Finale vs. Sibellius ?

Joli Gadjo

Hi guys,

I am finally decided to commit to get a real music / transcription software.
So, running into the obvious Finale and Sibellius, I tested demos for Allegro and G7... I still haven't make any choice yet, they both look great !

What's your experience with one or the other ? I know prices are different, and the learning curve of Finale products is slower... What else could you argue in favor of one of them ?
Thanks for sharing your experiences with me !

MichaelHorowitz

Well, if you like the DjangoBooks charts then use Finale. I do everything using that software. I've never use Sibelius so I can't really compare. But Finale has worked well for me...

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Stackabones

I use Sibelius G7 and have had great results with it.

CalebFSU

Someone just gave me Sibelius 5 and I haven't even loaded it one my computer yet. I have used an old demo version that I got at a Carl Allen workshop that was held at FSU a few years ago for a while and it was ok I am excited to get the actual program. Once I load it and try to fiddle faddle with it I will post what I think of it here.

Chris Peterson

I have worked as a pro copyist for the past 4 years and I use Finale. It was always the most customizable for professional work. I can make my charts look exactly how I want to. It is also the industry standard, so if you ever want to work professionally, you will need to know it.

With that said, if you aren't looking to become a copyist, I hear that sibelius is way easier (finale has a crazy learning curve), and it is definitely gaining on finale in terms of customizing your layouts, fonts, etc.

djangology

we used to have a WIKI where people were putting notated charts that they were creating but it was overrun by spammers:

http://www.petersonmusic.com/wiki

I guess somebody doesn't like the idea of a free fakebook.