On Monday 20 August 2007, tim hall wrote: > David Baron wrote: > > There was a thread on this a while back, the need for opensource or > > free/minimal cost alternatives to Sibelius and such on Linux. > > > > One can run Finale Notepad or various lower cost upgrades using Wine and > > this may be the best alternative if one can get the MIDI and printing > > working this way. > > > > For lack of a handy staffbook--and it is easier to simply grab a > > staffbook, a extra fine pen and a typex stick--I tried what I have on my > > Debian Sid box: > > > > Scoring: > > > > Notedit--KDE's scoring program will get the job done. Most functionality > > is there. Chord entry is very awkward and the ui needs more toolbar > > items. But it works and will export to most everything needed including > > abc which opens the door to many Windows and Linux programs that can > > print score, Lilypond, MusicTex and MusicML. > > > > Canorus--successor to Notedit. Too early for this one. > > > > Denemo--GUI for Lilypond. Too early for this one as well. Nice start but > > had to go back to Notedit to continue. > > > > Musescore/mscore--new boy on the block. Coming along nicely and will soon > > be the best around. Still work to be done, text field editing is > > nigh-impossible but this is the alternative to Finale and Sibelius to > > watch. Imported MusicML from Noteedit. > > > > MIDI keyboard to any of these is precarious at best. > > > > For printing (engraving when doing music): > > > > Lilypond--works well with its peculiarities. Not enough control of > > formatting when exporting from noteedit, et al. Denemo not ready so need > > to know its markup language to really use it well. It is supposed to be > > the standard. > > > > MusixTex--works nearly as well as Lilypond but does not handle UTF8, > > foreign characters out of the box. > > > > Musescore--one when sets the formatting parameters (not defaulted > > properly) produces very nice results. Its scoring is WYSIWYG once the > > formatting params are set up. Again, the one to watch. > > I find this all slightly depressing. I thought Rosegarden / Lilypond > ought to be the tools for the job, but the message I keep hearing is > that they don't come up to the standards required for professionally > printed music. I wish somebody could properly explain why. > > I've been commissioned to write a book of choral music, which requires > multivoice staves, so obviously Rosegarden will fail there. I shall have > to let them do the setting in Sibelius unless I can come up with some > solid arguments to the contrary. > > It just seems ludicrous to me that we have all this incredible > multimedia software at our disposal, but every time someone wants to > typeset music we have to consider going back to proprietary tools like > Finale / Score / Sibelius. This is terribly disappointing. > > Please say it isn't so. ;) To most extent, this is so. Muscscore (mscore) has all the features necessary and it capable of doing a very nice score for multistave choral music. No guitar chord symbols and such "extras" needed here. Note entry to this program is the problem. Noteedit, as I said, will adequately get the job done. From here, you can go to lilypond or to mscore. _______________________________________________ Linux-audio-user mailing list Linux-audio-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.linuxaudio.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/linux-audio-user
