[Replying to a very old post, sorry!]
I use Sibelius, though each have their pros and cons. I find Sibelius easier to use for composition to get ideas down quickly. There is not a 'triplet tool' and so forth. Sibelius is very much like working with a piece of paper.
However, Finale has better notation abilities for contemporary music to get a nice printed score. You can fake your way through with things in Sibelius, but Finale has support for stemlets, and other things which are quite nice that Sibelius lacks.
Gripes with Finale:
- Have to choose a key at the beginning of a score- though I know there are ways around this
(come on, join us in the 20th/21st century, Finale!)
- All the tools are not easy to use and I somewhat feel like I'm using an AutoCAD drafting program when notating music
- Not as easy to work with in free composition like Sibelius
- Releases every year: force upgrade yearly with users
Gripes with Sibelius:
- Not easy to make contemporary markings, as built in with Finale
- No VST/AU etc support which the newest Finale is embracing
- slow with releasing an intel mac version
- No resize percentage tool. Hard to resize individual components like in Finale, and make specific changes to score
- Fewer beaming/tie specifics than Finale. Easier to specify uniform beams and ties in Finale, in exact measurements.
I use Sibelius, though each have their pros and cons. I find Sibelius easier to use for composition to get ideas down quickly. There is not a 'triplet tool' and so forth. Sibelius is very much like working with a piece of paper.
However, Finale has better notation abilities for contemporary music to get a nice printed score. You can fake your way through with things in Sibelius, but Finale has support for stemlets, and other things which are quite nice that Sibelius lacks.
Gripes with Finale:
- Have to choose a key at the beginning of a score- though I know there are ways around this
(come on, join us in the 20th/21st century, Finale!)
- All the tools are not easy to use and I somewhat feel like I'm using an AutoCAD drafting program when notating music
- Not as easy to work with in free composition like Sibelius
- Releases every year: force upgrade yearly with users
Gripes with Sibelius:
- Not easy to make contemporary markings, as built in with Finale
- No VST/AU etc support which the newest Finale is embracing
- slow with releasing an intel mac version
- No resize percentage tool. Hard to resize individual components like in Finale, and make specific changes to score
- Fewer beaming/tie specifics than Finale. Easier to specify uniform beams and ties in Finale, in exact measurements.