Posted by Chuck(G) on September 02, 2001 at 19:10:10:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Finale 2001 posted by Sibeli-ite on September 02, 2001 at 18:22:33:
I own both Finale 2001 and Sibelius 1.4. I've tried Igor, but found the Windows demo so buggy as to be unusable (perhaps the Mac version is better). I used to used Finale quite a bit, but I noticed two things:
1. Sibelius can read a Finale ETF file, but Finale can't read a Sibelius file. Depending on how you look at it, this can be either good or bad. But Sibelius will read any work I've done on Finale, but not vice versa. So I now do most of my work in Sibelius.
2. The amount of music published in Scorch format is vastly greater than that of Finale Notepad. If the trend continues, encountering Sibelius notation files will be all but unavoidable.
There are things about both packages that pain me royally (how come I can't simply change the instrument associated with a staff in Sibelius? I have to cut and paste to a newly-created instrument. And how do I create a part for Db piccolo? It's not in the list!) (and Finale--menus and menus and menus; lordy, how does anyone ever find anything in that program? And why do I have to click "Refresh display" so often? I'm working with a PIII 1.5GHz machine for cryin'out loud!).
As far as an really good OCR program, check out SharpEye 2 from http://www.visiv.co.uk. A magnificently accurate product, which shames both the Sibelius and Finale OCR add-ons. Unfortunately, the SE output format is either NIFF or MIDI. Neither Finale nor Sibelius understands NIFF, although it was supposed to be the industry interchange standard. So for SharpEye-processed scores, I either import MIDI and add the extra notation myself or use a NIFF-capable editor like Lime from http://www.cerlsoundgroup.org/.
Anyone know of a NIFF to ETF or SIB converter? That might tip me one way or the other for sure.