Buy Finale PrintMusic 2011Finale PrintMusic 2011 Product Description:
- Finale PrintMusic is professional music software for arrangers, composers, teachers, students, and other musicians
- Play MIDI keyboard and see music appear instantly; enter notes in step-time; import/export MIDI and MusicXML files
- Share songs with free, downloadable Finale Reader; save MP3 files for an iPod or burn to CD
- Free software synthesizer with 128 plus instrument sounds; Human Playback to give your music human nuances
- Composing and arranging tools; multiple-undo option; quick-start videos for getting started
Product Description
Finale PrintMusic is the fast, easy way to bring your music to life - with professional results. The Setup Wizard helps you create scores of up to 24 staves. Note entry is a breeze, whether you enter with a mouse, MIDI device, microphone, or scanner. Human Playback makes your music sound like it's being performed by live musicians. PrintMusic includes a software synthesizer with over 128 professional grade instrument sounds, plus Marching Percussion from Row-Loff, and can save MP3s for making your own CDs. Enter notes with a mouse, MIDI keyboard, microphone, or scanner. Play your composition, print publisher-quality sheet music, or make MP3s for CDs of your musical creations. PrintMusic 2011 integrates many advances from Finale 2011, the worldwide standard in music notation. Lyrics are more easily entered, instantly appear as they print out, and automatically space with even further precision. Many tasks are simplified, from moving or reordering staves to creating handbell charts. We've added new music fonts that provide percussion, handbell, and mallet images to place in any score, and much more. You'll be proud of the results you get with Finale PrintMusic.
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
25 of 25 people found the following review helpful.
Excellent buy for the price
By Eleanor Rigby
I have always loved music and have always had music running through my head, that of others as well as my own, but had little formal education beyond sight reading and some basic skills in piano and guitar. This program not only helps me write my music clearly, which is great since I have very slow handwriting, which gets very sloppy if I try to go any faster, but I get to hear it much better than other, cheaper music transcription programs. It would sound even more realistic if I sprang for an instrument library (I think that's what it's called), since transcription programs aren't primarily designed to sound realistic, but the human playback, with its various styles, helps to make the music sound more like what you're envisioning, as opposed to many ~$20 programs where the MIDI playback practically grates on the ears.The interface is also very intuitive given the many functions I can perform with this program. At first the SmartShapes seemed a little confusing because I only tried single clicking before dragging, but as soon as I consulted the manual, which is very clear and easy to refer to, it became apparent that it would work if I double clicked prior to dragging. It would probably have less of a learning curve if one were inclined to read the manual straight through before diving in, but I am not that sort of person, even when manuals have lots of pictures like this one does (I like to tinker in applications to figure out firsthand how they work before reading the details laid out for me, but if you prefer the latter approach, it is easy to take).It's also great too, because while I love being able to write notation directly, sometimes I just feel like playing the music, and I would rarely think to record or keep track of anything as I was playing. Using a cable and MIDI keyboard, I can play a melody, chord progression, or whatever I think of directly, and set the smallest note value so it can transcribe the shorter duration notes played appropriately. This can be a fast way to get the bare bones of something in, then making edits along the way (my fingers navigate a music keyboard more efficiently than a computer keyboard, apparently).The lyrics tool is useful too, and intuitive, good things for someone like me who enjoys composing for musical theater.I haven't yet tried everything Finale PrintMusic 2011 is capable of, so I can't review, say, the scanning function. It won't have all the features of the Pro version, but a lot of people won't need them and that's something you'll have to decide, looking at their lists of features and thinking of your own needs, depending on whether you're using this for your career and what that entails, but for non-professionals this is an excellent, five-star package, which you'd only really need more than this if you had enough money so it wouldn't dent your budget to upgrade although I do admit that unlimited staves is a tempting thing...but multiple parts of the same instrument easily and routinely go on the same staff, so it is not a big deal, at this time for me anyway.If you're a musically knowledgeable person who enjoys composing/arranging, is interested in or needs a computer program for composing/arranging, and either can't or doesn't want to spend a huge amount of money, this is a good investment.
40 of 44 people found the following review helpful.Powerful affordable notation software
By Dave
I purchased PrintMusic because I know Finale is a very good program but I don't need all the features in the full version. PrintMusic is quite powerful for the price. It is quite intuitive and I was up and running very easily. The scanning works very well and the playback sounds are a very nice touch. I highly recommend if you are looking for pro results without a pro price-tag.
43 of 48 people found the following review helpful.
A clunky throwback to DOS based software
By Bill
The software is "powerful" in the sense that it lets you do lots of things and, so far, I've been able to get it to do everything I wanted. However, the interface is still anchored to antique "secret-handshake" DOS-based programming that require remembering all sorts of keyboard-based commands and using procedures that are anything but intuitive...Can you click on a note and drag it to where you want it? No. Change pitch yes, but to move right/left, delete it and then enter a new note...Want to write two quarter notes over a half note? It's only possible by placing the half note on a different layer than the quarter notes and entering and then hiding rests before/after the half note to make it align where it is needed...Want to select a half-dozen B's at different places in the music and make them all B-flats? Not that I've been able to discover. Do each note separately...Select and copy a line of lyrics and paste at a different location? Again, not that I've been able to discover. You get to retype the lyric...Etc.The procedures for doing things are often obscure and unduly complicated. For example, to move or delete a syllable in the lyrics, the procedure is as follows:"To move or delete a syllable * Click the Lyrics tool image\Lyric_Tool.gif. The Lyrics menu appears. * Choose Adjust Syllables from the Lyrics menu. * Click on the staff at the position of the syllable you want to move. Don't click the syllable. Just click within the staff lines in line with the syllable you want to move or delete; its handle appears. * Drag the handle to reposition the syllable. Select it and press the arrow keys to "nudge" it for fine positioning; select it and press delete to remove the syllable. Note that this method of deleting a syllable doesn't pull the following syllables one note to the left; it allows you simply to remove a selected syllable, leaving all other syllables where they are. * To restore a syllable to its original position, click its handle and press backspace."Note that this procedure omits the important step of specifying from the menu the lyric (verse) to be edited, and allows you to put two, three, or more words on top of each other (try singing that). Why not just click on the word/syllable, move with arrow keys or delete with delete key?The help file is close to useless in that an effective search option is lacking.Perhaps with time I'll learn all of the tricks that allow me to efficiently use the features of this program, but so far, I've found it to be very clunky and non-intuitive.
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