Sibelius or Finale?

[MusicgalSD]

I am a student with very limited budget; however, I feel that making an upgrade from Finale Notepad 2007 to a much more powerful, versatile program will be highly worthwhile. My first decision was to save up about $90 to upgrade to Finale Print Music 2008, which I am fairly comfortable with from past experiences (except it was an older version). It also has all of the features I feel that I need because I am not a very advanced composer. But after doing some homework and reading the Sibelius website, Sibelius 5 sounds more convincing. I have never tried it hands-on before, so to make sure that spending $200 of my money will be worthwhile, I would like to hear some unbiased opinions of fellow consumers. So, what do you guys think? Why should I choose Sibelius over Finale Print Music?

[Britt]

Yea... in my opinion, absolutely not.
The ONLY thing Sibelius has over finale is that it comes with virtual drumline.
Sibelius' note entry is really weird, especially for a finale user.
The notes don't "lock" into their spots, so unless you click the note exactly where it should go, it shoves all the other notes to fit where you actually put it. (i.e. a quarter note could be sixteenth rest, then dotted eighth tied to a sixteenth)

Correct me if I am wrong, I have had limited experience with Sibelius, but what I had was very frustrating.

[Robert Throckmorton]

I think right now, until Sept. 30, the price for a competitive crossgrade is only $99, down from the regular $199 . . . of course terms and conditions apply, you have to mail them your Finale CD or the first 2 pages of the table of contents in the Finale manual.

I think both programs are good tools, I demoed both Finale and Sibelius before deciding to go with Sibelius 5, and I've been very happy with it. I really liked Notion too, but as I recall it didn't have all the features I was looking for - maybe in the next version.

[MusicgalSD]

Actually, I think I might like that. Sometimes I become frustrated with Finale when I want to insert notes between others and it perceives it as making a chord instead.

[Chris Alpiar]

I think either program will work great for writing to a score and for hearing some basic playback of your work without investing in tens of thousands of dollars in samples and DAW programs and sample engines etc. I use finale 2008 for making parts and scores but I also keep a copy of sibelius and one day I will give it its due diligence and try and understand how to work with it. I have heard its really awesome in its own right.

On that note though, I always write on paper with pencils and a straight edge for my drafts, then I sequence into a DAW as a performance (ie Digital Performer, Logic, Cubase, etc) since the playback from finale and sibelius will never match the realism capable with a DAW and performing all your parts. Then when I have the luxury of working with a live orchestra or musicians I will port my sequence to finale and create a score and parts. Hope that helps

[pete whitfield]

I can't compare Sib and Fin but I can tell you Sib is indeed a great tool, though I find it equally frustrating and satisfying! Frustrating because it works so differently from sequencers.
Like Chris, I also expect to record the midi information for the music in a sequencer (like Cubase, Logic or Digital Performer) and only move it to Sibelius when most of the creation is done. I notice Sibelius push the product as a creation tool, but I find there is a distinct difference between the technical process of making music sound right as opposed to look right (in notation).
I'm also still a big fan of Overture - quick and easy!

[pete whitfield]

Here's a blog about notation software that is worth following I believe, from a teacher at Berklee - Tom Rudolph.

[Chris Alpiar]

good article but he isnt a berklee teacher. He wasnt there when I was there in the early 90s for sure at least. The article says that he has trained Berklee teachers, not that he is one

[Graham Robb]

I have no experience of using Finale, but I watched an acquaintance use it once and it looked awkward to me. Years ago I used a programme called Encore which wasn't bad but not the best. Since switching to Sibelius, years ago, I've kept up to date with upgrades (expensive! here in the UK!), and find it ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT to use, both as a publishing tool and as a creative one. I really can't understand how anyone familiar with conventional music notation can find it frustrating to use!

[Marius Amado-Alves]

Maybe it's just my (bad?) tendency to be "alternative", but I use NoteWorthy Composer (on Windows) and Mup (all systems); I tried Finale and Sibelius and I did not find them superior in any aspect except Sibelius imports General MIDI drums very well onto a nice conventional drum staff. But I can get that with Mup. Surely the difference in features does not account for the order of magnitude difference in price. But even ignoring price, I find NWC much more practical to write scores than either Sib or Fin. On a similar token, I use GarageBand (comes with Mac) as my DAW. Currently I have been using the sounds that come shipped with it, but I have learnt that it is possible to load SoundFonts into it, and from my experience with SoundFonts on Timidity++ on Linux it is enough for professional mock-ups.

[pete whitfield]

The frustrating bits in Sib for me (if it is to be a really creative musical tool) are not being able to integrate audio tracks and not being able to edit midi as you can in a sequencer (unless I've missed something!). It depends on your working methods I guess! Vive la difference.

[Marius Amado-Alves]

DAW = Digital Audio Workshop (I think). Any thingamagig like GarageBand, Cakewalk, Cubase(?)...

[Marius Amado-Alves]

I'm kinda of surprised that you work backwards from MIDI to notation. I sustain a classical approach, from composer to musicians via notation. My ideal would be a tool that would play as written. Tools I've tried so far play almost as written. You need to tweek the MIDI a little bit afterwards, finetune volumes and stuff. But to me this is a limitation, a defect of the tools, not a principle of process. Maybe it is because of this defect that you chose to work backwards. But it does not work for me. Classical notation to me is still clearly a much superior means of expressing, recording, compositional ideas, composition, music pieces as the abstract entities that they are, than MIDI programs. Notation has the right level of abstraction. MIDI is like playing, sometimes even lower level.