Sibelius vs Finale

I got Sibelius 5 recently, it doesn't really matter to me what the midi sounds like, but it works great for scoring manuscripts quickly, easily and they look really neat and professional.

I haven't actually used Finale though, and would be really interested in trying it out.

I was just checking out the Demo's of Finale's Allegro (one step below "Finale"-the top of the line software--about $199) and "Sibelius First" (One step below Sibelius 5--about $129.00). I thought that Sibelius First has a great interface, but was lacking in 1 or 2 things. I did not like how Sibelius First notated drums. You do not have instant notating access to all the drum sounds on the staff. You can put drum note down on the staff, but to get a cymbal sound (which are above the staff) you have to use your computer keyboard to scroll through the different drum note heads until you get the right sound. You will hear nothing if you put a note above the staff without changing it to drum notation after you plant a note. It's weird and inconvenient. Allegro you just move your cursor up and down the staff until you hear the correct percussion sound that you want--Allegro automatically changes notation. Finale Allegro gives you way more customizations, too. Sibelius 5 had better undo's. You can see a list of actions and undo them all. Allegro you only have 1 undo. Another nice thing about Allegro was that it plays back chord symbols. Sibelius First does not.

I don't know about Finale, but I thought the prime feature of Sibelius 5 was that it can host VST instruments. Before, you'd have to save to MIDI and load it on a sequencer such as Cubase. I find Sibelius 5 rather buggy though.

I've used both and have always preferred finale- Sibelius is a piece of crap.

@cygnusdei: Finale, as of 2009, now fully supports all VST plugin instruments. It was able to work with most major packages before too, but it wasn't particularly stable in doing so — 2009 has been rock solid for me so far though, and I really put it to the test with intense plugin usage.

Sibelius 5 has lots of great features (that idea bar thing is pretty neat) but I've always found the experience of using Finale much more straight-forward and robust than Sibelius, even though the two packages are basically the same thing with different aesthetics and slightly different functionality. You basically can't go wrong with either so it's more a matter of use preference than actual functionality.

Even though I primarily use Finale, I always try out the latest Sibelius version too in case I'm swayed to switch over — I like to be open-minded about things because they're both such awesome pieces of software.

I have Sibelius 4. I must say, that I prefer how most Finale scores look. I got Sibelius because that's what my school used, and I found that it was much easier to use than Finale. I find it really easy to use for conventional notation.

That said, if I want to use other kinds of notation, I generally hand-write scores. To be honest, I find hand-writing things way more satisfying than using a computer program. Sibelius certainly asks me to jump through hoops to do some reasonably simple, though modern, composing techniques.

Anyway, it's really a personal preference thing.

I gae Finale Notepad another go recently just for some basic MIDI stuff...ad I couldn't work it! I'm just too used to Sibelius now. It's hard enough trying to learn Cubase 4 as well, seeing as am COMPLETELY new to sequencing and mixing!

So Sib all the way for me. I just can't get used to anything else.

Originally Posted by Fox

I gave Finale Notepad another go recently just for some basic MIDI stuff...and I couldn't work it! I'm just too used to Sibelius now. It's hard enough trying to learn Cubase 4 as well, seeing as am COMPLETELY new to sequencing and mixing!

So Sib all the way for me. I just can't get used to anything else.

well, to be perfectly fair, you cannot compare Notepad with the full version of Finale.

Notepad does not allow MIDI keyboard entry, for example. It also has an extremely limited set of features.

I have used both and I personally prefer Sibelius, but they both seem to be wonderful programs.

I have tried both. I ended up with Sibelius 3 and now upgraded to v.5.

Part of what I particularly like about Sibelius is the tech support / forums. At least a few years ago, Sibelius had the upper hand in that area. I dont know how it is now though. It used to be that you only used Finale for band type things though its obviously changed in more recent versions to become more friendly to a wide variety of genres.