[Johannes Gebauer:]
>I am surprised you consider Igor more a possibility than Sibelius. I am
>pretty sure Sibelius is much better than Igor, in almost any respect.
My opinion is admittedly second-hand, so I can't vouch for it. I've been
on the Igor list for a couple of years, so my opinion of that program is based
on much of the discussion that took place; but I must admit that much of this
was well before the program was actually issued, so how many of the promised
features have already made it into the actual program, I don't know.
I still have a good impression of Igor's features at least in some
respects; it's mainly stability, speed (or, rather, the apparent lack of these),
and the humongous copy protection scheme it now apparently has which are major
turn-offs for me now. (It's called "PACE", and it sounded totally evil from
many of the acrid comments that were made about it on the Igor-Talk list. And
the company persistently deferred answering people's concerned questions about
it.)
However, due to computer problems (mainly a too-full hard disk and
uncertainty about how to solve this problem), I have not yet installed and used
Igor, even though I have purchased the program.
I was also asking questions on the Sibelius list at one time, and trying
out the demo version (which is not now the most recent version, so it may be
better now), and this gave me the impression that Sibelius could not do many
things that I would consider it essential for a good program to be able to do -
such as moving dots or accidentals belonging to notes independently of the notes
themselves. (In complexly-textured piano music, for example, I consider it
essential to be able to move any notational element independently, at least
occasionally.) There were other limitations I didn't like, too, although I
don't remember what they were now.
It is a combination of things such as these that gave me the opinion that
Igor was more powerful than Sibelius.
However, I understand Finale is the most powerful program of all, which is
why I am considering getting it. (A couple of people mentioned simpler or
cut-down versions of Finale. But the full version is the only one I will
consider.)
The ease of using Finale, though, has been of concern to me, especially
since I have a strong preference for using the keyboard (computer keyboard, that
is) as much as possible for doing things, especially tasks which are going to be
repeated many times an hour. (Being a touch-typist, and not wanting to damage
my hands strengthen this preference.) I've heard comments from various people
which seem to indicate that Finale is not easy to use; and certainly, when I was
experimenting with the demo version, I found it far more difficult to figure out
than the Sibelius demo version I was trying out at the same time.
Since I already have Igor, I will try it when I've sorted out various
computer problems I have; but I must admit I have less faith in it than I used
to. Purchasing Finale looks more likely now than it has done before, although
I've been considering it for some time.
Regards,
Michael Edwards.
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