David W. Fenton wrote:
On 28 Nov 2007 at 19:41, Jari Williamsson wrote:
Again, how is this different than for, let's say, 7 years ago?
Because 7 years ago Sibelius wasn't at feature parity with Finale --
it wasn't even close (was it even ported to Windows yet?). Now,
Sibelius is, arguably, superior to Finale. That's a new situation,
and one that seems to me to indicate that MakeMusic can no longer get
away with the practices that were standard for them 7 years ago.
FWIW, below is a full quote of a comparison post made to this list more
than 8 years ago (may 24th 1999). As I've said before, I believe all
music notation products are so far off from what should be expected
today, so I won't go into discussions about that. It only becomes a
discussion who's less worse.
---
I have been working with Sibelius now for about 3 months, though only
part-time. [My realworld job prevents more devotion : D ] I have some
opinions regarding the latest questions on the list.
As to scroll view, I came from a Music Printer Plus background and it
didn't have one either. I always asked my Finale friends, "whaddaya
need that for?"
and never understood. Until I finally bought FinWin 3.?? I quickly
became fond of working that way. Like someone else on the list already
mentioned it helps break up the two functions [music entry vs page
layout] into separate tasks and I like that. I have been mostly working
on full page orchestral scores so it has been 1 system per page. The
several piano pieces that I entered for practice definitely made me want
a scroll view. Trying to find the appropriate measure without knowing
the number ahead of time made it awkward to search. [There is a
shortcut ctrl+g to jump to a known measure number]. I don't find the
tiny multipage view in the lower left corner [the Navigator in
Sibelius talk] to be much help.
One of my gripes has been that I have to change my display to 256 color
on my Pent333 system Sibelius runs like a dog. I find that just
annoying enough that I tried to go without but the speed was WAAAAAYYYYY
off. Once I gave up and started changing the display, the promised
performance boost made it worth the effort.
As to general observations, I find most of the default look built into
the system great [Serious exception being the slurs. Grrrrr] But I am
not an engraver. I am mostly a composer. For me, generating a
professional looking score and quickly coughing up parts is the main
reason to have notation software. And for my bucks, Sibelius makes this
very easy and intuitive.
I had to whip up a quick re-scoring of a trio from the Brahms 1st
Serenade for our community orchestra [no daggers, please, for rewriting
Brahms---we couldn't hack the string parts]. Choose "Extract Parts" and
click "OK" and it coughed out a perfect set of parts, including all the
multimeasure rests, repeat signs, rehearsal marks, titles and measure
numbers. No editing, no kidding. The section wasn't long enough to see
how it would have done on the page turns, but I bet it would have been
just as easy.
MIDI playback and data entry has been quick and effortless. It took a
bit to get the hang of it, but once I got used to it, MIDI entry is now
a breeze.
Another advantage is for those of us that touch type, click a staff,
type "C" and Sibelius pops a C on the staff in the currently chosen note
value. D E F adds another three notes. R repeats the note and N adds
notes to a chord built above the currently selected note. With one hand
on the numberpad and one one the note names, you can quickly type out
quite a bit of music. Too me, it is much easier than the Finale Simple
Entry.
I haven't done much with importing MIDI yet, though as soon as I can get
my ZipDrive back online [Damn HP Software!] I will be trying to import
some work from Finale.
I do miss the staff sets quite a bit. For orchestral work, there is
nothing quite like it, though I can't imagine that would be too
difficult to add to Sibelius. I haven't spent the time tweaking the
default settings to see how flexible they really are; I expect to start
with those darned slurs.] But as far as I can tell, it lives up to the
hype. Reformats are lightning fast. The files are tiny so saving is
quick. Playback is a breeze and for all standard markings [ex pizz. f p
etc] automatic. It was a gas to write "pizz." on the cello line, hit
play and hear it change the patch on the fly. The layout of the screen
is very clean and on my 17" monitor, most of the space is for music.
I also miss being able to specify assumed accidentals during midi entry
like in Finale. If it is there, I haven't found it yet.
I have had to turn to the manual but it is short and sweet and for the
most part I haven't had any problem finding what I want. And I have
only had to read about it once. The feature usually works the way I
would expect the first time out.
The only odd spacing stuff I have crossed, is a major second, first
quarter note in the bar a-flat and b-flat [accidentals added after
entry]. Every damn time I respace, it moves the lower flat over the
previous bar line. This was supposed to have been corrected in the
latest release. Oh, and I almost never have to reset the spacing.
Almost all changes happen on the fly. And as fast as advertised now
that I am only using 256 colors. [Grrrr]
I am worried about respacing lyrics as I hear that is a bummer for
Sibelius and I am about to move a big choral piece I have in Finale over
to Sibelius as soon as I have time. I will let you know what I find.
I don't know if engravers will like it, but as a composer [and computer
programmer], I have to say I am still very impressed.
------
Best regards,
Jari Williamsson
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