I've been writing my First Symphony (man it's a lotta work) on Finale 2008 (the full version with Garritan instruments). The instruments sound completely real, but does Sibelius 5 sound even better? I can record it with Finale and I need this for it can you with Sibelius also. I mean overall for writing music which is better. I'm putting this in classical because someone mentioned sibeilus in it and I have a feeling classical people would know quite a bit more about which is better for writing classical music. I don't know these current versions -- I've used Sibelius 4 and Finale 2005. I'm much more comfortable with Finale, but it's safe to say that both of them are wonderful programs. And despite what some will say, neither program is hard to use.
Personally, I don't worry too much about playback, but much prefer the way Finale scores look when printed. I can't really put it into words, but there's something about a Sibelius score (or part) that just looks amateur-ish to me. Or maybe I should say that, when I'm given a part to play that was created on Sibelius, the first thing that pops into my head is "Hey, the composer used Sibelius for this."
My advice -- if you've already been using Finale for this piece, then stick with it. Otherwise you're going to spend a LOT of time messing around with unnecessary edits from converting from one file type to the other. You could spend that time composing. Or drinking beer. I've never used Sibelius. My university director loves Sibelius and he arranges most of our marching band music on Sibelius.
I personally have only used Finale, and once I figured out how to use it (speedy-note entry), it's been easy for me.
You could try the Sibelius website, they might have a free trial download for you to test out. |
