Hi Arthur,

  Prices: Powertracks ~$30, Cakewalk ~$300

Piano roll view:  Powertracks has a superior staff/roll view.  This is
the standard music staff with each note  placed on the staff according
to the exact time struck.  A line extending to the right indicates
duration.  You may change anything on any note by right clicking on it,
delete, move up or down, time struck, change the duration, etc.

> I would be interested to know if anybody has CAL scripts that
> can filter certain notes out of a track and/or reposition them
> to a different note, e.g., shift C1 to C2 while leaving the notes
> in-between unshifted, etc.

If you are working with a non-chromatic scale, you may easily
experiment with moving all of one particular note up or down a 1/2-tone
for the entire piece with a few clicks.  If you do not like the effect
you can undo that move, and try something else.

More generally, you can pick any particular note and have it become any
note you wish, for the entire piece or for any part.  In the edit drop
down, use "replace" . In the "search" screen put in the note you wish
to change.  In the "replace" screen put in the note you want it changed
to.  This can be done for the entire piece or any part or it, by
setting the from and through values. It is possible to transpose the
entire score to any degree desired.

I can guarantee that for even a computer novice, if you can read music,
you will be able to use Powertracks as soon as you install it.  Unlike
Cakewalk, which I find totally obscure, Powertracks is intuitive and
easy to understand.

Even if for some reason one would want to get Cakewalk at some point,
for a beginner I would recommend Powertracks not only for ease of use,
but at $30 it's a much smaller outlay.  Try it first before you spend
$300 on Cakewalk, only to find that you do not care for it.

I have a 1/2-dozen e-mails I have written to a friend (Hi Don) who is
now using Powertracks for editing piano roll MIDI files, that pretty
much cover what you would need to know in detail.  Write me if you wish
to have them.

Powertracks is available at www.pgmusic.com

Tom Lear
San Francisco, Ca.