Rating: 
Summary: Better than I expected
Review: Being a teacher and bandleader, and new to computers, I needed an easy program to help me prepare lessons, and more importantly to make my originals readable on the job, usually in low light situations. Some of my tunes have twists and turns, and my handwriting isn't beautiful. My computer-savvy colleagues spoke highly of Sibelius and so I gave G7 a shot. It does the work I need simply, elegantly, and most importantly, I found it easy and fast to figure out. It certainly does a lot for the money, too. I'm very satisfied.
Rating: 
Summary: G7 has made me a believer!
Review: I have been using Sibelius G7 since early 2003. Over the years I had tried, and had been disappointed, by various notation programs for the computer. Most were overly complicated, were not user friendly or particularly intuitive (we guitarists prize the intuitive aspects of a product), were limited in their scope and demanded a learning curve which is impractical for a working musician. All were not capable of producing a guitar-TAB score at the professional level. Well, no more...enter G7.
I first learned about G7 from Sibelius--a great bunch of folks incidentally. I was just starting a new gig with an important internet client who was using Sibelius exclusively for all their music notation. Coincidentally, Sibelius had just launched G7. I decided to give it a shot and have never been more satisfied.
The easy-to-use manual (that used to be an oxymoron) is mercifully brief and succinct and gets you up to speed quickly. Then simply playing with the program and accessing the internal Help menu does the rest. Note entry is easily accomplished with the keypad or an interactive fingerboard floating in a corner of the screen. You create notes and chords or TAB effortlessly by simply clicking on the strings. Rhythms are easily entered with a preset value in another tool box also on the screen. It is easy to change rhythms as you go or to edit them later. Complex rhythms (like 32nd-note quintuplets) are easy to create with a simple selection and key command: select and type 3 for triplet, etc. Furthermore specific and idiosyncratic guitar expressions like string bends and slurs, techniques like palm muting and raking, and other similar elements are easy to enter. I paricularly like the simple text entry which can be inserted in any size and font style into the score. I often use these elements to amplify on special techniques in the music. TAB entry is also effortless. You can select and highlight the desired notes, hit ALT, point to the TAB line, and voila, your notes become TAB. TAB can then be edited or repositioned by simply selecting and dragging notes from string to string with the mouse or by selecting and typing in new numbers. I just realized that I have used words like easy, simple and effortless to excess in the last paragraph, but that's how it is with G7.
I have put G7 through numerous "road tests" in the real world for the past six months or so. I have used it regularly to generate notation for my Guitar Port Online articles and columns as well to create materials for clinics and private lessons. I have also enjoyed using G7 "off the clock" to produce printed scores of my private unpublished transcriptions that I share with musical friends and colleagues. G7 is now an essential tool on my desktop. I enthusiastically recommend it to all guitar playing musicians or anyone who wants to create beautiful guitar charts and scores for any occasion.
Rating: 
Summary: this does not live up to the hype
Review: I purchased this product one week ago,,, after several hours
a day and talking to there support i find this program not anywhere
near intuitive, the reviewer that said it has a tall learning curve was not kidding,
i think he was being nice! this program doesnt do what it claims
(it doesnt play all guitar symbols i even have email from them stating that)
it is very difficult to even put a bend on tab and get it to sound right.
the scanning software does not work at all (if it doesnt crash it doesnt even get 20% of the song right)
I am going back to guitar pro it cost half as much and is so much easier.
Rating:
Summary: What A Deal~!
Review: I purchased this program recently. It has a very steep learning curve. For instance, when I tried to put notes onto the staff with the mouse, it would often put them with additional rests etc, which I did not want to be there (while I played around with my musical idea), and then when I tried to delete the note I put in, it would not delete it. So I called Sibelius and asked who I could go to in the Los Angeles area who could perhaps tutor me on learning this program, and they did not have a single person. It was suggested that I go to the help center on their web site... which I did, and then I tried to find the listings of discussions from other users on the basic learning of the program... the help center came back with no listings... so then I had to write techincal help to find out exactly what words one has to put into the help center in order to find the chatroom discussions...I am waiting for an answer now.
So, save your self a headache and don't buy this program unless you have a direct contact who can help you learn it.
Rating:
Summary: Not for beginners!
Review: I purchased this program recently. It has a very steep learning curve. For instance, when I tried to put notes onto the staff with the mouse, it would often put them with additional rests etc, which I did not want to be there (while I played around with my musical idea), and then when I tried to delete the note I put in, it would not delete it. So I called Sibelius and asked who I could go to in the Los Angeles area who could perhaps tutor me on learning this program, and they did not have a single person. It was suggested that I go to the help center on their web site... which I did, and then I tried to find the listings of discussions from other users on the basic learning of the program... the help center came back with no listings... so then I had to write techincal help to find out exactly what words one has to put into the help center in order to find the chatroom discussions...I am waiting for an answer now.
So, save your self a headache and don't buy this program unless you have a direct contact who can help you learn it.
Rating:
Summary: Save Time, Effort and Money
Review: I run a Master's Degree Program in Instructional Technology and am always impressed when a program can teach well. The animated fretboard in G7, and the ability to seamlessly go between standard notation and guitar tablature are superb. As a guitarist, I'm stunned by the number of uses I have already found for G7. It is also incredible for eliminating "grunt" work which guitarists, teachers and students have always had to go through. I almost feel guilty for having paid so little for it...almost. If you play the guitar and don't have G7, you are wasting time, effort and money.
Rating:
Summary: Cool program for writing guitar tab & songs
Review: I'm a guitarist (amateur but hopeful!) and bought this new program a month ago, having seen rave reviews in a couple of guitar mags.Basically, G7 lets you write, play back and print out guitar tab and notation v. easily. There's a cool fretboard on the screen which you can use to click notes in and see how to finger stuff. You can also input notation + drum parts, or even scan sheet music in, and download ASCII tab or MIDI files and turn them straight into tab printouts. Plus you can post your songs on the web so other people can print + play them. Seems to do everything I want and quite a bit more too... plus it's so easy-peezy to use! Full marks from me!!
Rating:
Summary: What A Deal~!
Review: I'm a Sibelius user, and I picked up G7 because of it's Guitar Guide and Virtual Fret Board (I'm not much of a guitarist). This program is absolutely AMAZING, and I can't believe what it can do for the price! It is in the same structure/format as Sibelius, and the files are even transferrable, so the singer/songwriter who doesn't need a "powerful" notation software can easily create lead sheets or charts in G7, and send them off to someone who can add orchestrations, etc. in Sibelius. (Although for some, G7 can probably do it all.) More, it's just so much fun to work with the fret board (and SO EASY to use), and the guitar guide is a great interactive source for learning everything you need to know about the guitar and writing for the guitar, so that alone is worth the purchase!
It's great~!
Rating:
Summary: Very poor functionality
Review: This software is a MAJOR disapointment. I've tried for 4 hours (learning curve) to build a simple lead sheet and I can't get past 16 bars. This software is full of bugs. I tried to add lyrics but when I came to a half note at the start of a measure that was tied to a note from the previous measure the lyrics jumped to the following measure, skipping 4 eighth notes, making it useless. You have no flexiblity in the lengths of measures. They seem to take on a life of their own. Not only do they become either too long or too short, the page jumps all over the screen when trying to stretch or shrink the measure. I didn't find this software to be hard to use, only the buggiest software package I ever owned (hope to get a return). The functionality just isn't there. The manual and help are weak. The manual and help say one thing but the program does another. I can't continue to fight with the package and try to figure out why something does not work the way the manual says it should. This was just a couple of things I found bad, believe me there were more. I believe that this software was written for a Mac, based on the manual and user interface. Maybe it works for Macs but if you have a pc, forget it.
Rating:
Summary: Very poor functionality
Review: This software is a MAJOR disapointment. I've tried for 4 hours (learning curve) to build a simple lead sheet and I can't get past 16 bars. This software is full of bugs. I tried to add lyrics but when I came to a half note at the start of a measure that was tied to a note from the previous measure the lyrics jumped to the following measure, skipping 4 eighth notes, making it useless. You have no flexiblity in the lengths of measures. They seem to take on a life of their own. Not only do they become either too long or too short, the page jumps all over the screen when trying to stretch or shrink the measure. I didn't find this software to be hard to use, only the buggiest software package I ever owned (hope to get a return). The functionality just isn't there. The manual and help are weak. The manual and help say one thing but the program does another. I can't continue to fight with the package and try to figure out why something does not work the way the manual says it should. This was just a couple of things I found bad, believe me there were more. I believe that this software was written for a Mac, based on the manual and user interface. Maybe it works for Macs but if you have a pc, forget it.
|
