Recognition from phone camera:

Music pages are best captured with indirect daylight. Outdoors, direct morning or evening sunlight works well. In mid-day, find a shaded area with good ambient light. When indoors, shoot near a window with good indirect light.

NOTE: Recognition accuracy is directly releated to the quality of the captured image. For example, our tests indicate that accuracy is improved almost 30% with iPhone 6 images compared to those from the iPhone 5. All iPad users should note that their 5MP cameras are below NoteReader's recommended resolution of 8MP.

Hints for best recognition accuracy:

Be sure your camera lens is clean. When capturing an image, hold your device directly over the music keeping it steady and as square to the page as possible. Avoid tilting or twisting the device. Many devices will rotate the image in the viewfinder. Make sure the little hand is pointing to the top of the page when you capture an image. Pages should lay flat when captured. A clear, non-reflective acrylic sheet can also help flatten wrinkled pages.

Non-reflective acrylic sheets are available here for just $10 (plus shipping).

Capturing music:

Push the Capture button to acquire the first page from your camera. Square up the page so it fits entirely inside the preview window. Make sure you do not cut off any of the music, especially on the left side.

Hold steady and push the Camera icon. The image will change to a still preview. Examine the preview making sure it appears snappy and sharp with good contrast across the page. If you see weak, faded or shaded areas in the preview, touch the Trash icon to delete and take another shot.

Remember: Poor preview images = poor recognition accuracy

If you are satisfied with the preview of your first shot, push the Camera icon again and capture the next page in the same manner. Push Done to begin recognition of your music. If recognition fails, it is probably because one or more pages were unrecognizable. Try capturing all the pages again. It doesn’t take long.

NOTE: Be aware that many tablets (e.g. Apple iPads) do not have high enough resolution required for optimum accuracy. Most modern smartphones will deliver the minimum requirement of 8MP resolution.

Recognition from PDF:

NoteReader can process PDF files with up to about 8 pages (all music - no titles or front matter). E-mail PDF file to yourself. Locate the message in your in-box. Hold your finger over the PDF icon then select “Open with NoteReader”. In a few seconds, NoteReader will begin recognizing the file.

Recognition from scanned or previously captured photos:

Process New Score > Import image will access images from your photo library. You can use your scanner to create .TIF or PDF files of music. Scan at 300 dpi and save as gray scale. If your music is bound in a book, apply pressure on the spine so pages lay flat. Save up to 8 pages as a single PDF file and e-mail files to your phone.

Play screen

After music is recognized, the Play screen will open. Push the yellow Play button to play back at the default tempo of 100 BPM. Use the Tempo slider to speed up the tempo or slow it down. Hit the Rewind button to start playback from the beginning. The location scrubber will let you position playback at any point within the music.

More Info Page

Clicking on the (+) icon at the bottom of the screen sends you to a page where you can choose to begin a new music capturing session, open Session Manager, visit the SmartScore Player web page and review these Hints & Tips or request that additional information be sent to you.

Session Manager:

The locked version of NoteReader can load the prior session stored to your phone by pushing Previous Session button in the “Welcome” screen. The unlocked version will let you access an unlimited number of prior sessions. You can load and/or delete saved NoteReader sessions by pushing the Session Manager button found in the “More info” screen.

Unlock (Premier) Version Only:

Send your music to yourself or colleagues as SmartScore, MIDI or Music XML files.
Download and install our free SmartScore Player from here.
Load your NoteReader files into the Player. Apply different instrument sounds. Add drum tracks and even play back in Karaoke view with moving lyrics and bouncing ball !
Open your fully-formatted music notation pages in Finale, Sibelius or any other notation program that supports the MusicXML file form.
Open and play back your captured MIDI files using any MIDI sequencer / player.
All this for just $9.99 !

There’s more…Once you’ve stepped up to the unlocked “Premier” version, you’ll be qualified for a 25% discount on any of our 5 SmartScore X2 editions for Windows and Macintosh !

Please Note:

Musitek personnel are not available for NoteReader technical support either by e-mail or by phone. If you have questions or solutions, please post them on our NoteReader runboard here

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SmartScore NoteReader Support