Mark of the Unicorn Mosaic (1992)

[chrisNova777]

http://www.motu.com/products/software/mosaic
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/mosaic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_notation_program
http://web.archive.org/web/19961018010347/http://motu.com/pages/Mosaic.html

http://www.macintoshrepository.org/594-mosaic
http://www.macintoshrepository.org/26-professional-composer

Mosaic is a now abandoned software program for producing music originally appearing as Professional Composer. Mark of the Unicorn, the company that produced the software, decided to update Professional Composer and the result was Mosaic. No media release was ever produced by the company about Mosaic's demise and the product was dropped. Several factors can be theorized: Sibelius and Finale were the competitor notation packages; they were developed for both Macintosh and Windows platforms. Mosaic was only available for Macintosh computers and thus Sibelius and Finale had far larger market opportunities.

Mark Of The Unicorn Mosaic:
Mark Of The Unicorn’s Mosaic succeeds Professional Composer as their professional notation program for the Mac. Mike Collins looks at how it stacks up against the competition. 1992 June http://www.mikecollins.plus.com/PUBLICATIONS/articlearchive/sos.html

Mosaic provides a WYSIWYG environment in which you can produce publication-quality music notation, from lead sheets to full orchestra scores. Compatible with Mac OS versions through Mac OS 9.2.2. Includes real-time MIDI recording and playback, as well as convenient step-record and mouse and keyboard note entry. Supports standard MIDI file format. Unlimited voices, staves, and voices per staff. Unlimited Undo/Redo.

Unique multiple views feature-see the same music formatted differently in separate windows, such as a transposed staff in an instrument part and the same staff at a smaller point size in concert pitch in the conductor score-all in the same file and linked dynamically. (Drag a note in one window, for example, and it changes in the others.) Completely flexible page formatting directly on the page. Precise, flexible, "click-and-drag" placement of over 160 musical symbols. Reshape slurs, ties, dynamics and more. Word-processing-style lyric entry with automatic text flow through music. Advanced features include engraver spacing, cross-staff beaming, all forms of musical transposition, check rhythm and range commands, and complex meters.

Elegant graphic user interface carefully adheres to Macintosh software design conventions. The only notation software to provide easy sound selection of built-in sounds in your MIDI synthesizers using convenient pop-up menus. Supports multi-port MIDI interfaces such as the MIDI Express XT and MIDI Timepiece AV.

100% PowerPC native
Mosaic 1.5 is 100% PowerPC native for blazing speed on Power Macintosh computers. Exactly what do we mean by blazing? Our tests show a ten-fold speed improvement in some cases. For example, on a relatively modest, affordable Power Macintosh 7200, using "Undo" after transposing an entire file took only 2 seconds in Mosaic 1.5, while taking over 13 seconds in earlier versions. Just imagine how much faster you will be able to work. And Mosaic still runs great on 680x0-based Macs as well - its entire code base has been thoroughly optimized for improved speed and performance overall.

Faster file saving
But there are even more speed improvements. Thanks to a new buffering scheme, Mosaic 1.5 now saves approximately five times faster than earlier versions. This means you can save more often - and wait less.

Accelerated screen redrawing
Mosaic 1.5 no longer relies on Sonata(tm) font or Adobe Type Manager(tm) (ATM). Instead, Mosaic now has its own TrueType music font, called Vivo, which includes a complete set of screen fonts. This allows Mosaic to redraw the screen approximately five times faster than earlier versions. Redraws are especially faster when you are viewing staves at small point sizes. If getting a bird's-eye view of your score was too slow before, you'll love seeing your scores from a whole new perspective in Mosaic 1.5.

Up to 1,100% faster edits
500% faster file saves
500% faster redraws

Mosaic Automatic Staff Names
Mosaic 1.5 provides fully automated staff names in page and galley views. (No more fumbling with page text boxes!) Full and abbreviated staff names can be globally shown or hidden in each view. When you turn them on or off, Mosaic automatically reformats the left edge of all systems in the view to accommodate the space added or removed. When you drag a staff, the name stays with it. Staff text attributes can be set globally for the entire view, and each view can have its own unique staff name settings, such as their distance from the staff. In galley views, abbreviated staff names are shown in the non-scrolling margin so they are always visible.

Mosaic Instant Custom Scores
Mosaic's New Setup feature was designed to make it easy to start a new project with Mosaic. Now this feature will save you even more time because it lets you use your own, customized page layout templates to generate new, blank documents - regardless of the combination of instruments you decide to include in the score. Choose from among your personal library of page layouts when you create new files. Take as much time as you like perfecting your layout templates, and then instantly apply them to new projects to generate blank scores and parts that meet your exact specifications. Getting the exact layout you want is now as easy as choosing it from a pop-up menu. And these same features are now available when importing standard MIDI files, too.

Mosaic Instrument Library
Mosaic 1.5's new instrument library helps you easily create any ensemble you wish when you are making a new Mosaic document or importing a standard MIDI file. Instrument definitions instantly generate voices, staves and views with the proper clef and transposition (for score and part), note range, staff name and staff abbreviation. Definitions can be easily modified, and you can create as many custom instrument definitions as you like. You can even order them as you wish - alphabetically or score order.



Mosaic Transcription Engine
Mosaic 1.5 incorporates Mark of the Unicorn's award-winning transcription technology, which produces remarkably readable notation when you record MIDI data into Mosaic in real time or import unquantized data from a standard MIDI file. You'll spend less time cleaning up the transcription and more time being productive.

Mosaic Intelligent Note Spelling
Mosaic 1.5 has intelligent note-spelling algorithms, which it employs when recording MIDI data and importing standard MIDI files. It knows that chromatic runs should have sharps going up and flats heading down. But Mosaic's algorithms go even deeper. They take into account factors such as key signature, mode (major or minor) and the complex details of voice leading. For example, take a look at the second beat of measure 2 below. Notice how Mosaic chose an augmented interval to make the voice leading come out right from the diminished 7th into the D minor chord. Mosaic will save you loads of time by getting it right most of the time. If you prefer different spellings, you can always adjust them manually.