| I want to thank everyone who offered advice and some great links to help me decide between switching to Sibelius or updating to Finale 2007 (from Finale 98.) I did take your advice, reading all the materials I could online and spending some time with each app. I first spent a full six hours with Sibelius. At first look it does seem much more polished and easier to use, but after a while it became clear it was much more consumer and music educator oriented than professional copyist oriented (not that this is a bad thing - but it does not fit my application of the product.) I then spent an equal amount of time with Finale 2007 - and while on the surface it does not seem much different than the version I was used to, it seemed much more comfortable and familiar - due in no small part to my years of use of the product (I go back to at least Finale 2.x - what year would that have been?!?) I had done *tons* of tweaks to my default Finale files over the years, and I'm not sure I can make the same tweaks to Sibelius, or at least not as easily (for me anyway.) So what it came down to for me was: with which product can I most quickly get back up to speed and turn out copy that meets or exceeds my former output. Finale won hands down - my update arrives on Monday. I'm sure I'll discover a lot of the new "under the hood" enhancements that have been made - and I will definitely have to start my tweaking from scratch again. I'm also anxious to see when it will be completely compatible with the Intel Macs (I have a MacPro machine) - particularly for my Garritan GPO and JABB libraries - which are currently unusable. FYI - cheap plug - I also ordered the most recent Finale 3rd party book I could find - Finale: An Easy Guide to Music Notation - by Vince Leonard (an active list member) and Tom Rudolph (a good friend of mine!) Check it out. :) - Bob Shuster |
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