JamesBass Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 So I've been weighing up buying Sibelius for some time now but, while browsing the internet last night, I happened upon Musescore, a free downloadable version of Sibelius for mac and PC, I haven't used it fully yet but first impressions lead me to think it's fairly ok, certainly more than usable and good enough as it was free! I'm not affiliated with musescore in any sense, just thought people on here might wanna try it out Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bilbo Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 I tried it and hated it. I find Sibelius much more user friendly. I wanted something I could use on a netbook (Sibelius would have overwhelmed it) so tried Musescore but everything took so long to do by comparison, I deleted it. Never actually completed anything on it!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesBass Posted January 22, 2014 Author Share Posted January 22, 2014 [quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1390391945' post='2344787'] I tried it and hated it. I find Sibelius much more user friendly. I wanted something I could use on a netbook (Sibelius would have overwhelmed it) so tried Musescore but everything took so long to do by comparison, I deleted it. Never actually completed anything on it!! [/quote] I'll give you the fact it's somewhat clunky at times but for free I can't really complain, especially how my Sibelius budget got added to my amp budget which was then spent last night Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bilbo Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 Agree that the budgets are massively important but, as I had Sib. first, it was not a consideration. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grangur Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 (edited) I use Musescore and reasonably happy with it, but then I've never used Sibelius. Been using it for about 2 years on an off. They also have a community where you can download other people's music that they've created in Musecsore. There's not a lot of bass going on there, so you have to transpose it and change the clef etc., but thats no problem if you find what you want there. Edited January 22, 2014 by Grangur Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lowdown Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 (edited) The downside of Musescore (well one of them) for me, is no VST support to play back my sample libraries, you are stuck with those horrible general MIDI sounds, and no x64 version (although that don't matter with no VST support) You will get these with Sibelius and Finale (they have good libraries - well the new versions have) But for general jotting down - Musescore works fine. I have been using Notion 4 of late (£83.00) and it comes with over 7 gig of play back sounds (and they are pretty good) plus you can add extra sound sets/articulations as you go (reasonably priced as well). The articulations markings work really well for play back, and sound very good for that 'more human' feel. It really is straight forward and easy to use straight out of the box. I like it because I can use the iPad version when out of the house, then when at home the desktop version will read the iPad version file (pretty neat) It can use any Vst's that you have, and has a really good mixer. You can export/bounce down to audio files as well as the usual notation files (PDF/XML etc) It's worth checking out. Mac, PC (x32 and x64) and iPad version ($16.00) [url="http://www.notionmusic.com/products/notion4.html"]http://www.notionmus...ts/notion4.html[/url] Mac/PC Tutorial Videos. [url="http://www.notionmusic.com/support/tutorials.html"]http://www.notionmus.../tutorials.html[/url] iPad Tutorials. [url="http://www.notionmusic.com/support/tutorials.html"]http://www.notionmus.../tutorials.html[/url] Edited January 22, 2014 by lowdown Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oggiesnr Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 I think it's horses for courses. I use Musescore as an occasional user to write and annotate music that I play on other instruments and for this is works fine (for sharing tunes amongst the folk community I actually use ABC Notation but that's a whole different can of worms). It only uses the standard midi sounds but for me it doesn't matter. Were I wanting to publish in audio form then it would be Sibelius every time. Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ambient Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 [quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1390391945' post='2344787'] I tried it and hated it. I find Sibelius much more user friendly. I wanted something I could use on a netbook (Sibelius would have overwhelmed it) so tried Musescore but everything took so long to do by comparison, I deleted it. Never actually completed anything on it!! [/quote] If you find Sibelius user friendly then I think I'd really hate Musecore . I've had Sibelius 7 for about 4 months and it's done it's best at times to give me a nervous breakdown, it's literally had me shouting in frustration at my laptop onboard a train . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ambient Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 There's a student version of Sibelius that's pretty much the same as the full version, if anyone's a student or knows a student. Though I have a slightly fallen of the back of a lorry version, glad I didn't pay full money for it. But it is really good if you can ignore the fact it does things you don't want it to do at times when you really don't want it to . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norris Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 [quote name='lowdown' timestamp='1390396218' post='2344862'] The downside of Musescore (well one of them) for me, is no VST support to play back my sample libraries, you are stuck with those horrible general MIDI sounds, and no x64 version (although that don't matter with no VST support)... [/quote] Export your midi file in Musescore, pull it straight into Reaper and Bob's your auntie. It will even split the conductor score into separate midi tracks for each instrument. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oggiesnr Posted January 24, 2014 Share Posted January 24, 2014 [quote name='Norris' timestamp='1390481089' post='2345836'] Export your midi file in Musescore, pull it straight into Reaper and Bob's your auntie. It will even split the conductor score into separate midi tracks for each instrument. [/quote] Thanks for that, will give it a try. Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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