Sometimes I have the impression that we are scraping the barrel.

Just an impression.

@DG said:

I'm not really sure that Finale does anything much better than Sibelius any more.

Although both Finale and Sibelius have 4 voices per stave, in Finale you can also have 2 parts per voice effectively giving you 8 voices on a stave.

Finale supports independent time signatures, allowing cross-rhythms between different instruments, Sibelius doesn't (and the workaround in the manual is somewhat kludgy)

Whilst these may be pretty esoteric to some (which I can fully appreciate), these are pretty much show stoppers for me.

Matthew

@DG said:

However, I find four voices is more or less a waste of time, because it doesn't make notation any clearer. I certainly have no interest in 8.

@zentrumsounds said:

Actually I find one of Finale's biggest advantages is its ability to send SMPTE clock. I run Finale in tandem with Logic 8 which allows me to include complex electronic elements into my score (very important for much of today's film music).

Sibelius can use Rewire for this purpose. [:D]

DG

@zentrumsounds said:

Ahh, this I did not know! I wonder why the Sibelius "expert" salesperson who came to our college didn't know this! Is this since Sibelius 5?

This is one of the new features of Sibelius 6.

DG

Yes.  Finale 2010 is OUT and Sibelius 6 is IN, for me at least.  I have used Finale since version 1.?, when it came on 3 Low Density 3.5" disks, then graduated to a HD 3.5" disk, and from then on.  I've also kept up with Sibelius since version 2, but not really bothered to learn it well until version 6 now.  I've had Sib 6 for a couple of weeks now, and I've seen some very nice improvements, not the least of which are the Vienna Soundsets that are working well for what I'm working on these days.  The latest Finale upgrade is another one that I feel I've wasted my money on.  I got right into it, and it's nowhere near as good as working with Sibelius 6.  On my system, I can't even get it to start a lot of the time, and working with VSL (SE +) and Brass & Woodwinds is not getting it for me.  If I wanted to spend the time necessary to get Finale 2010 working well, maybe I could get it.  I was a Finale fan since the beginning.  But now, Sibelius has done such a nice job of getting things to work the way I can appreciate,  The 'magnetic' adjusting of the articulations and score features, for example, leaves one free to keep working, and not having to move things out of way.

I wish Finale could have done a real job on the upgrade,  but I just don't see it.  And, I know Finale pretty well after all these years with it.

Call me fickle .. but Finale sorta looks better. Gives you more that feeling of writing on score paper. :D

I'm just starting out on Finale .. haven't bought the program yet .. just using the demo version and going through the tutorials .. I'm getting really into the idea of writing my music via score editor rather than midi because I have found that since using VI .. one doesn't need to do all the shoring-up that typically comes with midi libraries. One can write quantized notes in correct timing and it sounds very natural when played back.

The other advantage being that of course your score is then orchestra ready .. or close to anyways. Of course you all know this but it's a new thing for me.

The biggest problems I have in either Finale or Sibelius is to overcome the problem of Workflow. Neither program is all that intuitive out of the box and you need to know the short cuts and key commands to really get things done.

For instance .. changing the timing at a certain bar .. it's not obvious how one does that .. indeed I've been trying to find out for the last hour and I still can't do it :P. Whereas in logic one simply puts the Playback hairline in the appropriate bar and then on the transport bar you alter the bar structure to suit.

It's little things like that, that I like. Simple, easy and useful. I know, I know .. read the manual :D I am doing that too but I feel if they're going to improve these programs they might start with things like that. Would be nice to be able to click the mouse on the measures timeline (Or whatever you wanna call it) and have the hairline move to that point .. and play the music from there.

Either way I'm wanting to get further into this so I have to decide which program is going to give me what I want. I also need access to the expression controllers and if possible a way to see the score in midi form so I can get to grips with what I'm doing.

Do any of these do any of this?

I would press on with Logics score editor but I've spent the last 2 years trying to find a way to make it fit a full orchestra score and still haven't found how to do that. They seem to have aimed the logic score page at bands or very small ensembles.

Wonder if cubase is any better ... hmmm?