Rating: 
Summary: The best is still the best!!!
Review: Finale introduced computerized music notation combined with MIDI capabilities to us back in the mid-80's and they have continued to raise the bar every year. For serious composers, there really is no other option. Do not take the reviewers that claim Sibelius is better too seriously. Sibelius created a very pretty interface with the ability to perform simple tasks, but it is very limited. Their interface style has limited them from being able to perform nessasary functions (like the ability to undo) and they have painted themselves into a corner in the sense that there is not a lot room to add new features. Most Sibelius users I know gave up Finale after 2 weeks of using it because it didn't have little cartoon characters that popped out and explained everything to them. Creating software is a compromise of power vs. ease of use. Finale has really hit the perfect mark with this version. It continually becomes easier to use with every version but is not willing to compromise its power.Sibelius, the composer, might have actually used Sibelius, but his copyist would have used Finale!
Rating:
Summary: The best is still the best!!!
Review: Finale introduced computerized music notation combined with MIDI capabilities to us back in the mid-80's and they have continued to raise the bar every year. For serious composers, there really is no other option. Do not take the reviewers that claim Sibelius is better too seriously. Sibelius created a very pretty interface with the ability to perform simple tasks, but it is very limited. Their interface style has limited them from being able to perform nessasary functions (like the ability to undo) and they have painted themselves into a corner in the sense that there is not a lot room to add new features. Most Sibelius users I know gave up Finale after 2 weeks of using it because it didn't have little cartoon characters that popped out and explained everything to them. Creating software is a compromise of power vs. ease of use. Finale has really hit the perfect mark with this version. It continually becomes easier to use with every version but is not willing to compromise its power. Sibelius, the composer, might have actually used Sibelius, but his copyist would have used Finale!
Rating:
Summary: Finale Rocks!!
Review: Finale is an awesome program. I am currently using Finale 98d and I love it. In the music world everyone needs software like this for a different reason so no review can speak for everyone. In my case, my use of music notation software requires that my software supports shaped notehead capability and easy input for shaped noteheads. I find both with Finale. Setting it up for shaped noteheads was not easy but after making a template, it is now a breeze. You will find Finale somewhat cumbersome or difficult to learn. The reason for this is because it can do anything. There are settings and controls everywhere and finding the right one can be difficult. Finale does come with online documentation (Version 98d did) that you can view using Adobe Acrobat Reader. This documentation is very explanatory and deserves five stars in itself. The only thing the documentation doesn't do is teach you music. For example, you will not find explanations for expressions in the documentation. If your willing to put forth the effort it takes to learn the program, you will love this software.
Rating:
Summary: Finale Rocks!!
Review: Finale is an awesome program. I am currently using Finale 98d and I love it. In the music world everyone needs software like this for a different reason so no review can speak for everyone. In my case, my use of music notation software requires that my software supports shaped notehead capability and easy input for shaped noteheads. I find both with Finale. Setting it up for shaped noteheads was not easy but after making a template, it is now a breeze. You will find Finale somewhat cumbersome or difficult to learn. The reason for this is because it can do anything. There are settings and controls everywhere and finding the right one can be difficult. Finale does come with online documentation (Version 98d did) that you can view using Adobe Acrobat Reader. This documentation is very explanatory and deserves five stars in itself. The only thing the documentation doesn't do is teach you music. For example, you will not find explanations for expressions in the documentation. If your willing to put forth the effort it takes to learn the program, you will love this software.
Rating: 
Summary: Sibelius is better
Review: Finale is good, and you can pretty much do the same things as with Sibelius, but the latter is incredibly faster and easier to use. Sibelius is really intuitive -- I just guess something and it usually works -- which really saves you a lot of time: in a day or two, I knew how to do everything I needed to do. With Finale, I used it for 5 years, and I still don't know how to do certain things. It took me a couple of weeks just to get me started, and still after a year or two I was discovering some pretty essential features. But the worst part are the bugs. Finale has always been infested by them. I updated the program for 5 years, spending quite a bit of money, and I still would find the most frustrating bugs. With Finale 2002 I wrote a guitar piece -- just one staff! -- that whenever I would click on measure 196, the computer would crash. I could not change that measure at all, so I had to keep that measure the way it was even though I needed to change it. And this was one of the latest versions of the software. Don't get me started on the earlier ones... In all fairness, however, I should say that there are a couple of things that are better in Finale. Feathered beams, and changing noteheads to whatever you want are much harder to do with Sibelius. But all in all, Sibelius is much better, faster and more reliable.
Rating:
Summary: there's only ONE Finale
Review: Finale's main function is for notating music, but lately there has been a bit more of an effort towards those who want to hear their music. The problem most people have with Finale is that it is huge. However, they have a good Tutorial Manual and video. Like any new software there is a learning curve. You read the manual a bit, use the software a bit, and gradually grow into it. After five years I still don't know it all, and that's because I tend to learn only those things I immediately need. There are a couple of books on it available at Amazon.com. You can also seperately purchase a hardcopy of the online help. I suspect that the other kinds of notation software have more specific music uses, aimed more at making recorded "music." But if you want the best, this is it.
Rating:
Summary: Finale rules
Review: I do lots of engraving for music publishers, and Finale 2003 has everything I need for flexibility and class.
Rating:
Summary: Simply the BEST!
Review: I have been a Finale user for over ten years and it is quite simply the best music notation software on the market. I have used other products, some extensively, and they do not hold a candle to Finale in terms of capabilities, power and ease of use. For many years, Finale had a reputation of being the most powerful notation product but not very user-friendly. To a certain extent, this was probably true. I am a composer/arranger and I would spend hours formatting parts extracted from a score, not to mention that it would take hours for the software to extract the parts. With Finale 2003, once I have completed a score, it usually takes less than a minute for the part extraction to run and I have to do very little editing on individual parts before they are ready to print. MakeMusic (previously Coda Music) has also done a marvelous job with the last two or three Finale releases in making it conform with Microsoft Windows interface standards. Again, when I first started using Finale, it seemed to be a Mac product that had been ported to Windows and there were several non-standard interface elements. That has all changed. If you are a musician and a Windows user, you can be immediately productive with Finale. Finale 2003's MIDI capabilities are also quite good. My daughter sings and I have produced many accompaniments for her using my MIDI setup. For a number of years, I would use a sequencer for those arrangements. However, for the past three to four years, I have been using Finale, especially when it is a more orchestral-oriented arrangement. In fact, I haven't upgraded my sequencer program in several years since I use Finale almost exclusively now. Input is also quite easy with Finale. I have completed a marching band arrangement of an orchestral piece while traveling on the highway. I have reached the point where it is sometimes easier and quicker to enter music from the computer keyboard than it is from a MIDI keyboard. I could go on and on but let me just conclude by saying that by any measure you want to use, Finale is the finest music motation product on the market. It is the gold standard for the professional engraver and hobbyist alike.
Rating:
Summary: So simple!
Review: My friend and I were both going to play for church. He and I regularly play trumpet/trombone duets. I have a book of empty staves that you can write in music, and for like the past year we had been using that. So this Sabbath (today) we planned on playing "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name". He had given me a book of contemporary hymns that had that hymn in it and told me to arrange it so that there would be harmony (as the book only had melodies that were to be played to a cd). So I stayed up the night arranging, and it gets tedious.
So the next day I go to his house. He shows me that he had installed Finale 2003 on his computer. Figuring that my handwriting would be too hard to read at a glance (I was tired), we decided to transcribe it from paper to Finale 2003.
And it was so easy to use! WE didn't even have to look at the manual! I think we finished the whole trumpet/trombone score in about 10-20 minutes (it was actually longer but we practiced in between).
A few flaws: at first we had to dig deep to find where the rests were, as they weren't on the main screen. But after we found them (under "Tools" then "Rests", pretty straightforward), it was easy to add them. We were kind of in a hurry, so we didn't know where the fermata was, so our piece was fermata-less. Also, when we found out we had too many measures, we had a tough time deleting them and ended printing the extra measures.
But all in all, it's a very good program As for that $600 price..............my friend's dad will be getting me a copy :).
Rating:
Summary: OK but really not the best any more
Review: There may be some short falls but Finale is tops when you factor what else is availible. Support is good. Even with all it's
power, you can still do short quick charts easily. One thing,
if you are planning on doing full concert band or ochestral scores, get the biggest monitor as you can!
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