Haven't posted on these forums in a while, but I just downloaded the trial of SmartMusic and have a couple of questions about the full version (subscription) - I remember some people on these forums had it a while ago.

Do all of the accompaniments include the music on-screen, and if so, is it possible to print it off? (besides the rather tedious/not-so-legal method of sticking numerous screenshots together )

Is there any disadvantage of using a decent regular PC microphone as opposed to the official SmartMusic instrumental one? I don't really fancy paying £20 for the delivery of it!

And finally, is SmartMusic actually any good/worth the money?

Thanks!

I still haven't got to grips with SmartMusic - from what others have said, it is great if you can get it working well, but the specified mics aren't that good. It's probably worth a try if you can get it on a discounted trial (eg, if you're a member of flutewise/have an AB applicant number, etc etc)

Out of interest, what is SmartMusic? Is it like sibelius/cubase?

No, it's a programme which allows you to play with an accompanist - it's supposed to follow your playing. I'm yet to make it work properly...

Wow, I never new there was something around like that.

Now i'm really interested. It can be so hard to find an accompanist sometimes.

http://www.smartmusic.com/

Thanks.

I would have never found out about this, thanks to this topic, now I do.

It's definitely worth trying. I need to persevere with it......

Looks similar to this:

http://www.inthechair.com/index.php

Which I was thinking of trying. Maybe two breeds of the same species?

Thanks Sarah, I think I'll ask my music teacher tomorrow if she knows anything about it, or has a subscription etc

Jon - I just had a look at that website, but looking at the music available for it there doesn't seem to be a lot, and the stuff that is there is mainly just popular tunes/not instrument specific. SmartMusic apparently has over 30 000 accompaniments though

You can't print off the accompaniments, only a really tiny proportion come with on screen music.

It's fine if you use a different mic. I found the Smart Music one to be really bad, so I use one that came with my webcam.