Notation Software
I finally broke down and purchased Finale Allegro over the weekend. It will be a few days before it arrives of course. I’ve been making do with the free Finale Notepad for a little while. Previously I had used Midisoft Desktop Sheet Music. But, I run the software in a virtual environment on my linux desktop and Desktop Sheet Music has seemed somewhat unstable, so…. I thought I’d give a Finale product a try. Try as I might, I really couldn’t justify spending enough for MakeMusic Finale 2007 Win/Mac.
So, Allegro seemed a reasonable price/feature compromise for me. It appears (from the demo) that it has everything feature-wise that I’d really be looking for. (Including a few things I hadn’t thought to look for.) I did a few test entries in the demo version (as well as transcribing a medley in the free notepad). I wanted to make sure I got used to the way of entering notes. One of the things I LIKE from what I’ve seen is the broad use of keyboard shortcuts. In note entry for example I can click a line or space to enter a note on the staff, but I can then use the up or down arrows to correct the pitch, or type in numbers to add an interval above (or below) that note.
It’s also pretty quick to change a note value with keyboard shortcuts. To me, that’s nice because having to click for EVERYTHING really slows down note entry. If I can have one hand on the keyboard with some reasonable shortcuts (relatively easy to remember), then have the other hand on the mouse I can get things entered much more quickly. One of my hopes is that I’ll be able to use the software for even more download possibilities here. My next task though is to export all my old Midisoft Desktop Sheet Music files to a pdf format.
Popularity: 5% [?]
