This is going to resonate with probably 0% of Tildes’s userbase, but when I was a music major in college, there existed a tongue-in-cheek-but-also-kinda-serious rivalry between what composition...
This is going to resonate with probably 0% of Tildes’s userbase, but when I was a music major in college, there existed a tongue-in-cheek-but-also-kinda-serious rivalry between what composition software camp you fell into, Finale or Sibelius. There were a few well-liked professors in the program who swore by Finale, so it was the “cool” thing to use Finale, but I hated it. It always felt so unintuitive and the learning curve felt insurmountable to me.
So, while I don’t actually like to see any creativity-centered media tooling go belly-up, I have a weird sense of satisfaction with Finale going under and my beloved Sibelius standing strong under Avid’s excellent long-term support.
Might still round down to 0% overall but I had the same situation at my school, I was a Finale person myself while a number of my friends preferred Sibelius. Might be my software engineering...
Might still round down to 0% overall but I had the same situation at my school, I was a Finale person myself while a number of my friends preferred Sibelius. Might be my software engineering mindset, haven't considered it that much.
Of course that was many years ago and I unfortunately haven't been keeping up with composition so I'd basically be starting from scratch anyway; if I ever do get back to it I'd want to reevaluate the tools available even if Finale wasn't gone.
I'm more familiar with DAWs than notation-centric tools, but I believe there is also Notion (made by Presonus, the developers of the Studio One DAW, which is now owned by Fender) and MuseScore...
I'm more familiar with DAWs than notation-centric tools, but I believe there is also Notion (made by Presonus, the developers of the Studio One DAW, which is now owned by Fender) and MuseScore (the .org open source score editor, not the .com site).
Not sure how they stack up, but there still is competition.
Finale Notepad was the first program I used, and I don't really remember much from that time. I wasn't making anything big, just single piano scores at a basic level because I was a beginner at...
Finale Notepad was the first program I used, and I don't really remember much from that time. I wasn't making anything big, just single piano scores at a basic level because I was a beginner at the time.
My high school had licenses for Sibelius, so that's what I used. Tantacrul's Sibelius video hit a real chord with me. Especially when he talked about the process of setting up a MIDI device because some of the tiny MIDI keyboards we had for each computer would just disconnect themselves so I became intimately acquainted with the menus. I do think the blue cursor needs more signposting, but ultimately Sibelius is pretty good.
A few years ago I was looking to transcribe some music and tried it again... and just couldn't. I also couldn't be bothered, uh, obtaining a copy of Sibelius so I just went with Musescore and enjoyed it. They're both pretty good, but I don't do nearly enough work with music to care too much. It's not even really a hobby with how rarely I think about it, but my memories of Sibelius are good ones despite its quirks.
I used MuseScore as a music teacher a lot because our school laptops didn’t have any composition software and I thought it was remarkable given that it was free! Certainly some QoL items I miss...
I used MuseScore as a music teacher a lot because our school laptops didn’t have any composition software and I thought it was remarkable given that it was free! Certainly some QoL items I miss from Sibelius but nothing that I couldn’t justify with the savings.
And I have to admit, I certainly couldn’t re-learn Sibelius Ultimate (nor would I want to pay the subscription fee) if I was ever forced to update. But the fact that I haven’t been forced is part of the reason I appreciate Avid’s support so much with Sibelius. I’m still operating off the academic version from 2010 and have never once been cajoled to upgrade. In fact, I switched computers last year, not realizing that my academic edition’s box didn’t have a physical serial number, so I lost the serial number in the process. All I had to go on as proof of ownership was a few pictures of my old academic edition box, including an activation code for a license service Avid no longer uses, and an academic email address that’s now defunct. I panicked, thinking Avid would force me into submission with a subscription because I felt like my evidence of ownership was woefully weak. I reached out anyway, and in two emails they sent me my serial number and I was able to reinstall an updated version of my academic edition to my new computer. No arguments, no trying to force me to a new edition. I was shocked! They certainly guaranteed a forever fan and advocate in that moment.
This is going to resonate with probably 0% of Tildes’s userbase, but when I was a music major in college, there existed a tongue-in-cheek-but-also-kinda-serious rivalry between what composition software camp you fell into, Finale or Sibelius. There were a few well-liked professors in the program who swore by Finale, so it was the “cool” thing to use Finale, but I hated it. It always felt so unintuitive and the learning curve felt insurmountable to me.
So, while I don’t actually like to see any creativity-centered media tooling go belly-up, I have a weird sense of satisfaction with Finale going under and my beloved Sibelius standing strong under Avid’s excellent long-term support.
Might still round down to 0% overall but I had the same situation at my school, I was a Finale person myself while a number of my friends preferred Sibelius. Might be my software engineering mindset, haven't considered it that much.
Of course that was many years ago and I unfortunately haven't been keeping up with composition so I'd basically be starting from scratch anyway; if I ever do get back to it I'd want to reevaluate the tools available even if Finale wasn't gone.
I'm more familiar with DAWs than notation-centric tools, but I believe there is also Notion (made by Presonus, the developers of the Studio One DAW, which is now owned by Fender) and MuseScore (the .org open source score editor, not the .com site).
Not sure how they stack up, but there still is competition.
Finale Notepad was the first program I used, and I don't really remember much from that time. I wasn't making anything big, just single piano scores at a basic level because I was a beginner at the time.
My high school had licenses for Sibelius, so that's what I used. Tantacrul's Sibelius video hit a real chord with me. Especially when he talked about the process of setting up a MIDI device because some of the tiny MIDI keyboards we had for each computer would just disconnect themselves so I became intimately acquainted with the menus. I do think the blue cursor needs more signposting, but ultimately Sibelius is pretty good.
A few years ago I was looking to transcribe some music and tried it again... and just couldn't. I also couldn't be bothered, uh, obtaining a copy of Sibelius so I just went with Musescore and enjoyed it. They're both pretty good, but I don't do nearly enough work with music to care too much. It's not even really a hobby with how rarely I think about it, but my memories of Sibelius are good ones despite its quirks.
I used MuseScore as a music teacher a lot because our school laptops didn’t have any composition software and I thought it was remarkable given that it was free! Certainly some QoL items I miss from Sibelius but nothing that I couldn’t justify with the savings.
And I have to admit, I certainly couldn’t re-learn Sibelius Ultimate (nor would I want to pay the subscription fee) if I was ever forced to update. But the fact that I haven’t been forced is part of the reason I appreciate Avid’s support so much with Sibelius. I’m still operating off the academic version from 2010 and have never once been cajoled to upgrade. In fact, I switched computers last year, not realizing that my academic edition’s box didn’t have a physical serial number, so I lost the serial number in the process. All I had to go on as proof of ownership was a few pictures of my old academic edition box, including an activation code for a license service Avid no longer uses, and an academic email address that’s now defunct. I panicked, thinking Avid would force me into submission with a subscription because I felt like my evidence of ownership was woefully weak. I reached out anyway, and in two emails they sent me my serial number and I was able to reinstall an updated version of my academic edition to my new computer. No arguments, no trying to force me to a new edition. I was shocked! They certainly guaranteed a forever fan and advocate in that moment.
While I don't use any music composition software, I always find his videos very insightful and entertaining.