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Gonna have to buy an updated version of Finale, as I've updated my MAC operating system, and the older version I had no longer works. ALSO....... at the same time, my daughter is going to be needing a music program for college (Eastman) this coming year, and two of their suggestions are Sibelius and Musescore..... free version. They don't suggest Finale..... why, I don't know. I know nothing about Sibelius.... except what I read online about it..... easier than Finale to use overall, but a bit weak on the instrument sounds and the score/page setups.

Anyway, I have been using Finale for several years... off and on, and am fairly familiar with it. Sibelius........ nada!! The educator/student price of Finale is very appealing right now........ and they're also offering $50 off, now through the end of this month.

I'm willing to spend the extra money for Sibelius if it's comparable to Finale, and offers the same results. I just don't want to "trade down" so to speak.

So.... my question is: In your opinion, which program is better? Which one do you guys like/use?

Enlighten me please.......... somewhat quickly!

Thanks.

If you already know and like Finale, and you like the price, that seems like the right choice. Finale and Sibelius have been competing long enough that you'd have to have some less common specific need to rule out either of them.

Musescore is really remarkably good and stable for free software. For a student (or anybody, really) who wants to try scoring without spending any money, it's a great choice. It's likely weakest on sounds, but I don't actually know that.

Since you asked, I'm a hobbyist, and started scoring for small groups about a year ago. I got Musescore because Finale was much more expensive than when I'd last looked five years ago, and I've been pleasantly surprised at how flexible and easy to use it is. I'm switching to Sibelius at the moment because my daughter bought me a subscription, but so far I haven't noticed any solid advantages (as an amateur, doing small scores).

I tried an early version of Finale some years ago and had to write down lots of instructions that I could not remember. The list kept getting longer and longer. Then someone told me about a special offer from Sibelius that was too good to pass up, and I have been using it ever since without bothering to make a cheat sheet. During my Windows XP years I had a Yamaha Tone generator working with Sibelius and was very happy with the sounds it made. Since having to switch to Windows 10 and Sibelius 6 I have been unable to get that combination to work. A fancy software that was supposed to be really great for synthesizing instrument sounds turned out to be disappointing and incredibly complicated, so I have learned to live with the the crummy sounds that come with Sibelius.

Don’t overlook Overture at http://sonicscores.com" target="_blank
This was a popular program under a different name in the 90s, then was sold to Cakewalk as that company’s notation program, then was sold back to the original developer who has made major upgrades since. In addition to being a very good notation program, it also serves as an almost complete DAW if you need that.

As a long time Finale user I think I know the pros and cons. But don't rely on us, read the link below. If you are submitting scores for publication or as demos, Noteperformer 3 is a necessity.

http://www.filmmusicmag.com/?p=1820" target="_blank" target="_blank"

There's a new kid on the block from Steinberg. It's called Dorico. Blows Finale and Sibelius away, IMHO.

Craig F wrote:There's a new kid on the block from Steinberg. It's called Dorico. Blows Finale and Sibelius away, IMHO.

I also like Dorico.

Mark wrote:

Craig F wrote:There's a new kid on the block from Steinberg. It's called Dorico. Blows Finale and Sibelius away, IMHO.

I also like Dorico.

Seconded. I am a Finale user, but plan to switch to Dorico whenever my current version stops working.

Snorlax...... what's the JW plug-in set?

J.E., What is a "DAW"?

Correct on DAW. I also use Cakewalk, but I don’t care for it’s built in notation program. If I just want a simple production, I use Overture to write and check the piece. It makes loading sounds from Kontakt for instance easy and also plays my old hardware synths. If I want a more elaborate production, I import the file into Cakewalk.
And if our choir director asks me to write out parts for our brass group from the hymnal, Overture does a good job of printing, too.

Before you

paulver wrote:Gonna have to buy an updated version of Finale, as I've updated my MAC operating system, and the older version I had no longer works.

A couple of options to explore before splashing out for a Finale upgrade or Sibelius:

If you're running Finale 25 or earlier, you may be able to get it to run—even in Catalina—by installing Jave SE 6 from Apple. I'm running 2010 and 2014.5, and the music director at my church is running 25. It was plug-and-play for both of us, but YMMV.

If you have the HD capacity, another option would be to run your current version of Finale in a virtual machine (VMware Fusion, Parallels, VirtualBox, etc.) running whatever version of MacOS/OS X you used previously. A VM will also allow you to continue to run other legacy software you may need to use occasionally (MOTU Mosaic, anyone?) but can't justify the cost of upgrading. Parallels is faster than VMF, but VMF is a one-time purchase, as opposed to Parallels which is subscription-only. VirtualBox is open source, but I haven't used it so have no opinion on how it stacks up vs. VMF or Parallels.

Finale must have fixed their output considerably. The last version I used extentively was 2005b, which is a long time ago now. It is still operative, more or less, on my old iMac that I start once a year to look for something (its hard drive is ailing.)

2005b could not even play its own scores correctly and the sounds were unbelievably horrible synthesized parodies of instruments. I ended up using only the clarinet sound to listen to what I wrote because it was the only one that was even close to listenable.

I downloaded Notepad within the year and the sounds were equally as awful.

I have used Sibelius for a while now and was taught Finale at my University. Sibelius for me is much easier for smaller projects, but when you get into large multipage scores, It's a big hassle and you are better off using Finale or Lilypond. LilyPond is a great free alternative and can't be beat as far as professional applications. LilyPond, however has a pretty steep learning curve and is not great for composition purposes because it does not have live midi feedback. For larger projects, I compose with Sibelius and engrave with LilyPond. As far as sounds are concerned, someone can always use different soundfonts downloaded online, or create a sound-set using a virtual instruments such as EWQL.

I hope this helps!