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[Benevolence]

Venturing into ground I am quite certain has been walked before in this section! Scorewriters, programs for writing music. Just in case you happened to wander in and have no idea what it meant. What scorewrites would you, users of Bay12, happen to recommend? So as to give some starting ground, the following have been suggested in one way or another when the subject has been brought up.

TabIt, Sibelius, Noteworthy Composer, and METRO. I was also instructed to avoid Finale if at all possible. A quick, and not even remotely thorough, search of the forums indicates some of you use Acoustica Mixcraft, Anvil Studio, FL Studio, and... something called REAPER. Interesting name, I suppose.

Now, as usual, the ideal scorewriter would be versatile, powerful, realistic, and free. If not free, cheap. But that's not at all likely, so I'm mostly just seeing who uses and suggests what at the moment before I go much further in this process.

I'll even try to keep a running list in this first post for ease of future reference.

[Heron TSG]

Whenever I have the urge to make a piece, I use Finale, because it's not too bad. I have 2008 at the moment because it was their last free version, but I use 2011 a lot on a public computer that has it installed, and it is quite awesome for scores involving more than three instruments.

[Supermikhail]

Oh, yeah! Me approves of this topic! Just yesterday I figured it would be worth a shot searching for something less fiddly than TuxGuitar. My new next best candidate is MuseScore, which has proven already ten times more helpful. Actually, MuseScore possibly being the top of the ladder for me, my big strife after that would be finding a good free soundfont, of finding resources for a commercial one. Because they just can't do guitar.

[Retro]

If you've got a Mac, GarageBand will absolutely suit you fine as a free product. Despite how little I like the usual "oh look how simple and easy it is" acclaims that Apple programs get, GB is actually deserving of it as a non-professional program. Its simplicity was not a trade-off for composition quality and flexibility.

If you've got a Windows machine like me, Mixcraft is my tool of choice. It's I think 60 bucks, which is relatively low-end, but you can get it with a two month (I believe) free fully-functional trial and can then pay 15$ to extend the trial another two months - and if you choose to officially purchase the product after that, the $15 you already paid is taken off. It can be a little annoying to use, but it's surpassed anything else on a Windows program I've used so far and has gotten a fair amount of acclaim. If you want to give Mixcraft a shot, I'm always around to shoot off a question or offer an example project file or something.

[Benevolence]

Well then, Barbarossa, as someone who actually uses Finale, could you potentially enlighten me as to why I would be advised to avoid it? Is that mostly just personal views from the people who advised me, or are there legitimate issues that would potentially make other programs better?

I have no exposure to TuxGuitar at all, but I do recall trying MuseScore once. It seemed a bit hard to get everything working properly, though that may have just been because I didn't spend enough time getting used to it. A problem I did have with it was that the latest version at the time had a few bugs, such as not playing grace notes at all.

Of course, unless MuseScore has been upgraded to provide more than just four slots for instruments, I don't think it's quite what I'm looking for anyway.

I'll have to keep Mixcraft in mind, then. Two months is a fairly decent trial period, I think, and that doesn't sound too terribly expensive considering I understand some commercial scorewriters can get to be over two hundred dollars. However, when you say "a little annoying", to what extent? Certain things are just slightly more difficult to use than one might expect, or some things are actually edging toward the problematic?

I would think the first, but sometimes people are prone to understatement.

[Supermikhail]

Checking the home page, MuseScore appears to have been last upgraded 25th of September. I'm not exactly trying to be its proponent, as I currently am actively looking for its downsides to quickly figure out if I can live with it, but I haven't had any trouble with instruments, namely I currently have a contrabass, a viola, violas, drums and a harpsichord, all of which appear to have three different parts each in the mixer (for just the instrument, a tremolo and a pizzicato versions), and I frankly have no idea how you use them, but I suspect that having them is a plus.

I found a couple of negative moments also. First, I wasn't able to locate bend. Second, it appears that after adding new notes you have to reload the piece to hear them in a correct dynamic (thankfully, you don't have to restart the program, as there is a reload button). And I had to fiddle with changing tempo in the middle of a piece a little, namely, it appears that it can't edit the tempo marker after it's been set, and if you change your mind, you need to delete it and set anew. Addendum:Another problem with MuseScore, which isn't technical - by default the essential panel is hidden, which cost me some fussing in the beginning. And you can't remove notes so that the following ones take their place, if it makes sense.

I believe that exhausts my list. I guess, I might as well submit my observations to the developers, if I feel like it.

[Heron TSG]

The only problems I've found with Finale that I couldn't work around were its terrible handling of percussion, but if you can figure it out (good luck, I haven't) it can sound pretty good.

The main problem with it is that it has a really convoluted interface, but that didn't affect me much after playing Dwarf Fortress. It can slow you down at times, though, if you're in a hurry.

[Leafsnail]

My friend sometimes makes tunes with Audacity, but then again...

He recommends Sibelius over Finale, although when he explains why I kindof zone out.

[Heron TSG]

Can't you only make the waves themselves in Audacity? Because that sounds like entirely too much work.

[Supermikhail]

Wow, I've never looked at Audacity this way. Do you use "Generate tone", and then some effects? If so, that's crazy. I can't even type notes without audio feedback, but to know which is which frequency?

I remember a problem with Finale, and it's connected to my lack of absolute or even very good relative pitch. I used ver. 2008 for some time when I was on Windows, and I'm a very indecisive composer, I would edit back and forth for hours, and of course, playback for hours, and sometimes it would stop playing sounds randomly, so I had to restart the program. But it may have been a problem with the Windows synthesizer. Also, I think there was some problem with adding instruments after you initially set up your piece, I think it tied them to other instruments' channels... But it was some time ago

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

when I was a dirty pirate, so you don't ask how I could afford it.

[Fishbreath]

I've been playing around with MuseScore. It's fine beyond a bit of instability, but it still does not do more than four voices per staff (I think that's how it's phrased).

Fine by me, because I'm a woodwind player and have a very hard time thinking of polyphony in terms of one instrument making multiple sounds, but your mileage there probably varies.

[Supermikhail]

Unlimited voices per staff? The more you live, the crazier the world gets. Is it used... well, it might be used for drums. I sure haven't seen any piano compositions with more than two voices. Admittedly, I've never gone for exactly virtuoso stuff.

[Leafsnail]

Wow, I've never looked at Audacity this way. Do you use "Generate tone", and then some effects? If so, that's crazy. I can't even type notes without audio feedback, but to know which is which frequency?

Yeah, pretty much.  It doesn't sound like a normal piece at the end though, obviously .

[ein]

I've been using pxtone a lot lately.
It's pretty cool, but you need to get some good ogg or wav samples to use.
I also use Guitar Pro 6 for all my guitar needs.