You are asking the sort of question which really is unanswerable, though.
It's like asking which is the better car:
Rolls Royce or Maserati -- depends on how you plan on using them -- they both are fantastic at what they claim to do.
Or asking which is better for dinner:
steak or lobster -- depends on what you like.
I like Finale. I work faster and better and more easily in Finale.
But there is no way I would recommend it to everybody who wants to use notation software.
That's why I said the person really has to try them both out.
If your friend is only going to try them for an hour and then make up her mind, then she should download noteworthycomposer, the $50 shareware program.
If your friend is truly looking to find out which is better for her purposes, then she should locate people who use each (not necessarily one person who uses both because people, me included, tend to lean towards on or the other and that bias comes through) and spend some time with them, working on a simple project using each program.
But to continue to ask for a comparison which can't really be made is not going to help your friend much.
Which program do you use? Tell her to buy that, because then you'll be available to help her when she has problems. Or tell her to buy the other program so you won't have to be the on-site tech-support, since you don't use the program.
Comparison:
Finale does mostly everything you could ever want from a notation program (no it doesn't do Crumb spiral scores).
Sibelius does mostly everything you could ever want from a notation program, just in a more dogmatic way.
Until a person really gets into the minutiae of manipulating notation elements onscreen to get the desired result on paper, she/he won't have a clue if Sibelius ability to only move articulations in one direction (can't remember if it's horizontally or vertically) is a blessing or a curse. And she/he won't know if Finale's ability to move an articulation to any location on the page no matter which note it is attached to is a blessing or a curse.
Sibelius comes with preprogrammed libraries which are hard to edit. Finale comes with preprogrammed libraries which are easy to edit and save and reload. For some people the ability/necessity to define their own is a blessing, for others it's a curse. Same with preprogrammed libraries -- for some, knowing they can't change things is a blessing because they know just what they have to work with while for others, the limitations are too frustrating.
From working with both programs and being members of both lists, I can honestly say that whichever program your friend buys and practices with and learns will be just fine for all her musical needs.
Tell her to buy Finale.
Kari Kääriäinen wrote:
David H. Bailey wrote:
Better to have your friend download demos of both programs and try them both (be sure to have him do the tutorials).
and
Until your friend tries both, he/she won't know which working style will be best.
I find this problematic because if you test these big programs for, say an hour, I'm afraid you won't get much of an idea of how they work for you in serious everyday use for years ahead. I think Sibelius looks more attractive visually and you probably get your first music sheet done easier and in less time with Sibelius than with Finale, so the person testing these programs will end up choosing Sibelius without a doubt. So it would require a lot of time to really know which is going to be better for your working style.
I too would like to be able to present some believable reasoning why either is more suitable to different kinds of work. Here in Sibelius Academy, Finland (we have nothing to do with the company:-) I also get asked that question a lot: which is better.
I believe the best insight comes from the people that actually use both actively or even professionally. Are there others than David? Would be glad to hear your thoughts. I know this has been discussed before, but maybe updates to this topic would be in order.
Kari
_______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
.
-- David H. Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED]
_______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
