Any decent music notation software?

[Mike Moss]

Hi all,

 

after it was suggested that we could make a sort of "beginner's zone" with exercises and such I've been writing an arrangement of a folk song as an exercise in single-string playing, but I haven't got any software to write it down digitally. Does anyone know a good program?

 

Mike

[Trapdoor2]

I use TablEdit...which does both TAB and notation. It is cheap ($60) and very actively supported. It has its quirks but I like it.

 

[Mike Moss]

$60 does sound like a very reasonable price considering I've seen some programs that cost hundreds of dollars out there.

 

Just a question -- can you annotate left and right hand fingerings in TablEdit?

[Alan Ramsay]

I use guitar pro 6.  Does the trick.

[Trapdoor2]

Right hand fingerings are easy. I've never tried LH fingering so I cannot comment. It is available...I just don't know how easy it is to do. There is no really good way to enter the common banjo "barre" or "position barre" designators. You can 'fake' 'em in with the text editor but that's a pain.

[Steve Harrison]

I've been using Finale Print music( 2002 version) for the past 11 years. It's a very good entry level piece of software and easy to use. In it's simplest form you just click and drag the notes/rests onto the stave and away you go. There is a facility to add text and words etc. to the score and it also produces a midi.  I have never seen the need to upgrade to a more up to date version and I think in the UK the latest version is around the £60 mark.

[Sylvia]

I've got Tabledit too, although I havn't used it very much. I was quite pleased with it but I hadn't tried anything too difficult. They do have a members group where you can ask questions and they seem to work on additions. Mind you I havn't visited their group for a while.

I also have Noteworthy which is a reasonably priced prog. for notation only though, they don't do Tab. or didn't the last time I looked.

Looked at Guitar Pro 6 last night and thought that looked interesting. And last but not least.  Can I say to Marc. albeit a little late , that "it's nice to see that you are ok after the Tornado episode, I was away the weekend after it happened and was quite concerned that I didn't have access to a computer to find out how you were. "   PS have just seen Steve's post about Finale Print , that also looks interesting.

 

[Hal Allert]

Sorry to be responding late again. I have used SmartScore for a number of years. It has the ability to take a TIF scan and turn it into editable notes just like an OCR (optical character recognition) program. It allows you to clean up a messy score, assign whatever MIDI instrument you want to use ( I use the grand piano or the nylon guitar instruments), and it plays it back for you. This includes repeats and codas. Additionally, you can put multiple parts together and hear them all play at the same time. It will read TAB and allow you to edit it. It will transpose the parts (like going from bass clef to treble clef), or change the key. I exports to Finale and MIDI and you can burn it to a CD if you choose. It costs $199 USD but is definitely worth it.

 

Hal Allert