Klarinet Archive - Posting 000317.txt from 2001/01

From: Sherry Mayrent <oyfpro@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Encore/Sibelius etc.
Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 01:24:35 -0500

At 09:15 PM 1/9/01 +0000, klarinet-digest-help@-----.org wrote:

>We feel that Sibelius is the way for us to go right now, but when I use it,
>I still long for the days of Encore!

I just switched to Sibelius from Encore, and so far, I like it very
much. It takes care of a number of problems that used to aggravate me
about Encore -- such as not switching the beam directions automatically
when you transpose a score. I think it will probably prove to be an
incredibly powerful program, and I must say that I actually read the manual
from cover to cover -- it was both informative and extremely entertaining!

My advice, however, would be to download demos of as many products as you
can, and set yourself to do with each one the three tasks that you do/need
most often in a notation program. The bottom line is that however
wonderful a program may be in the abstract, if you don't interact with it
intuitively/logically, it won't do you any good. I chose Encore many years
ago by doing just that: I write lead sheets for klezmer tunes and needed
to be able to format a single page easily, change keys quickly, and going
back and forth between MIDI and notation. Encore was the only program I
tried at that time that did all three of the tasks in a way that I could
figure out quickly and that made sense to me. I did the same thing when I
contemplated switching to Sibelius: I checked page layout, transposition
of a score, and several MIDI parameters, all of which were very obvious and
clear in the Sibelius interface. The program also exports bits of notation
very easily into several graphics formats, which is a boon for me, since I
am developing a couple of multimedia projects.

Depending on what kinds of tasks you want to do, you might check out things
like part extraction, the use of text and other markings, MIDI playback,
font handling, layouts and the like.

Good luck!

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