# Comments from Mup users from around the world

Check out a review of Mup, by someone who chose Mup as his music notation program. This review was published in the May 1998 issue of Linux Gazette. It was also published in paper form in the September 1998 issue of Linux Journal. A survey of Mup users was conducted by a Mup user in 2007 and the survey results are available.

Here are a few of the comments we have received from Mup users around the world.

> Mup is a marvelous tool. It fits me and the way I work, and it has allowed me to build arrangements, small, large and HUGE that I would not have been able to do without it. I am always amused when someone brings in a piece of music that they've tried to do in Finale or Sibelius. They can't figure out how to make it work because it's so complicated! And the printed music is nowhere near the quality that Mup produces.
> M.B. - Alabama

> Let me first thank you for making Mup available for evaluation as you do; it's much better to actually use a product than to make a decision based on slick advertising brochures. Overall, I am astounded at the functionality of Mup, and its fantastic output. It is obviously much better than Finale, which I have used in the past. I tried returning to Finale yesterday, but having seen Mup, it was just too painful.
> P. B., Missouri

> I'd like to take a moment and congratulate you on an extremely useful piece of software. Mup offers a very small learning curve, is accompanied by excellent documentation, and is quick and easy to enter the needed data. The visual output is also incredible. The ability to define and use custom guitar chord grids is a wonderful "perk", as is the ability to transpose and print selected staves for parts. The ability to dump to MIDI output is probably the nicest feature - it's a lot easier to find those typos when you can hear it played back. For me, the MIDI output feature is an indispensible tool. Many thanks!
> K. T., Michigan

> I have been a Finale user for a long time, but I'm switching to Mup. I love the fact that I can edit my music on my Palm Pilot - and it only took me about a day to learn the language well enough to be able to enter my compositions. So - thank you for a very well-designed product.
> - L. M., California

> New Mup user here. I have played with it I find it to be extremely cool. I have attempted lilypond several times and always ran into roadblocks requiring mind-twisting work arounds. Mup seems MUCH more straightforward. Also, though lily is supposed to look great on paper (I wouldn't know since I have never really been able to complete a score with it), I find that whatever lily outputs looks positively HORRIBLE in PDF form on screen, but MUP looks great on both page and screen....so the MUP guys are doing something right there!
> S. S., Washington

> Just a note to say thanks for Mup! It is really a great piece of work. For the last two years I have been trying to learn how to use Lilypond. I never have been able to get the results that I was looking for. When I came across Mup a couple of weeks ago, it was so easy I turned out my first hymn in two days, and three more by the end of the week. Best of all I was able to get all the results I have been looking for! I wished I would have found it two years ago. It would have saved me two years of frustration! Keep up the good work. Your software is first class!
> - T. G., Texas

> I know you guys have a thriving community and you probably hear this a lot, but Mup is fantastic. I am amazed at its capability.
> - W. B., Illinois

> I keep trying the alternates, and wonder why I bother. Mup is just the best.
> - B. V. D. P., Idaho

> Thanks for the great program! It would have taken several more years to save up for any other program that has the capacity to generate this quality of music. I use it all the time for my personal enjoyment, and agree that it is the best program for writing music, ever!
> - C. C., California

> I wanted to express my enthusiasm about your program. It's amazing how one can start out typesetting one's own music after only five or ten minutes of reading into the documentation. I had tried musixtex before and hadn't expected to find something that makes things so much simpler.
> - R. P., Germany

> I was previously using a demo version of Sibelius but I had no idea how I was going to come up with the $600. Many issues of lay-out which Mup handles for me have to be done manually with Sibelius, and it takes longer to write a chart. Thank you again. I'm telling folks in my Barbershop chapter to go for Mup.
> - N. C., Vermont

> I'm the original author of Ghostscript, which (as I discovered) Mup uses for printing. I'm also a musician and composer. In August (2000), when I was looking for a good notation program for Linux, I checked out the 6 notation programs at the Shareware Music Machine site, and Mup looked like the only one that really delivered the goods. Now that I've found the time to start using it seriously, I'm extremely pleased with the result. It does just what the (clear and straightforward) documentation says it does, and does it well. Thank you!
> - L. P. D., California

> Congratulations on a wonderful program. I needed to print out some music at very short notice: I managed to download and learn Mup very quickly and had the score ready (2-voice treble + bass and 2-verse lyrics) in about an hour. I've previously used Rosegarden and MusicTeX, neither of which is as easy to use. The "proof-listening" MIDI output feature is fantastic.
> - M. T., United Kingdom

> I LOVE Mup!!! For amateurs with even a little computer literacy, you can't beat it. Most free software packages are lame, difficult to use, or have poor quality output. But not Mup. You guys did a great job with it!
> - P. J., Georgia

> A compliment to the quality of Mup output: I took a transcription along to a recent music festival, and one of the comments was "I definitely want a copy of this piece: who publishes it?"
> - N.N., Belgium

> I am a delighted user of Mup. It is a delight to work with an architecturally sensible program again.
> G. S., Canada

> Thanks for an excellent product! I used it on my senior honors project, and it was great. Entering the music was very fast. The Mup-generated PostScript was beautiful and professional looking. My professors and other students (most of whom use Finale or Encore, one prof uses Sibelius) were amazed at how good it looks.
> G. L., Illinois

> Thanks for a wonderful program! I do all my theory homework with MUP now instead of Finale, and it takes me less than half the time it used to. Usually the output is better, as well!
> - H. F., Utah

> I'm *very* impressed with the program. Thank you very much for making this program available -- I intended to wrestle with MusicTex, but I'd heard that it was difficult and was putting it off. Mup is delightfully logical, and easy to learn, and the output is easy to incorporate into Tex output like any other graphics. I'm particularly impressed with the balance between computer assistance (in checking each bar against the time signature, for instance) and user intervention (for instance, in matters of `beaming'). It is very nice to deal with a program where the purpose and the execution are so well matched.
> - P. M., Toronto, Ontario, Canada

> I just spent part of the weekend reading your documentation (generally excellent) and typing in a Mup file. This morning your code compiled absolutely cleanly on my system (first try). I'm very impressed with the results. My congratulations on an excellent program.
> - K. B., France

> I've been struggling with Lilypond, trying to generate jazz charts. Mup looks much better. Thanks for this excellent product.
> - T. R., Colorado

> I believe you have written some wonderful software. I look forward to finding out all the different capabilities of Mup.
> - C. L., California

> Great programming, much better than Cakewalk at publishing music. It amazes me how logical the syntax is, and how much faster I can write a page than a friend using Finale.
> - T. N., Utah

> My first impression of Mup is !!! Have tried "Mozart" but like Mup better. This has to be one of the greatest present day bargains!
> A. B., Canada

> I love Mup. It is an extremely well-designed and bug-free program.
> - J. J., California

> Thanks for writing such a simple, yet powerful program. I've already wasted time and money trying other transcription software which I never was able to figure out. I've been looking for a text-based interface for years, and when I saw Mup in Linux Journal, I knew I had to try it. I'm satisfied!
> - J. J., Oregon

> I'm very impressed with MUP's capabilities; I've used Encore and M-Tx/PMX/MusixTex and MUP definitely comes closest to meeting my needs.
> - G. M., New Jersey

> Thank you very much for your help. And, please, be proud of your software: I experimented a lot with Finale at school: it's a nice program indeed but it is not so easy (and often tricky) to get a professional result. I decided to acquire Mup half an hour after I started to use it: it took twenty (!) minutes to get where I arrived with Finale after a month.
> - A. P., Italy

> Mup is really great. The output looks like it came from a publishing house, and I like the text entry system. I can even edit my music files on my PDA while I'm away from the computer.
> D. T., Ohio

> I love it!!!! Keep up the good work. I love the TAB entry stuff. Very Cool Feature! I tried using lilypond... I just couldn't get it to compile. But Mup was up within 3 minutes.
> B. B., Texas

> Mup is a dream come true for me. After downloading several point-and-click nightmare programs I had just about given up on finding a faster way to notate music. With Mup, I'm happily zipping along in my text editor and writin' notes. Thanks!
> - B. H., South Carolina

> Mup is fantastic. It's so much easier to use than the windows program I was using previously. The simplicity and elegance of your input language is a delight.
> - S. H., Australia

> Thank you for a _really_ excellent program -- its output is better than that of any other music publication package I have seen.
> - S. L., United Kingdom

> I find Mup an excellent, impressive product, yet easy to use.
> - M. N., Austria

> Really very fine program with superb printing quality.
> - W. B., The Netherlands

> Congratulations on an excellent program! I find Mup very easy to use and very impressive. Mup is *very* cool, you guys have done a great job with it!
> - D. P.

> You have created an excellent program. The more I use it, the more I like it. I thought the ideal music notation editor program would have to be graphical, but it appears I was wrong.
> - M. P., North Carolina

> I downloaded Mup and built for Linux and there were no problems. Within an hour I had finished my first score, about the length of time it would have taken to ink it with no mistakes. The results were very nice, and you saved me the $350 that I was prepared to shell out for Finale.
> - G. F., New Jersey

> I am quite favorably impressed with Mup. I learned Finale for Macintosh when I was in college, and Mup beats it hands down for speed and ease of use. Keep up the good work! With Finale, it took me approximately two months to get to the point where I produced finished-looking music output. I got to that point with Mup in about 20 minutes, and the quality was comparable to an investment of significantly more time in Finale. I especially liked the way that dynamics, crescendo markings, ties, and slurs are placed in what I consider intelligent and appropriate places by default, but that there is also some more control available. I also like very much the TeX-like ASCII input method, since it's a great deal less processor-intensive than the Finale point-and-click interface. Once again, thanks. I've recommended Mup to several of my friends and colleagues who admired my printed-out work.
> - C. W., Maine

> I have tried and used both GUI and text based systems and am very impressed, not only with the thought that has gone into MUP, but with the ease of accomplishing the gamet of musical notation.
> I am currently doing some arrangements for my daughter's upcoming wedding. The speed of input and quality of output is amazing. Thank you very much for a superior product.
> One last thing. I have always been impressed at how Mup does its job, both in speed and quality. Having looked in more detail at the source code, I must say "Hats off to you for a fine job of design and coding."
> - C. K., Oregon

> I'm very pleased with Mup. I have completed several works for brass choir, trombone quintet, and jazz ensemble in about 1/2 the time it used to take with a GUI notation editor. Thanks for a great product!
> - G. L., Illinois

> I've been experimenting with Mup for about a month now, and in most respects, you can colour me thrilled.
> - D. M. Montreal, Canada

> This program has all that flexibility, plus its output looks as good as any I have seen, even from those $200-500 packages.
> - C. H., California

> I have to say that Mup seems to be a promising alternative to today's slow and clumsy WYSIWYG notation programs.
> I am mostly interested in notation for practical everyday use and in my first quick tries with Mup I especially liked the idea of just entering the music and getting a reasonable layout, without much fiddling and fine tuning by hand.
> - M. T., Germany

> I just got Mup and it looks like it has a great deal of potential! I'm very excited about it.
> - P. R., Virginia

> I found Mup in the WWW, and am very happy with it, as it is an easy to use, small but powerful system.
> - A. W., Germany

> WOW. Just downloaded MUP. Congrats on a clean, elegant design.
> - M. P., New York

> I am very impressed with the capabilities of your music program. I compiled it on a SUN workstation. I had no difficulty installing and running the program.
> - M. R., Spain

> I downloaded MUP (Linux) for evaluation. I was impressed with the quality, using Ghostscript for printing. I shall tell my friends, who are guitar teachers.
> - P. S., Scotland

> Hey, MUP is terrific. It's exactly what is needed...a text-based markup notation system for music. This is a tremendous boon to find.
> - S. H.

> With Mup it took me 'no time' to get the input running, and the output is really close to professional. I am looking forward to become a frequent user of Mup. Let me again thank you very much for this excellent program!
> - T. B., Germany

> Thank you for writing Mup! I am a musician and a UNIX admin and this is a beautiful program for me! Finally I can write everything in vi and have beautiful output in written and midi formats!
> - K. C., Florida

> I've been creating scores using MUP for a while now and have nothing but praise for it; it's the best software value on the machine.
> - M. D., New York

> Thank you all for such a fine piece of software. I'm enjoying it enormously.
> - L. C., Illinois

> Thanks much for an excellent program and value!
> - D. B., California

> You have done a pretty remarkable job of hyper-linking the user's guide all together. I'm in the middle of scoring a motion picture sound track and like Mup well enough over the gooey scoring products to use it exclusively.
> - J. N., California

> I have been searching for an affordable music typesetter for some time which I could run on my system. I have looked at just about every system available, and so far your program Mup surpasses them all. The final output is superb.
> - M. C., England

> Your automatic formatter runs rings around anything that I've been able to get Encore or Finale to do. Both of those programs require hours of fussing with the position of things to get the score to look right. With Mup, once it's in, almost no additional work is needed to get good output.
> - D. M., California

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