Notation software

[clayteller]

Does anyone know of a good/cheap notation software? I would like to be able to notate onto sheet music licks/fills/etc that I learn about in the tutorials or come up with when I am playing around, so I will remember them. Thanks for any suggestions!

[jazzcat]

I just bought Finale's PrintMusic. The student version does quite a lot and is easy to learn (compared to the full version). I think the price was $89, or $86, something like that. I only wanted it for making lead sheets (melody and chord symbols) and to have the ability to transpose them quickly for Eb and Bb instruments. I read comparisons between PrintMusic and Sebelius' student versions and PrintMusic won out. A friend also recommended it to me. She says she's not that good with computers and found it easy.

[williemyette]

agreed, either Finale or Sibelius are the way to go:

http://www.finalemusic.com/
http://www.sibelius.com/

I use Sibelius, but also used Finale for years

[nickrees]

You could check out MuseScore which is a free notation software system available for Mac and PC. There are some bugs with it so remember to save your work frequently. Get the latest stable version rather than the latest version. You can export to other formats like lileypond and xml. The quality looks very good when printed out. I think the Jazz fonts are not that great for chord symbols as there is no triangle for Maj7 or circles for diminished sevenths so you have to spell those out with letters (dim7).There are frequent new releases and there is a user forum where you can make suggestions submit problems etc.

It's kind of fiddly. I haven't used Finale or Sibelius because money is tight with me right now. Worth a try if you are on a budget

[nickrees]

I finally gave up working with MuseScore because I found it was crashing too much (on Mac) and I usually ended up losing my work unless I saved it every measure.

I've had some good success with Lilypond, another free system although there is no nice user interface so you have to create the input in text files. However, the results are much more consistent and qood quality. If you were writing lead sheets you could probably use this to knock out something very quickly. Piano scores require a little more investment of time to learn the system. Another benefit is that Lilypond format is transferrable to some other systems

[gibolson]

Is there a software program out there (for mac) that will listen to a wav or aiff file and transcribe notes and or chords? (or at least create a subsequent midi of what it hears...) I know there is one for PC that estimates fairly close what a say piano is doing, but I have yet to find a mac version that works as well.

Gib

[williemyette]

Hey Gib, I think you want this: http://www.seventhstring.com/xscribe/download.html It is called transcribe!

As far as the notation software, I have a love-hate relationship with all of them. I use Sibelius but am not always happy with it. I used to use Finale.

My 2 cents is if you can spare the money, get the student edition which I think is about $99. The free notation programs are -usually- a bear to work with.

[dond]

Something I used to use from time to time is at noteflight.com

It is free and it is quite good and intuitive.

[gibolson]

Thanks for the info.... I actually did buy Transcribe. It is really good for slowing down passages. I didn't know that it would create midi files? or does it?

Gib