e

Obviously you know nothing about sibelius. Put simply, you are wrong.

I pick a spot where I want something put and sibelius puts it where it wants.

Maybe I should have purchased Finale, but I have heard of the same kind of crap from them.

I apologize, I was not talking about Sibelius, with which I have zero experience. However, I can assure you that Finale, which I have been using for nearly 15 years, has very simple placement of expressions and articulations - at least since version Fin'06. All automatic. I have very little editting to do when I enter a score.

I suspect that the people you have heard talking poorly about Finale may either still be on older versions of the software, or are maybe unaware of improvements and automatic placement options that speed up notation work considerably.

Be that as it may, there is no excuse for a sloppy score, whether it be hand-written or computer generated.

When writing code for any program, it is not that difficult to add a couple of lines that say do not put one thing on top of another. Yet even from what you are saying it wasn't until version 06 for finale and sib still does it. That tells me the owners of these programs are fixing what they know is wrong just enough to sucker us in to buy the next latest and newest in hopes of things finally being right. Sibelius as of sib4 is not. I have sib5, but am waiting for my new computer to load it.

And you are right. Most of those that complain are using older versions of finale.

When I place an expression, it should be a quick and painless operation. Sometimes it is and sometimes it can be a nightmare. So I let it go and they pile up, until it becomes a horrible job fixing what never should have happened in the first place.

If I use Sib's function of playing on my midi keyboard and letting sib enter the notes, I am looking at hours and hours of cleaning up a score. It gets to the point of being ridiculus, so I and others give up.

Hopefully most of this nonsense is cleared up in sib5, but my guess is that just some of it is so that when sib6 comes out, they still will sucker me and others into upgrading again. The endless upgrade game. It gets old fast.

Not to side-track this thread, even before I became aware of Finale's automatic placement options (which would have been around Fin'05) I never had any issues with items overlaying each other. This could be an issue unique to Sibelius. I seem to remember reading something about Sibelius' placement of items putting handles in conflicting positions. This has never been an issue with Finale. With Finale there always was a simple "click here, item appears here" interface. This has been the same since the very first version of Finale I used (version 3.0). As a matter of fact, the automatic placement of items MAY very well have been present in earlier versions of Finale, but it was greatly simplified in recent years.

Music notation is a highly complex field. It also is governed by sometimes arcane rules which make pure automatization impossible in any realistic sense. Finale gives as much leeway as possible in this regard, and automatizes as far as is possible within those rules. As I have said, I've never had any trouble making my scores look good, and with a minimum of fuss and muss.

Are you working from a sequencing programme? First entering notes there then transferring the MIDI file into notation? In my particular case, I do not use any sort of sequencer. Only Finale. My notation file is my playback file. I think it's doing a fine job. However, I've always worked directly from notation. I understand that it's not for everyone.

I have tried Sibelius and didn't care for it. I know it is capable of producing a professional score. However its input methods are not right for me. As a matter of fact, even Finale has a "recommended" input method ("Simple Entry") which I do not use, since it just does not work for me. I use the older "Speedy Entry" method (yes, I know.. Simple Entry is actually the more complex method, with more tools and more notational flexibility, while Speedy Entry is actually a bit slower... the names are a throwback to the first versions of the programme).

I have upgraded almost every year with Finale, it's a minor investment of money (works out to 7$ a month... less than I spend on World of Warcraft) for something I use professionally every day of the year.

I don't have a problem with giving that money to the makers of Finale. I upgraded this year to Finale 2008 because of a few changes to the user interface that immensely speed up my work. I MAY not upgrade next year. It all depends on what new features they add. If there are any new features next year that really seem to speed up my work, I'll probably upgrade again. If not, I'll just skip a year. It's no biggie.

I'm afraid I don't understand people who complain about spending a bit of money on a yearly programme upgrade (jeeze, you should read the WHINING on the Finale forums!! ugh, gimme a break!) for something that you use as much as your notation software. Unless writing music is something you do as a hobby on alternate week-ends of months that have two full moons and only in leap years, it seems like a non-issue to me. It's a worthwhile investment.

As is at least one book on standard notation practice. There are a number of them on the market, most of which can be gotten 2nd hand for a couple of dollars through Amazon.com. I think I have three books on notation, and will be buying another very soon.

Fredrick

First off I love the music.

As to the score. I figured all along that the video score was just enough to get the idea and it does well at that.

I have used both Sib and Finale. And to tell the truth, they both suck. They both will do the dumbest things and can make life hard cleaning up a score. That said, they are probably the best things on the market. But if you are rushing thru scoring a piece and decide to come back later to try to fix the score, count on many many hours of work trying to make things pretty. Whereas if you look at some of Beethoven's or Hayden's scores, you can barely discern what they had in mind. I have a excerpt from Handel's Messiah, that I can barely read.

Just my two cents worth

Ron

Hi Rolifer!

Glad you liked the Valse Sentimentale.

Fredrik

e

yes, i am. and as soon as i get home from work i will listen to your new post.

Michael

Do you have any music I can listen to that you have written, I couldn't find anything. :sadtears:

Most of my music output is not available in audio format because I do not want it released without permission from the performing ensembles involved - mostly my works from college involving collegiate ensembles and written for specific musicians (I gave some of them out as gifts). I also have a few works here on the boards that I consider either inconsequential or that are still in incomplete form.

I'm not a fan of electronic music at all (I consider replacing musicians with machines to be slitting one's throat and ultimately bad for the field of music as a whole), therefore you'll be hard pressed to find any electronic representations out there other than what I've already mentioned.

I'll see if I can find a recording of my first or second symphony and get it moved from audio tape to mp3 format. *shrug*