

The VST/AU Instruments rack has a CPU meter to display the amount of time the CPU is taking to process a buffer of audio data and a Disk meter to display the amount of time Overture is using while performing output to the hard disk while recording audio data. Overture's output can be saved to disk as a wave file for burning to a CD.

The rack information is saved with each score and automatically loaded when the score is opened.

Click on the player in the rack to open the VST instrument.
You may also right click on any track in the score to open its VST instrument player.

Click on the effect in the rack to open the VST effect.

Retail Price List

Academic Sales

Sonic Scores products are used in classrooms K-12 through college level. Sonic Scores’s academic versions provide both the teacher and the student with the tools needed to foster a successful learning environment.

Academic prices are available to qualifying schools, educators, students, and church administrators. Only qualified buyers may purchase academic versions.

Product Feature Comparisons

1. General
2. Entering and Editing
3. Text and Markings
4. Playback and Record
5. Score Layout

Features	Overture	Score Writer
Overview	Flexible, Comprehensive and Easy Overture is great for more demanding composers, arrangers, music educators, and students—those who want the flexibility to create more complex orchestral, band, choral, lead sheet, and tablature scores, and do it quickly.	Simple and Straightforward Score Writer is appropriate for people new to notation and composition, and whose needs are relatively simple and straightforward. It covers lead sheet work to small ensemble scores easily.
Setup Wizard	Yes	Yes
Number of Templates	Over 40	Over 20
Number of Tracks	64	16
Number of Voices per Track	8	4
Use 3rd party music fonts, including Jazz Font	Yes	No
Import/Export MIDI Files	Yes	Yes
Import Encore & MusicXML Files	Yes	Yes
Customization	Libraries and Instruments	No

Features	Overture	Score Writer
Enter Notes with Computer Keyboard	Yes	Yes
Enter Notes in Step Time	Yes	Yes
Enter Notes in Real Time	Yes	Yes
Number of Toolbars	16	14
Cross staff-beaming	Yes	No
Cross-bar beaming	Yes	No
Feathered beaming	Yes	No
Automatic Guitar tablature	Yes	No
Customizable tablature with complete set of professional tablature performance markings	Yes	No
Choral "shape" notes	Yes	No
Slash notes (rhythmic notation)	Yes	Yes
Drum notation (displays by default on Imported MIDI Files, control over which note heads display on which lines)	Yes	Yes
Multiple sets of customizable drum notation styles stored in libraries	Yes	No
Graphic Window (MIDI Data)	Yes	No
MIDI Data (Directly on Score)	Yes	No
MIDI Data Dialog	No	Yes

Features	Overture	Score Writer
Lyric Verses	8	4
Guitar Frames	Basic and custom	Basic
Chord Symbols	Basic and custom	Basic
Compound Time Signatures	Yes	No
Hollywood Lines	Yes	No
SMPTE Time Code	Yes	No

Features	Overture	Score Writer
Transport	Start, Stop, Start from Beginning, Record Punch In/Out	Start, Stop, Start from Beginning, Record
Record Options	Split Point and Auto Transcribe Automatically add Staccato and Tenuto markings	Split Point and Auto Transcribe
Record Filter	Yes	No
Play Style	As recorded, as written, in swing	As recorded, as written, in swing

Features	Overture	Score Writer
Scale Score Size	20% to 150%	Small, Medium, and Large
Hide Individual Staves	Yes	No
Split Systems	Yes	Yes
Codas, Segnos, etc.	Yes	Yes

Overture 4 System Requirements

Macintosh OS X 10.4 and above

• Native Intel
• 1GB RAM (2GB Recommended)
• Macintosh-compatible Printer
• Macintosh-compatible MIDI interface required for MIDI recording
• CD-ROM drive

Windows XP-Windows 7

• Pentium 100 MHz
• 1GB RAM (2GB Recommended)
• Windows-compatible Printer
• Windows-compatible MIDI interface required for MIDI recording
• CD-ROM drive

Overture 4 comes on CD-ROM or can be downloaded.

File Compatibility

Overture 3 and 4 are cross platform compatible and therefore can read each other's files but previous versions can not read newer file formats.
Note: Overture 4 for MAC can read Overture 3 files but Overture 3 is needed to read previous versions of Overture for MAC.