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?

[Marius Amado-Alves]

I was replying to Pete, not you!

Your process sounds very good. Thanks for sharing your Concerto. Consider uploading this stuff onto your main page. Here it will get burried under posts and time.

The Concerto. At 7:02 the piano strikes terribly out of key relative to the others instrumens. Surely this is on purpose, but still... Well, I'll have to relisten. Nice work. Very listeneable. On a first listen I miss a more memorable theme, but as I said I'll have to relisten. Or take a look at the score ;-)

[pete whitfield]

Hi Marius - I start with both manuscript paper and midi to get ideas and sketches, then work predominantly with midi/audio to re-draft, and finally move back to notation to get it to look right! I guess all the bits (manuscript, midi, audio, software notation) are involved all through the process.

[Marius Amado-Alves]

I see. Nice process. When you say you use MIDI you mean you write MIDI code, or you use an instrument that happens to output MIDI?

[Alexander Sadovski]

Hi,
I would recommend you to look for Myriad Harmony Assistant.
Regards

[Marius Amado-Alves]

Mup is a computer program that generates scores and MIDI from text input. See arkkra.com