On Oct 6, 2005, at 8:13 AM, Chuck Israels wrote:
Greg Hamilton, an excellent Finale copyist/engraver from Vancouver, called yesterday to tell me (among other things) that he had just had to do a project in Sibelius (he was working in Sibelius 3), so he effectively got paid to learn the program. He liked it a lot (and learned it quickly) and says there's much to recommend in it, and among those things was an ease of handling staff spacing. So I suspect that this is something that is handled differently that you just have yet to figure out. Greg, who does really good work, and is both informed and smart, certainly convinced me that there are things that make Sibelius worth considering, but I don't want to have to learn a new program. I want Finale to get better, so there is no important reason to consider switching.
Well, I'm with you on wanting to see Finale get better, but that won't help me for current projects. I bought Sibelius because I have clients who prefer it, plus I was attracted to the idea of having score and parts all in one file. I don't feel any particular loyalty to Finale, or any software program, although I guess I'm firmly planted in the Mac world, having used Macs for about 15 years.
My first notation program was MOTU's Composer's Mosaic. I bought it at the NAMM show here in L.A. when it was first introduced in '92. Then in '98, when MOTU seemed to be dragging their feet about upgrading Mosaic, I spearheaded a drive to try get them to fix it. I wrote a 40 page report on existing bugs, things that Mosaic did wrong, and features that we wanted added to the program. I had 40 people from all over the world helping me, sending in bug reports and making suggestions for improvements. MOTU sent me a letter, basically thanking me for sharing, and the upgrade never came. The word I got was that MOTU's notation guru moved on, and the company was focusing on Digital Performer and their audio interfaces, so he was never replaced. I was forced to move to another program and chose Finale. This was in 2000, and The Mac version of Sibelius wasn't out yet. After the experience with Mosaic, I decided that being loyal to a particular company was foolish. THEY should be loyal to ME, if they want me to continue using their product and buying their upgrades. So if I ever get the time to learn Sibelius, and if it meets my needs, I'll start using it, and I won't look back. If a company is more concerned with adding bells and whistles that will attract new customers than with keeping the customers they have, why should the existing customers feel any loyalty to that company? This is just a tool, after all, not a religion or a political party.
Lon ******************************************** Lon Price, Los Angeles <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <http://www.txstnr.com> _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
