First Program for Composing?

Well, I've got a bit of a dilemma; so far I'm stuck composing on whatever freeware I can find trolling on the internet, so I'm wondering: what was your first composing software? I've looked at the Sibelius Student Edition, seeing as I don't have $600. Any opinions?

Sibelius 2. I didn't actually get it until I was almost done with two movements of my horn concerto, and could therefore almost justify shelling out some cash. Before that I composed entirely with pencil and paper.

This will be utterly useless to you, but...from another time, from the world of Macintosh...

The year was roughly 1991. The computer was a Mac LC. The software was a program called EZ Vision. It was a simple piano-roll midi sequencer, and it came with a midi interface. I had a Yamaha PSR-300 for a keyboard (nice keyboard!). I was six or so. I wrote music that ended in a different key than it began.

EZ Vision was a dumbed down version of Vision, which I ended up getting illegit from my composition teacher. But between those two I had Musicshop, which had primitive notation features. All of these were made by Opcode, a really cool company that went out of business around the turn of the millenium.

Anyhow, I recommend piracy. But not really, because that's probably how Opcode tanked. It's all my fault.

Wierd...I don't remember the names of my first two softwares, but they were both notation software.

The very first was about 1990, and it ran in an MS-DOS platform. Note entry was a nightmare, printout was on a dot-matrix printer, and playback was only one line at a time through the computer's throaty internal speaker. I gave up on that pretty quick.

The next was 7 or 8 years ago, and all I remember was that their logo was a zebra, and it was cheap - like $40. It was OK, but you get what you pay for. I gave up on the software within a year, but I still have some of the MIDIs I made with it.

My first "real" notation software was Finale 99 - I got it relatively cheap because I used the institutional/education discount, and I've upgraded three times since.

Officially my first notation software was a very small component of an ancient Windows game called 'The Treehouse'. I was about four at the time (early 1992, I imagine), and it was a kids' game that included two lines of music onto which one could put notes and play them back. Although it was probably what got me interested in composing (that and having a couple of pianos around), I'm sure you're not after that, so...

I got PrintMusic 2000 (a no-frills version of Finale '99, I believe) in 2002 - it was an okay starter program (about $70, I think) - but it's missing a lot. Amongst other problems, it's got quite a few glitches, doesn't open midi files as particularly good scores, and only sometimes can handle dynamics and tempo changes. (If that doesn't bother you particularly [or if there're newer versions of PrintMusic that are better], then give it a closer look.)

I've moved on now, to Finale 2002, which I can't comment on as I'm still trying to get it to work. (Almost there - will finish up once I get home.)

Wow. Thanks. Print Music sounds like what I need... it's not expensive. All I really need for a step up is something that'll actually handle tempo changes and dynamics period. So far I've gotten dynamics, but apparently tempo takes too much time to program.

The first ever electronic composition tool I used was a game called Mario Paint on the SNES. It had a music composition mode where you could place various objects on a stave (rhythms to the nearest crotchet, and a range of roughly 2 octaves). Each object would constitute a different instrument, with stars being glockenspiels, airplanes being guitars, mushrooms being drums, and so on. After messing around with this (at a friend's house, he wasn't too enthralled with it though :blush:), I remembered seeing a notation program at another friend's house a year or so earlier. Thus I began a search for it. Thus I cottoned onto the fact that there wasn't one single notation program in the world. Thus I officially turned into a Composer.

What a pretty little story.

LOL, I loved Mario Paint. Played it at a friends house who got a copy off ebay. It was a fun little game, if a little limited as composition software :blush: But, as I recall it, you couldn't save, so all Mario masterpieces remain forever lost to the world. :D

But, as I recall it, you couldn't save, so all Mario masterpieces remain forever lost to the world.

This will be utterly useless to you, but...from another time, from the world of Macintosh...

The year was roughly 1991. The computer was a Mac LC. The software was a program called EZ Vision.

My first notation software... well, I used DOS, if that counts! I believe .BAT files, essentially macro programs for DOS, support some nice commands that let you write one-note lines using the system speaker - the one that always beeped when you typed too fast.

After that, I moved to a DOS language called QBasic (for which I built several video games), which had the PLAY keyword that would, again, crank out nice melodies with the system speaker.

Our first REAL notation software was MusicTime. Pretty horrible compared to Finale. But I managed to do some cool things with it, including an arrangement of the credit roll music from the SNES Star Fox. Great stuff! I still have that arrangement, converted to an .MUS. Not really an arrangement, though, as it just duplicates the sound in the credit roll music, adapted for piano. I guess it's an adaptation. I could play it at one point.

Now, I use Finale 2006, the only piece of software I ever bought before its release. What a marvel!

http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/

There's a list of pretty much every (non-commerical) music program in existance - it's a very nice site if you want to browse through your software options. Check under MIDI Sequencers and Notation for your scoring needs. Personally, I prefer sequencers since they have a more direct interface between you and the sound of the music, but notation-oriented software of course have the advantage of better organization for printing out sheets and whatnot. There's some free-ware, along with shareware and demo versions listed in the site to get you started. I've pretty much been using Cakewalk Products (from Pro Audio to Home Studio to Sonar) for my entire composition "career", so I'm fairly biased towards that. Other (sequencer) alternatives include Steinburg's Cubase, and Magix Logic (though the latest versions only seem to be available on the mac). Speaking of the Mac, Digital Performer is quite a cool sequencer tool, with pretty good notation as well (and Pro Tools is great too, but more for audio than MIDI). None of these are cheap, though I believe there are often "budget" versions available - such as Cakewalk's Home Studio series and Cubasis from Steinberg. But look around the site - you might just find something you like.

Wow. Thanks. Print Music sounds like what I need... it's not expensive. All I really need for a step up is something that'll actually handle tempo changes and dynamics period. So far I've gotten dynamics, but apparently tempo takes too much time to program.

Consider NoteWorthy Composer. Cheap and effective although it does lack in certain features... you get what you pay for though.

I use two open source programs: Jazzware for recording and editing midi files, and LillyPond Version 2.6.3 (stable) for writing sheet music. Both are free and require no registration.

Jazzware is very easy to use and has nice features. It has a keypad and guitar fingerboard. It also has many useful tools like interactive chord progression charts. You can edit tempo and dynamics/velocity in a few simple clicks and edit up to 16 tracks. Its also has a nice GUI. I was able to create a midi file in minutes when I first used this program.

Lillypond takes a little while to get used to since it uses a scripting language. If you're into scripting though you can create professional looking scores. The online docs are very helpful.

You can download Jazzware at:

http://jazzware.org

You can download LillyPond at:

http://lillypond.org

My first: some archaic version of Cakewalk. I never found the traditional approach in finale good in my workflow, but i got to love the concept of "piano roll" in cakewalk, cubase, which was adopted in reason also, which i prefer now because of the strong connection with the samples. But if you think of printing your music, you can't avoid finale, at one point or another :)

Yeonil

My first was NoteWorthy Composer - it really rules (sooooo more simple than sib or finale), but i had to move on to finale.

Mine was called "Midisoft Music Magic" I still have it from 1994, and still use it for my main midi playback!

Huh, I had forgotten about this topic. I had no idea it had gotten so many replies!

Anyway, I guess I'm using FinaleNotepad now, though it gets extremely annoying; no key changes, no tempo changes (are there?), and that no exporting to midi thing is getting pretty annoying. Anyone have any idea if Notepad plus is any better?