I am hoping this delay means they are making it even better. I am hoping that they will come up with some version of 'magnetic layout,' but who knows? I know that they have delayed introducing the new product for the first time in many, many years. I am looking forward to Finale 2012 which should be released some time in the Fall. I think Finale 2011 is the best Finale program they have had since Finale 2005. This may not be an issue if you just play chords in with a MIDI keyboard.Īnyway, after trying Sibelius 6 and Finale 2011 I decided to just use Finale - I have much more control over the score with Finale. I'm not seeing much of a difference in the workflow with these 'Finale-based' videos on the Sibelius site. It was very hard for me to just enter chords in Sibelius. Because of this preferred way of entering music to me, I found Sibelius very difficult. So, I just write stuff in Finale with Speedy entry and the computer keyboard. Now, I have to admit that I tend to just take my laptop and write music - without it being connected to any kind of MIDI piano, or anything.

Sibelius doesn't have anything like this feature. For clarification, in Finale you can have a part labeled Flute 1,2 for most of the score, with a few pages of two staves with Flute 1 and Flute 2, and still create individual linked parts. I just don't see anything like that in Sibelius. It even has a nifty way of creating individual linked parts for music that is written for two parts being written on one stave (with the occasional two staves on some pages). I don't think Sibelius has a very efficient way of doing this, and I couldn't find any evidence of them including this ability with instrument names in Sibelius 7.īecause of 'Staff Styles,' Finale can easily change how pages look, including the left margin. One of the problems all of the programs have, I think, is the ability to display two-parts per stave on some pages, and split parts on other pages. My favorite Finale releases include Finale 2005, and now, Finale 2011.įinale is the only program I know of that has any control of the left margin of a score page. I think Finale 2011 is a really wonderful program. Note entry is so easy in finale with 'Speedy Entry.'

The 'magnetic layout' feature is truly amazing - however, I found note entry extremely frustrating. I have used Finale since 1993, and I purchased Sibelius 6 because of the 'magnetic layout' features. How about this for a pipe dream: Finale- The QuickScribe Version? That PT took on an LE version of Sibelius answered a lot of requests for better DAW notation. Who wants to read your charts if they look like Cartman made them, no matter how easy they were to create?Īlso, Finale has been around longer, and Finale users were less likely to move to Sibelius while Sibelius did well with new users interested in serious notation. Let's face it- when it comes to notation, cosmetics really do hold equal ground with functionality. I can't begrudge ProTools' strong foothold in the DAW market. Well, at least Sibelius won't get 'eaten' by Finale like Encore did. How nice!! In the name of PDF's success, XML earns a new stripe in music world! PT going native was about as close to an unlikely turn of events as I could have imagined. Sibelius by default had to introduce itself as a competitor and an alternative to Finale.

Greater compatibility seems to be Avid's approach, which is quite different from what Digidesign's used to be (being proprietary and expensive), let alone from what Sibelius' approach used to be before PT and Sibelius were taken over by Avid.

Sibelius 8 mac os 10.14