Sibelius vs Finale

[Jason Sypher]

I have to make some charts for an upcoming tour in March. I've never done this before. Simplicity is key. Tell me what to buy!

[Joe Gress]

The $10 version of finale is great for a 1 time use, but otherwise very difficult and not really worth it.

[Fletcher Lanning]

Finale is easier to learn, but requires a lot of tweaking and work to make a professional and readable score

Sibelius, though harder to figure out at first, will, in the end, be easier because it is much 'smarter' than Finale and will more easily create a good-looking and readable score (correct note spacing, barring, etc. are mostly automatic in Sibelius).

Just my opinion but I speak as a recent convert to Sibelius for the reasons I mentioned above. If you plan on doing this with any sort of Frequency I suggest Sibelius. It is really wonderful once you get past the learning curve.

[davidAaronCarte]

Anyone know if Finale works with Windows 7? I used to use Sibelius but it won't work with my new OS

[Fletcher Lanning]

As their main buyers (Schools and Businesses) are usually slow to move to a new OS, the products are slow to move as well. Windows 7 has some of the same underlying programming as Vista (much improved though) so it might work (download one of the free trial versions and attempt to install it to check). I know it was months after release before they updated to work with Vista.

[Marcus Johnson]

Originally Posted by Joe Gress

The $10 version of finale is great for a 1 time use, but otherwise very difficult and not really worth it.

I have that one... it's okay to fart around with. But if you're up against a deadline, trying to spit out charts, it's not fun anymore. Too much time spent trying to outsmart it. Pen and paper is faster for me.

But hey, it's ten bucks.

[Chris Fitzgerald]

I used F***** for 15 years, getting increasingly annoyed over the last few while I waited for them to make their software compatible and even reasonably bug free on mac OSX. Finally, in 2004, I switched to Sibelius. I did 8 long transcriptions the first week I had it, and by the end of the week I was already working faster in Sibelius than I ever did in F*****.

Now I just use Sibelius. It seems made for musicians, and I've found it very intuitive to learn. If you have any keyboard chops, I'd definitely recommend getting a cheap MIDI keyboard as an input device - it really speeds up the harmonic notation.

[Don Higdon]

What will Sibelius cost me?

[David1234]

Get whichever one more of your friends have, for when you want to email scores to each other.

[Jack Clark]

I've been using the $10 Finale NotePad version for nearly a year. I've considered upgrading to the next level or two above, but honestly can't see a big advantage to them. With NotePad, I've made practice sheets for scales, arpeggios, exercises, etc., and song charts for multiple instruments. They play back in audio in whatever instrument you want. I've made audio drones, vertical chords, scales, arpeggios, and various exercises for play-along for intonation practice.

You can save what you make directly as midi files, pull them into iTunes, and then play them as midis or convert them to mp4a files. Or you can pull them into QuickTime and save them as super-small mov files. They all play back through my slow-downer / pitch-changer program, Audiolobe, which I use with headphones.

Pretty good for $10.

[Jason Sypher]

Originally Posted by Don Higdon

What will Sibelius cost me?

It's a little confusing. It looks like it starts at around $99 then up to about $200 then right on up to many hundreds of dollars. Depends on your needs. Looks like nice software.

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by Don Higdon

What will Sibelius cost me?

PM me about this.

[Jason Sypher]

Can I PM you about it too?

[D McCartney]

Another possibility is the GVOX Encore.

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by Jason Sypher

Can I PM you about it too?

Of course!

[Fletcher Lanning]

I had totally forgotten about Encore. It doesn't have any fancy features to speak of, and it basically comes down to the digital equivelant of writing the score by hand. It doesn't fill in anything you don't tell it to or try to adjust note position to make things prettier, or automatically write courtesy accidentals (which is both a negative and a huge plus because Finale always screwed that stuff up for me).

If you know you're music and what you want on the page Encore can work well, but it takes a lot more work to make a score look really polished and communicate all the you want. On the plus side, it is REALLY easy to use and has very little learning curve.

I prefer Sibelius but Encore will work if this is just a one time thing and you don't want to learn a more complex program (even if it does a better job).