# How you selected your notation program?



## JPQ (Mar 2, 2021)

How you selected your notation program? i know Dorico has own bad points same goes for Notion i bet (Dorico supports notation exotic instruments). but i want know personal reasons. at least i found MuseScore is not good for me for few reasons i think has limtis what comes notating my playing. liked most Notion but somethings are Dorico better.(works better high resolution).Worst things is how tremolo is located (takes time found it) and must premade bars/measures for my playing. i ask becouse there is some things what i cannot simply quickly check from demos. these are so complex. and i dont know much notaiton at all. then somethging rarely needed quickly goes i dont see it.
btw i try soon test few things how Notion plays them at least guite nice for software Dorico plays them i mean crescendos and diminuendos based one demo.


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## Bollen (Mar 2, 2021)

JPQ said:


> How you selected your notation program? i know Dorico has own bad points same goes for Notion i bet (Dorico supports notation exotic instruments). but i want know personal reasons. at least i found MuseScore is not good for me for few reasons i think has limtis what comes notating my playing. liked most Notion but somethings are Dorico better.(works better high resolution).Worst things is how tremolo is located (takes time found it) and must premade bars/measures for my playing. i ask becouse there is some things what i cannot simply quickly check from demos. these are so complex. and i dont know much notaiton at all. then somethging rarely needed quickly goes i dont see it.
> btw i try soon test few things how Notion plays them at least guite nice for software Dorico plays them i mean crescendos and diminuendos based one demo.


Well... Personally I started on Finale, eventually moved to Sibelius because it was quicker for input and more people used it here in the UK. I used Finale for 5 years and Sibelius for 15 and I always hated them! Dorico I love with a passion! It allows me to write everything and anything and I can also do very, very decent playback on it, rivalling Cubase.

I tried Notion but didn't like it, too many things it can't do notation-wise and the XML system is not for me.

Musescore is a gem, but mostly because it's free! What's not to like?


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## JohnG (Mar 2, 2021)

I asked the copyists with whom I work. None of them seem to be using Dorico so far, but if it's really superior maybe they will adopt it some day. Copyists don't care much / at all about playback realism.

Most of the copyists I work with prefer Sibelius, and I find it easier to generate my own parts if I have to, so that's my favourite at the moment. Finale also does a good job but I am tired of its idiosyncrasies.


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## d.healey (Mar 2, 2021)

I used Sibelius for many years, and started using Musescore alongside it in about 2009 (back when it only had a piano sound).

Sibelius was what I was taught at university. I experimented with Finale, Overture, and a few other obscure ones, but I found Sibelius was the easiest to use. 

For about the past 5 years Musescore has been my main notation program. I don't require high-quality playback from it (although it would be nice) because I create my mock-ups separately in a sequencer where I have a lot more control and can perform my lines in real-time.


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## JPQ (Mar 2, 2021)

Bollen said:


> Well... Personally I started on Finale, eventually moved to Sibelius because it was quicker for input and more people used it here in the UK. I used Finale for 5 years and Sibelius for 15 and I always hated them! Dorico I love with a passion! It allows me to write everything and anything and I can also do very, very decent playback on it, rivalling Cubase.
> 
> I tried Notion but didn't like it, too many things it can't do notation-wise and the XML system is not for me.
> 
> Musescore is a gem, but mostly because it's free! What's not to like?


Recording improvisation to MuseScore. I font know it supports playing articulation?
In Notioncwhat is impossible?


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## JPQ (Mar 2, 2021)

I talk these for composing side.


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## Bollen (Mar 2, 2021)

JPQ said:


> Recording improvisation to MuseScore. I font know it supports playing articulation?
> In Notioncwhat is impossible?


I'm sorry, I don't understand what you are asking me...


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## Joel Wilkinson (Mar 2, 2021)

I started out writing music on Linux so Musescore was really my only option. (I know about Lilypond but that’s beyond my ability or desire to learn) Since then I’ve gotten quite quick at using it and I find it very intuitive. It’s layout makes it easy to locate various notation marks without having to search through multiple poorly named menus like Sibelius.


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## Leigh (Mar 2, 2021)

I started with Finale 1.0 and used it until I was so frustrated with bugs not being fixed that I switched to Sibelius 6 and learned it by writing an orchestra piece. When Avid took over and gutted the development team, I switched to Dorico and have absolutely no regrets.

**Leigh


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## Duncan Krummel (Mar 2, 2021)

Detecting a common theme here...

I also started out with some basic version of Finale back in... 2006 or 2007 I think?

After a year or two, I switched to Sibelius 6 and used that throughout undergrad until partway through grad school when I made the switch to Mojave and Sibelius 6 stopped working. I have a personal vendetta against all post-Sibelius 6 versions, so the move to Dorico was pretty much made for me.

Now it’s been a couple more years, and Dorico is easily my top recommendation. Version 3.5 is very robust, though there are still certain things I’d like them to address, but with every update there’s less to dislike.

I’ll mention that I’ve used LilyPond as well, through the Frescobaldi front end, but the results were never pleasing enough to me. Plus I use a fair bit of non-standard notation, so I need the control that a proper notation program allows.


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## joebaggan (Mar 2, 2021)

The main things I want from notation software are a fast workflow for composing (with little mouse clicking) and good quality playback. With Dorico, I have all the notation items I need set up as key commands and I just hit a button on Stream Deck to output it. That combined with entering all the parts from my Midi keyboard means faster workflow and less fiddling around trying to find something with a mouse. For playback, Noteperformer works pretty well, or can drive the big boy sample libs now from Dorico.


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## wst3 (Mar 3, 2021)

I'm the oddball I guess. I started with Finale in 2000, mostly because everyone I knew, or would be working with, used Finale.

My requirements for notation software have lessened over the years, so I've not seen a good reason to switch.

All three of the major platforms have some really cool features, and all three have some limitations - which of each matter to you can help you make your choice.

Me? I am using it to create a score and parts for performance (back when people performed). So things like linked parts, usable rehearsal marks, and the like matter more to me than human playback (although I do play around with it from time to time to see if they are getting closer<G>).

And familiarity - this is big for me because I am not using Finale every day, or even every week. While Dorico and Sibelius offer some cool workflow enhancements, I'd have to spend time learning them - right now that just isn't all that attractive.

Your requirements will certainly be different.

If I were starting today I'd probably focus on Dorico, it was a fresh start, and it seems to be getting more attention from the developers.

OR, I might work more with Notion, since I am using Studio One. This is an area I keep meaning to spend some time in.


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## BlackDorito (Mar 17, 2021)

I use notation as a DAW, so I need good playback capability. I've been using Sibelius 8 for several years ... haven't upgraded because Avid has not added much playback improvement since then. I've bought earlier versions of Dorico, but found it woefully insufficient for driving complex VI libraries (i.e. the libraries we typically use). More recent versions of Dorico have improved wrt. their mixer, articulation mapping, etc. .. and I owe Dorico a further look, but I do know that the note input paradigm and staff symbols/markings work very differently than Sibelius and would require significant mental retooling. It's gotta be worth it before I go thru that 

Wrt. Sibelius 8's DAW/playback shortcomings (.. many of which are not shortcomings in Dorico):

- not easy to import CC values from a MIDI file; not easy to edit CC curves/gestures

- doesn't display current value of CC's at any point in the score (CC1 and CC11 are a must)

- doesn't have graphical/piano-roll views to edit performance nuances (the GMT plug-in is no substitute, sorry)

- the playback Dictionary is a simplistic mechanism that falls far short of articulation maps (e.g. a user-defined marking cannot include multiple CC commands or keyswitches)

- the whole Instrument ID (with separately defined 'sub-instruments' for each articulation - strings.violin.pizzicato) and the soundset concept, wherein Sibelius hops between one instrument and another to implement articulations, is simply not the way the industry went.

- relatedly, soundsets are *silent* .. i.e. it is hard to know what CC will be generated for a particular instrumental marking. In addition, if you happen to have multiple flutes or violins, some mysterious logic within Sibelius hops to different instruments in a fashion that is sometimes laughable.

- setup and implementation of single-line percussion instruments viz. mapping them to popular percussion libraries, is hard.

- trill programming has bugs (perhaps fixed in later versions, who knows)

- in Sibelius you can use lines to guide the distribution of CC commands, but it is hard to tell the exact start/end point wrt. timing just by looking visually at a line. CC lanes in a DAW are much more precise.

Other than the quibbles above, I truly love Sibelius for playback. [I really do.]


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## Bollen (Mar 17, 2021)

BlackDorito said:


> I use notation as a DAW, so I need good playback capability. I've been using Sibelius 8 for several years ... haven't upgraded because Avid has not added much playback improvement since then. I've bought earlier versions of Dorico, but found it woefully insufficient for driving complex VI libraries (i.e. the libraries we typically use). More recent versions of Dorico have improved wrt. their mixer, articulation mapping, etc. .. and I owe Dorico a further look, but I do know that the note input paradigm and staff symbols/markings work very differently than Sibelius and would require significant mental retooling. It's gotta be worth it before I go thru that
> 
> Wrt. Sibelius 8's DAW/playback shortcomings (.. many of which are not shortcomings in Dorico):
> 
> ...


Oh god! You just reminded me of everything I hated about Sibelius....🤮! I am so glad I don't use it any more. Unlike you I never liked its playback, I found it mechanical and robotic. Dorico on the other hand behaves a bit more naturally and with the CC control you can do ultra realistic and beautifully performed music!


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