Bob Shuster wrote:
After many years hiatus from the music biz I am dusting off the old
onion skins and getting back into writing. The last version of Finale I
used in earnest was Finale 98, but I have seen and experimented with
both Finale 2006/2007 and Sibelius 4.xx. I do have a lot of old music
in the Finale 98 format, but I'm not all that concerned about being able
to reuse it. I'm sure I'd have to do some major tweakage in any case,
so it's just as easy to re-enter the parts. One other consideration is
that I'd *really* like to use the Golden Age font - however I am
confidant that I can modify it for use in either application. Some of
the fonts that come with Sibelius do however look promising...
*SO*, what's the advice? Do I stick with Finale or do the Sibelius
crossgrade? What I have seen of the new Finale - it looks pretty much
the same as Finale 98, except with Aqua-looking buttons and a lot of
consumer-level features added that I'll never use. Sibelius on the
other hand, looks much slicker and fresher, and I've heard of
professionals using it instead of Finale, but all my experience has been
with Finale (with C-Lab's Notator sw before that! Does that date me?!?
:) )
I presume most of the readers of this list to be ardent Finale users,
but I'm sure you've at least looked at Sibelius, so I'd love to hear
your opinions on this (without starting a turf war of course.) The
issue has probably already been beaten to death, so if you'd rather
point me to an archive of such a discussion that would be welcome as well.
Finale2007 may look somewhat like Finale98 but it is most definitely NOT
the same as Finale98. A wonderful new function called Staff Styles was
added, the newest major feature, linked score/parts shows a lot of
promise although since it is still in its infancy it has some kinks yet
to be worked out.
Finale2007 is a very different beast from Finale98 in some very
important ways.
Sibelius is a fine program, as well, but with a very different work flow.
My advice is to download the demo and give it a try, or better yet, if
you can locate a person near you who has Sibelius, see if you can spend
a couple of hours working at his/her computer to try it out.
Many people like either program, very few like both equally. I have
both but I vastly prefer Finale. Richard Smith uses both but vastly
prefers Sibelius.
Both programs can produce gorgeous output, both programs can produce
ugly output -- the skill of the engraver/copyist is of utmost importance
with either application.
Originally Sibelius was nowhere near as good as Finale, but that was
version 1. Sibelius has grown a lot since then and can do much that
Finale can do. I find that each application forces a particular
workflow on the user and I seem to work more easily with Finale's
workflow. Whether that's from prolonged exposure to it or not I can't
say, but I do know I have a harder time working with Sibelius. Richard
Smith is just the opposite.
There is a very active Sibelius group at groups.yahoo.com so you might
want to join them and ask the same question there and see what answers
you get.
Many Sibelius users are frustrated Finale users. While it's easy to
chalk that up to them not taking the time to master Finale, much of it
is due to Finale's not taking the time to make introductory usage
easier. Finale has come a long way in that regard, but there is still a
lot of pent-up finale-frustration in some Sibelius users.
The truth is that there really isn't one clearly superior program --
they're both very powerful, although in slightly different ways. Which
will be best for you, only you can decide.
--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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