Sibelius or Finale - the question is simple

[Henry Robinett]

Why do you hate Finale? I just bought Sibelius - no axe to grind. I don't even know it yet. Just curious.

[sdemott]

I used to use Encore...when Passport went out of business I took advantage of the Finale cross grade. Used it and liked it well enough until OS X. It took them way too long to get an OS X version together and when they did it was a total mess. They still don;t have it together IMO and I decided to go with Sibelius.

Now, I haven't pulled the trigger yet - still a little gun shy of yet another notation app switch, but I've been talking to a lot of arrangers and studio musicians and they have all already made the Finale to Sibelius jump and swear by it. These are people I know and trust.

So, I am planning on jumping on the Sibelius bandwagon at the beginning of next month.

Just my $.02 but I feel MakeMusic (formerly Coda) is more interested in PC than Mac and that was the beginning of the end for Passport.

[mhschmieder]

Thanks for the clarification on dynamic parts. That all makes perfect sense to me now.

[mhschmieder]

I forget whether I already mentioned a third choice, but I have been strongly looking into Notion Music from VirtuosoWorks. No demo to download, but the online walk-through seems convincing. Being able to quickly switch note lengths via keyboard shortcuts vs. mouse/menu/toolbar combinations seems better for a solid workflow that keeps you from losing your train of thought. Hard to compare them directly of course. They have been very receptive to answering technical details in email. They are at Summer NAMM, but I'm probably still going to cancel as there isn't a critical mass of software vendors to justify my going (it's a free ticket so no penalty). Of course there are no discounts or crossgrades so it's a full $600. They tell me it will soon have ReWire support, and OS X support.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

"There is yet another" [choice] to quote Yoda... Pencil and music paper! (I am not kidding!)

Not unrelated to this discussion is the John Williams interview in the musician's union paper this month. Williams says he still uses a piano, music paper and a pencil to write his scores.

I usually do the same to create my themes and sketches, but my orchestrations are created in Finale. On my next project, I'm asking for a team of copyists and orchestrators

[David Trainer]

I think the illustrious Mr. Williams uses a team of copyists ... can't imagine him slaving over that sort of minutae. I could be wrong

[iMAS]

Originally posted by Henry Robinett:
Why do you hate Finale? I just bought Sibelius - no axe to grind. I don't even know it yet. Just curious.

Well, I'll put it this way...(IMO) Finale is like Logic and Sibelius is like DP.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Originally posted by diz:
I think the illustrious Mr. Williams uses a team of copyists ... can't imagine him slaving over that sort of minutae. I could be wrong

I am certain Mr W uses a team of copyists and orchestrators. What he said is he would out the score on the piano. Slaving over that sort of minutae is part and parcel of being a composer.Before computers, orchestral composers wrote out their own scores. It is possible. Making copies is another story and copyists have been around for centuries.

Frankly, it would not surprise me if JW did most of the parts (at least indicating what went to whom). Sondheim also works that way, writing detailed scores an indicating what gets sent to what instruments.

I love my notation program (Finale) but if did not have access to a computer, the only side effect would that it would take longer to get the music into print (and, of course, I couldn't hear it performed except in my head, on my piano or by hired musicians.)

But back to the issue: check out the credits for any feature film with an orchestral score and very few list the composer as the sole orchestrator. There are a few! But they are not common.

[Matan]

I just found this great notation software called NoteAbility. It's cheaper, and , for my money, much closer to the process of writing on pencil+paper then either of the Big Two. a free download (stunted version) is available on the web. Oh, and it only runs on OSX.
I personally HATE Finale- had 5 years working with it, and am sick of having bugs ruin extracted parts, slurs that go nowhere and the like.
My analogy- Finale=windows (don't know enough about sibelius to make a snap judgement)

[mhschmieder]

Who makes it and where did you find it? I did a Google on "Note Ability" and "Note Ability Notation" and came up empty-handed.

[builder]

When I was in undergrad music school, all they had was Finale. All your compositions had to be turned in typed in Finale, so I am pretty handy with the program. I don't think it is that complicated.
I bought Sibleius a few years ago and it seems to be much more user friendly, but it would take me longer to do more precise edits.
I recently took a grad class where Sibelius sent a rep over to show us the educational suite. He told me three things that make me what to upgrade. 1) The dynamic part writing is unbelievable (though everyone mentions mosaic, I never used it) There is no more part extraction at all. 2) Sibelius file open Finale files and vice versa, so it is very easy to switch from one to the other. 3) It includes over 1700 premade worksheets, which to your average person doesn't mean a lot but for public school music teachers it is a big plus. You print out copys of folk songs with lyrics, or a theory test, etc.

Word

[wonder]

A lot of people who hate finale dont take the time to figure it out.

I use Finale and have been for a while, i see no need to change.

[loff56]

Regarding John Williams: from what I understand the guy barely sketches a few melodic notes (mostly fourths and fifths I gather), sends it off to his army of Arrangers, Orchestrators and Copyists, and, Voila, his string of 15 to 20 pitches is turned into a 20 minute full orchestral masterpiece. Not much need for more than a pencil and paper for him.
As for all of you who are bashing Finale. I have to say, I've been using it for almost 10 years now and have become rediculously efficient with it. But I have to say that the two keys to being efficient with Finale is 1. making templates, making templates, making templates!!! If you're templates use the correct spacing, fonts and placement of everyting you need for whatever it is you're working on there should be very little formatting for you to do when you finish. And 2. entering things in the correct order. For example don't put in dynamics before you put in articulations and slurs because without fail you'll get your dynamics right where you want them, then you'll put a slur or an accent in and all of a sudden it crashes with the dynamic, then you have to go back and move your dynamic one more time. I use a very specific order when working in Finale. Key signatures and Time Signatures, Notes, Lyrics (if applicable), Articulations, Slurs, Chords, Dynamics and Tempo Markings and other instructions, anything else, any mass applications (like cautionary accidentals for example), Music spacing, and finally formatting.
As for extracting parts. Again, If you know what you're doing, and make the correct settings in the part extraction dialog box, there should actually be very little re-formatting to do once you extract the parts.
Granted a dynamic parts feature would definitely be nice in Finale, but there are certainly some not-as-hairy work arounds. Don't forget, in some instances updates can be done simply by copying and pasting from the score file into the new file. No need to re-enter notes. And once again, if you're extraction settings are kosher, re-extracting the parts isn't an all-nighter by any stretch.
Also, I forget which program you're talking about that lets you change durations with a keystroke. This can also be done in the speedy note entry tool with Finale.
In ten years of using Finale, I've actually NEVER found anything that I couldn't put into Finale. Finale has the power where if there's something that it doesn't do easily (really meaning that the software developers haven't thought of it as being a truly useful feature), then somehow or another there is a way to work around it to get the result you need.

PS (I really don't work for Finale I promise).

Happy notating.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Originally posted by Jason Loffredo:
Regarding John Williams: from what I understand the guy barely sketches a few melodic notes (mostly fourths and fifths I gather), sends it off to his army of Arrangers, Orchestrators and Copyists, and, Voila, his string of 15 to 20 pitches is turned into a 20 minute full orchestral masterpiece. Not much need for more than a pencil and paper for him.

I had the pleasure if working with a well-known conductor at MGM/UA who worked down the Hall from Mr. Williams. Not too much inside info but enough to know that he does write his own music. Now Marvin Hamlish, there I can relate reliable, first-person info on the role of arrangers in completing full scores from a little melody sketch.

As far as Finale goes, I wouldn't use anything else. The new version (2006) looks great btw. The one thing I never felt at home with was Hyperscribe. Now there is a multi-channel sequencer built in. But there is nothing that Finale cannot botate as long as you invest the time in learning the prog, The same could be said about Photoshop CS 2, Quicken and other programs that are meant to do what you want.

MM

[Matan]

"And 2. entering things in the correct order."
That's exactly the problem right there! The sequence of entering music into Finale is completely different than the sequence of writing.
Noteability is so much more intuitively connected to how I compose. Off course, there are no short cuts- You can't automate orchestrations and so fourth...