--- On Mon, 9/28/09, Kieren MacMillan <[email protected]> wrote:
> From: Kieren MacMillan <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: No fiddling claim > To: "Jonathan Wilkes" <[email protected]> > Cc: [email protected] > Date: Monday, September 28, 2009, 12:20 AM > HI Jonathan, > > > what do the experienced users think about what I've > said here? > > If there's anyone out there who has used other > notational > > software and thinks the "less fiddling" claim is > true? > > I used Finale from 1991-2003, eventually becoming *quite* > proficient. > Then I switched to Lilypond (around v1.8), and now consider > myself at least as proficient [relatively speaking] as I was > with Finale. > [I used Igor Engraver (v1.5) for a year or so in the > interim, but that product died, which is why I ended up > looking elsewhere and finding Lilypond...] > > I definitely feel the "less fiddling" claim is true... for > me, for the type of music I engrave, and for the particular > quality of output I desire/demand. > > That being said, if you don't particularly care about > Finale's *horrible* [default] note-spacing, lyric placement, > etc., then there would almost certainly be less fiddling > time required with Finale — I just find that with > Lilypond, I do almost no note or lyric adjustment, measure > width/spacing adjustment, and so on, which are the > activities that took up the bulk of my "tweaking" time with > Finale. [Disclaimer, the last version I used was 2003, so > things might be much better now.] Hmm., I don't have much experience with lyric placement (I only have one piece I've written with text), but yes, the note-spacing tweaks for an entire piece can take a lot of time, depending on the complexity of the rhythms. > > Right now, I estimate the following for my engraving work > using Lilypond: > 1. Basic note entry (including *all* items, e.g., > slurs, articulations, fingering, etc.) requires 20%-50% as > long as I used to spend with Finale. > 2. Spacing tweaks (notes, lyrics, vertical spacing, > etc.) requires less than 5% of the time I used to spend with > Finale. > 3. Specific tweaks (like the ones you mention) take > 2-5 times [!!] as long as I used to spend with Finale. > > I roughly estimate that #1 represents 50% of my total > engraving time, #2 is about 40%, and #3 is the final 10%. So > taking the *worst case* scenario [for Lilypond], a > hypothetical piece that would take 100 min to engrave in > Finale means: > (50 min @ 50% time) + (40 min @ 5% time) > + (10 min at 500% time) = 25 min + 2 min + 50 min = 77 min = > 77% of the time I used to spend doing the same work in > Finale. > > This is obviously non-scientific and anecdotal to the > extreme... but the final result (i.e., that I *never* spend > more than about 3/4 of the time I used to working in Finale) > seems about right. I tend to feel like I currently get > things done in 1/2 the time, on average. > > Of course, YMMV — in particular, if the spacing > atrocities in Finale aren't where you spend your time, you > will not see nearly as much benefit from using Lilypond, and > in fact it may overall require more time. It sounds like your experience is indeed different than what mine has been so far. I would be really interested to see one of the Lilypond gurus go up against a Finale guru to notate a piece of music from the canon, and keep track of the total amount of time like you've done above. I know a finale guru who might be interested in this. For me, it would be really helpful to see the code on the Lilypond side. > > Hope this helps! Definitely. Good to know that there's the possibility of working faster as I learn the ins and outs. Thanks for your detailed response to my question. -Jonathan > Kieren. _______________________________________________ lilypond-user mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-user
