Finale Notepad, or Noteworthy Composer?

I’m just starting to compose music. I’m using an old version of Finale Notepad Plus 2005a. This program seems to work fairly well for my purposes, it will also create *.mid files for me. There are a couple things that bother me about it though. They are:

1. It’s limited to using only one key signature, and one time signature per writing.

In other words, I can’t change key signatures or time signatures midstream.

2. It has limited time signatures to begin with.

3. It’s limited to only 7 differnet instruments per writing.

That’s very near my limit anyway, but recently I wanted to use 8 and had to forfeit one instrument.

Does Noteworthy Composer offer anything more than this? Is it worth the $40 when Notepad is free?

Also, what are Finale “Print Music” and “Allegro” like? I’m not sure if I want to spend a lot of money when I’m actually getting by with Notepad Plus for now. But if they allow changing time and key signatures midstream, and they also allow for more instruments at a time I might be compelled to spring for one of them.

What’s the difference between “Print Music” and “Allegro”? I see Allegro is the more expensive package, what does is do that “Print Music” doesn’t do?

Are there any other software options out there that aren't real expensive?

Thanks in advance for any responses,

James

In my humble opinion, I would say get PrintMusic, or, if you don't want to spend anything, just get the NWC demo for now.

NWC is practically free (the demo gives you full funcionality basically) and has unlimited staves, but the midi sounds suck.

PrintMusic allows up to 24 staves I believe, and is a pretty good buy, what is it like 60 or so dollars? Anyway, Finale is easier to use and sounds better than NWC in my opinion, and the company lets you upgrade your product. So when you get better and want Finale 2008 or something like that, you get a tremendous discount.

From what I know, Allegro is just a toned down version of the expensive Finales (200x).

Thank you for the quick reply and information Luke.

As I’ve said, I’m currently using an older version of Finale Notepad Plus. The other thing that I forgot to mention is that it doesn’t allow for any configuration as far as how the staffs will appear on the page.

Does Print Music allow the composer to have any control over how the staffs are laid out on the page? (i.e. number of measures on a line, font size, etc.)

Also, can you add just a single staff at a time?

With Notepad I’m pretty well stuck with what I start with. If I want to change an instrument out for another one I basically need to start a whole new project and then copy and past everything over to that.

I’m getting pretty interested in composing so I’d like to have some flexibility without spending anymore than I need to. I have a feeling that I might be graduating to the full blown Finale before too long too, so maybe the money spent on Print Music or Allegro would be a sound investment since it will count toward a later upgrade to their professional program.

I’m seriously considering making a purchase. I’m just not sure whether I want to start with “Print Music” or just dive right in with “Allegro”.

Can anyone give me a clue what significant features I’d get with “Allegro” that would be missing in “Print Music”? It does seem to be significantly more expensive.

I'm an avid NWCer. (=)

You get unlimited staves, unlimited time signatures. You can change them whenever. So yeah, the only thing is it uses bad-ish MIDI sounds, which when you think of it, isn't that terrible. Yeah.

Thanks Mitchel,

I suppose it's worth downloading and taking a look at first. It might be all I need. I'm not too worried about the midi sound. There are other ways to enhance the sound of a midi composition after the fact.

I'm more interested in the composing tools for right now.

I'll have to take a personal look at the NWC software I guess. I was hoping that by starting this thread I might avoid having to shop around and just grab what's going to work right off the bat.

I suppose I can't go wrong with Print Music or Allegro, I'm just wondering if they’re worth the money? Are there any serious advantages to them at all? Do they have any significant composition tools that would make things a lot easier? Do they make compositions look more professional when they are printed out? Things like that.

I don’t want to spend money if the free stuff does the job. Sounds like NWC may have already tackled some of the problems I’m facing (i.e. staff limitations, and changing time and key signatures in the middle of a piece)

Well, with Printmusic 2006, the expressions actually do work to some degree- they may work better with the newer versions. I am quite happy with Printmusic 2006 except for a few problems (and again, these may be fixed in the the newer version): The program freezes if you play a section over and over again (which I end up doing a lot to see if I really like it), and the expressions do not work all the time. Besides that it really is a useful program (it transposes easily, allows you to format the page quite simply) and I am glad that I bought it- it has all the features I really want. Oh, and once you buy it, you can upgrade it for a much cheaper cost.

Thanks to everyone for your input. You comments have helped me to make my decision.

I downloaded the NWC, it was a much smaller download than I though it would be (616 KB)

I have mixed feelings about NWC. It does seem to have many advantages in over Notepad with respect to timing, and having control over changing keys on the fly, and adding staves at whim. It even respects volume change articulations which I really would like to have in Notepad. Unfortunately though, the sound characteristic of NWC are pretty miserable. Even with control over loudness it just doesn’t have the kind of sound that Finale has. At first I didn’t think the sound would bother me, but now that I’ve actually heard it play I much prefer the Finale sound.

I think I’ll go with Finale’s Print Music program. I think Allegro is a bit expensive for me at this time, and I suppose I can always upgrade later, but Print Music doesn’t sound all that bad at $60 especially considering the discount on further upgrades.

I’m definitely ready to move up from Notepad Plus. While is has been a wonderful learning tool, I’m now at the point where I would really appreciate some additional features, not the least of which is it’s ability to recognize articulations or expressions. I’m currently writing a piece where I need some parts to slowly fade out while other parts fade in, and without the volume control I can’t really hear what it will sound like.

I know that NWC has the volume control, but it’s midi sound is so bad that even with the volume control I can’t really get a feel for how this is going to sound. I think Finale does a much better job with the sound, and being able to hear what it will sound like is more important to me than I originally thought.

Now I need to buy a new computer. (ha ha)

Yeah noteworthy is definitely the way to go as far as crappy programs. If you want to spend money though, we all have plenty of suggestions.

Finale 07 at the academic price with GPO is very inexpensive and quite a decent program.

Yes I can see now that I'm already addicted to Finale's style of user interface as well as their better quality midi sound.

Perhaps I should have entitled this thread, "Print Music or Allegro?"

Although, since I can upgrade from one to the other I guess I can just start with Print Music and upgrade to Allegro (or Finale) later. I'm definitely ready to move up from Notepad, even though it was really nice to start with.

I've been using it for two years now, but I haven't really been 'composing'. I actually bought it as a learning aid to learn how to play the violin and piano. Since I'm not good at reading time, I was able to put my lesson in Notepad and play them at a slower speed to get a feel for how the music should sound at slower speeds. It was actually quite helpful for that, especially for learning the violin.

I even used it to write up a few practice exercises, not really trying to be musical so much. But now I'm becoming interested in actually writing my own music for multiple instruments. I'm already up to the limit of seven staffs of Notepad, and I would like to add more for percussion, timpani, and other possible instruments.

I’ve been bitten by the composition bug! :)

Before buying anything, why don't you try a program called Melody Assistant. It's very easy to use, and more importantly (for me) it is incredible easy to fix your mistakes.

I like the interface worlds better than finale, and it's pretty cheap ($20).

I only just now downloaded Melody Assistant. So far I am vastly impressed with the sound, the composition capabilities, and the apparent user interface (although I really haven’t had time to do much with it yet but listen to a few examples).

If this program works for the piece I’m currently working on I’ll gladly fork over the $20. That’s an incredible price for a program that appears as sophisticated as this one does.

I also saved my piece from Notepad as a midi file and loaded it into Melody Assistant, already it sounds much better than the Notepad rendering, and I haven’t even put loudness articulations in yet.

This is great Monkey Food! Thank you very much for the suggestion! I had no clue there was anything out there this good for only $20. (assuming it holds up to this first impression).

Thank you, thank you, thank you! :thumbsup:

This Melody Assistant program is fantastic! And for only 20 bucks it’s unbelievable!

I’ve been using it all night and so far it has solved all the problems I had with Notepad.

It has great sound that’s even user definable for each individual instrument.

It has all the special effects such as reverb, tremolo, etc, that you can adjust however you like.

More important to me is that it obeys articulation symbols, for expression and dynamics.

I like the layout, it’s totally “zoomable” on the fly.

You can add and remove staffs on the fly and/or change their instrument designations.

You can change meter and key in any measure on the fly.

It has a wealth of tools and toolboxes that are easy and convenient to use.

It has a very professional look and feel to it.

I’m impressed. For $20 it’s a steal.

It does have a few things I’m not real happy with though. Like after you place a note you have to click on other tool to move it. I was used to just nudging notes up and down with the vertical arrow keys and selecting adjacent notes with the horizontal keys. I’m surprised they didn’t build that feature into this.

Their may be an easier way to select notes and I just haven’t found it yet, but so far it seems that I need to use the mouse to select a note, plus you can’t tell when a note is selected. It’s doesn’t highlight in a differnet color. It could be that I just haven’t figured out how to navigate the edit functions well enough yet. But their help documentation doesn’t seem to be easy to navigate either.

None the less I am finding my way around with it.

I also can’t seem to find a tuplet tool or a glissando tool. And I couldn’t find these in the help index either. It could have these features and I just haven’t figured out where they are yet.

Finally, the print out of the score doesn’t appear as professional as Notepad. But again, their may be ways to clean that up a bit too.

I can’t complain though, it does solve all the major problems that were holding me back in Notepad. I’m sold for the price. I was able to load in my previous work from notepad via a midi file and then just clean up a few details. So the piece I’m working on is already converted over to Melody Assistant and I’ve been working on it in that program now. I can’t see going back to Notepad now.

For 20 bucks I think I’ll just go with Melody Assistant. It appears to do everything I need for now.

I’m really glad I started this thread. This saved me from having to spend the big bucks on "Print Music".

I'm glad I could be of help.

What I actually like most about the program is that you have the option to not limit editing to a single measure. This means if you change the duration of a note it will bump the rest of the notes in the song accordingly (creating slurs etc. if necessary).

I haven't been able to figure out how to do this in any other program.

You can use the keyboard to change the durations, but I think you're stuck with clicking to actually enter the notes.

The 3/2 tool in the note toolbox lets you enter triplets and you may be able to change the value (I'm not sure).

It also works with GPO if you care about that.

Well, I’ve been spending the last couple days just learning how to use this new program. I did try to do some composing but it was a bit frustrating having to hunt for tools and figure out what options are available, so I finally decided that I need to just take a whole day here and just go over each and every tool one-by-one to see precisely what’s available, and how to use it.

I discovered some interesting things thus far.

First off, if you go to “Windows – Pallets – Show all pallets” it will splatter all the tool pallets all over your screen. I’m glad I did that because it brought up some new toolboxes that I didn’t even know it had. Plus it also opened a bunch of empty toolboxes that are user definable. Just drag and drop whatever tools you want into a custom toolbox. That is just fantastic, because I was getting tired of having to open and close so many toolboxes.

I made just one custom toolbox that contains all of the tools that I seem to be using regularly (including the nifty tuplet tool). By the way, you can define the tuplet value and appearance by simply double-clicking on the tuplet tool to open a set-up window. It is pre-set to place 3 notes in the time 2 and will do this automatically based on the duration of the notes you drop on it.

Now I only need to have one toolbox open and it contains everything I use on a regular basis. It’s a really clean screen now. All the less used tools are still available, but I’ve hidden all pallets save for the one custom pallet. It makes for a really clean workspace and less mouse clicks and searching for toolboxes. You can define up to 8 custom toolboxes and re-customize those at any time. I think this one will serve me quite well for now.

I’ve also found some new ways to select notes, and move them around individually. I couldn’t find anything in the documentation about this, but if you click on a note head with the left mouse button, then wait just a little bit and press the right mouse button down a finger will appear and you can move the note around with the mouse and it will play dynamically while you move it over every line or space in whole steps. Of course, you can also move it in semi-tones using the Ctrl key plus a (+ or -) to move the note up and down. But if you want to move in whole steps you can do it with the mouse. I actually prefer to use the keyboard, but I haven’t yet found a way to select the notes using the keyboard. So rather than jumping back and forth between selecting them with the mouse and then nudging them around with the Ctrl key I can now just move them directly with the mouse (at least in whole steps).

The other thing I really like about this program is the amount of control I have over the sound. It recognizes quite a few articulations and expressions, allowing control over instruments almost like a conductor in an orchestra. Plus it has an additional mixer that actually shows the volume levels for every staff and those can be adjusted independently as well so I can really have full control over the volume of each instrument.

Finally, it even allows the user to define the timber and sound of an instrument. You can create your own instruments simply by playing a single C-note into a microphone. I haven’t tried this yet, but I’m thinking about recording my own flute, violin, guitar, clarinet and piano. You only need to play a clean C-note and the program will create the sound of the instrument from that sonic ‘fingerprint’. It sounds interesting but I don’t know how well it works yet.

This is starting to get a little further away from the actual work of composing and more into just ‘playing around with computers’. But I think the better I feel about the sound the more inspired I’ll be to compose.

In any case, you can probably tell from the size of this post that I’m excited about this program. Especially for the price. I’ve already purchased it but I haven’t gotten my license number yet. I want to write in keys other than C Major and without the purchase it will only permit writing in the key of C. It also won’t save midi files yet either, but it will load from them. It’s a pretty nice little program. I think it has Notepad beat in a lot of ways. Although I’m not sure if it compares with Print Music or Allegro since I’ve never used them. This is only 20 bucks though. You just can’t beat it for the price!

I've used NoteWorthy for years and found it a solid product. I recently got Finale 2007 with GPO to be compatible with my nephew who is a full-time music student. I can't say I am impressed with Finale considering its cost - it seems very buggy and hard to use. BTW, there is a new version of NWC coming out (soon?) which may have better scoring, which is the current version's lack, so that is something to keep in mind.

I must confess that I didn't give NWC much of a chance. I downloaded it and opened a few examples and some other midi files and I just couldn't get the kind of sound from it that I was hoping for.

After I downloaded Melody Assistant I was so impressed that I just uninstalled NWC pretty quick and didn't really work with it much at all. So I can't really say what the tools are like in it.

I'm really happy with Melody Asistant for now. It's sounds pretty good to me and so far it seems to have all the tools and capabilities that I was looking for.

The poor sound of NWC could have had something to do with my own computer, but if that were the case then why does Melody Assistant sound so great?

I'm still waiting for a license number for the program. I ordered late Friday night and I understand they email lisence numbers personally so I have to wait until Monday to get the number. There are a few features that I can't use yet, like using key sigs other than C and saving files to midi format. So I'm anxious to try those features out.

It also came with "Virtual Singer" which is kind of cool, that program will actualy sing the lyrics of a song. It's not real great sounding, but it does give an idea of how the lyrics might sound. That's an additional $20 I think. I don't think I'll buy that feature, but it's kind of nice to know that it's an option that I might want to use in the future. I imagine it will get better over time too.

The $20 license for Melody Assistant is a 'lifetime' license which means that all future upgrades are free. So it's a one-time fee for a program that will likely evolve as time goes on.

I think the NWC is $40? (to actually license it properly)

At this current point in time Melody Assitance appears to be offering me everything I need with better sound at half the cost. So this is cool.

I think i started out with melody assistant. was it developed by Myriad?

I think i started out with melody assistant. was it developed by Myriad?

Yes is it a Myriad product.

I'm really excited about it at the moment because of it's apparent capabilities, great midi sound (and control over that), and its very low price.

I’m still waiting on my license code though to save midi files and change key signatures. :innocent:

Some people on this thread have said NWC uses bad midi sounds. I though midi sounds were specific to the hardware, not to the software running on it. Is that not correct?

KrH