When Overture was developed, the developer aimed to retain Encore's previous user-friendly interface design, but included the ability to notate elements regarded as complex at that time. These included adjustable engraver spacings between elements, non-standard notehead shapes, varying numbers of staff lines, guitar fingering charts, and tablature notation. Each line of drums staves could be user-mapped to different percussion instruments. It was also the first music scorewriter software that gave users control over all MIDI playback data such as note velocity, pitch bend and duration.
