Music Scoring/Composing Programs (2 Viewers)

[ur_inner_child]

Now what should I be looking at here...

Sibelius?

Cakewalk?

There's another one I forgot about but I had trouble trying to figure out how to DO anything.

I mostly write my music by hand. I suppose that SOMETIMES it can be the best way, but GOD does it take ages. If not, then cakewalk. I wanna try and get an idea of other music programs to get comfortable.

Does anyone know what the conservatorium encourages you to use?
I'm looking at your way Phanatical...

EDIT: A year on, now at the Con, now I know

 

[Jazz Man Tim]

im not Phanatical
but i use Sibelius.. its great heaps of stuff u can do.... and i got it $1000 cheaper or something, student discount, not sure if that deal is still on tho.

i've never heard of cakewalk, is it pretty much the same as sib??

 

[ur_inner_child]

i actually haven't had a try of sibelius at all, but cakewalk is good, provided that you have a true tone keyboard... so you can record it onto cd as an mp3 and it sounds so close to the real thing.... is that with sibelius as well? Or is it more midi? I have not the slightest clue...

I love the fact you can write in or record your play in cakewalk... although it's pretty pathetic at the score-writing. I hear sibelius owns all other score-writing programs...

Yeah I heard about that discount... I couldn't provide any of that kind of money anyway so... lol.

 

[thejosiekiller]

guitar pro 4

but as u would guess its mainly focused around guitars and and some other instruments

great thing is u can have the tabs that u download from other places played in midi format

 

[Jazz Man Tim]

i actually haven't had a try of sibelius at all, but cakewalk is good, provided that you have a true tone keyboard... so you can record it onto cd as an mp3 and it sounds so close to the real thing.... is that with sibelius as well? Or is it more midi? I have not the slightest clue...

I love the fact you can write in or record your play in cakewalk... although it's pretty pathetic at the score-writing. I hear sibelius owns all other score-writing programs...

Yeah I heard about that discount... I couldn't provide any of that kind of money anyway so... lol.

hmm you can record stuf onto sib... but im not sure about recording cd quality, its more midi based i think. helps if you have a keyboard to record with of course...
but my composition teacher just sings onto it and it records his voice.. but hes a feak so its ok lol.

sibelius does own all other score-writing programs... its very detalied, and somewhat easy to use lol... i say somewhat caus if u want to do some extended technique you do have to bring out the 600 page manual lol but its good. has an amazing amount of functions and stuf. but im biased towards it

with student discount its only around $300 i think...

 

[ujuphleg]

I have Cakewalk at home and in my opinion it just does the job but it isn't all that great, in fact, its just average.

Sibelius is a really good software but you need to take the time out to familiarise yourself with it, as it can do a lot for you, if you know how to use it.

The other two options are Finale and Cubase.

Cubase is not so much for the serious composer but more for arranging. Things like rits and accels can't be done on Cubase - or couldn't be done on the version we had at school anyway. For those you'd need Sibelius or Finale.

I've never had experience with Finale, but by all accounts it is quite good.

You're going to the Con aren't you ur_inner_child? The best thing to do would be to check out what software they use at the Con and get that at student price (I work at at Music store so if you want a good deal, I can see what I can do) and familiarise yourself with it. That way you can transfer your work between home and uni without hassle. I had a big problem last year with transfering work between school and home because MIDI isn't the easiest of files to convert.

Good Luck!

EDIT: Oh and you can record from keyboard straight into any of those programs. The quantizing functions on Sibelius and Cubase are much better than Cakewalk IMO.

 

[Phanatical]

Composers at the Con are divided between Sibelius and Finale. You will need to use a Mac version of Finale in Music Technology 1, but in my experience Sibelius is a superior product, especially if you use a Windows environment. You will need to complete scores using extended techniques, and only Sibelius and Finale can really handle advanced notation.

You'll find that you won't be doing much with your compositions on the computers at uni, so it really comes down to which computer environment and software you prefer.

 

[JimmyK]

Finale is a great peice of software on either platform. I've got it on this windows PC, hooked up with a MIDI keyboard - and it works like a treat. Unfortunately, Finale files saved on a mac, are incompatible with files saved on a PC, im not sure if its the same on Sibelius.. but it might be somthing to consider. I might be getting an Apple Powerbook (for my music and video work mainly) but one of the things that is turning me away is this issue.
As i said, I find Finale great, we use Finale on a windows based system at school - and they use Finale on windows machines at Newcastle Conservatorium.

 

[trumpet geek]

sibelius and finale are good for scoring


cubase is good for more of the audio experimental type stuff rather than the actual scoring... like you can do cool effects like echos and things.

 

[Phanatical]

You'll be using ProTools to manipulate recorded sounds that you will be expected to take using a portable DAT recorder. As far as high level composition goes, there is no other choice beyond Sibelius and Finale.

 

[mcdickpants 2.5]

just as an aside, cakewalks scoring facility is more of an auxiliary feature, its primary function is as an interface for audio and midi recording.

 

[slip]

i found finale much easier then cakewalk

and for guitarist you are able to write in tab and transpose to notes, or write in note and transpose to tabs. quite helpful.

 

[Phanatical]

Cakewalk isn't an option.

 

[dannyboy_588]

hmmm...

we have finale and cakewalk at school...

i use finale at school, but i want to get sibelius for home... it seems much better.

 

[wakkko12]

I've only ever used sibelius and its great, its basically like word, except for music. Seriously if you bother to read the manual you can do absolutley anything. I got the student discount which was great cause if you don't it is Really expensive. You can check it out at www.sibelius.com. The website is great and if you can't find something they email a reply really quickly. I say :uhhuh: to sib. I have used finale but its like a row boat compared to a million doller yacht

 

[ur_inner_child]

pffftt...

well now i hear that i'm meant to use finale only in music technology 1

and only allowed to hand write for composition (principal study) for at least the first semester...

 

[Phanatical]

Haha, you must have gotten stuck with Anna Pimokhova.

 

[ur_inner_child]

Haha, you must have gotten stuck with Anna Pimokhova.

grrr... i can't change can i?

i guess it'd be okay in the long run but, well, my petty sight reading is going to have to patch up then, isn't it.

i have a weird feeling that i'll be struggling a lot,

cuz when i compose, i sit, i play. and if i like, i'll take hours to write.

not the other way around like anna has told me to do

 

[ur_inner_child]

Now that I'm at the Con

I thought I'd update:

The Con uses softwares such as

Finale and Pro-tools.

If you're going to buy a computer soon and you're very musically based, use Mac, because most music softwares are mostly Mac based. Something about Mac tapping into the Music industry about it.

I still quite like sibelius, but I'm moving onto Finale a tad. But still <3 Sibelius

 

[Phanatical]

The Windows environment supports everything the Mac environment supports, and much more. While Finale is used at the Con in Music Technology, I find that most of the composers use Sibelius at home, as there are several advantages (including the ability to revise each other's scores, to create continuously updating part scores through the master score and a number of other technical issues).

A good program for basic editing in Windows is Audacity, which can do pretty much everything Pro Tools LE can.