MuseScore, the free composition software!

[Serassi1836]

Have you ever heard about MuseScore? It's a free music composition and notation software and now it is at version 1.0
It's as good as Sibelius or Finale, it is WYSIWYG, no limits of staffs (as Finale notepad), fast notes insertion, import/export from MusicXML and also MIDI files, very good soundfont included, a lot of music symbols that you can't have, e.g., on NWC.
The website is http://musescore.org/. What do you think about it?

[Dorsetmike]

Downloaded it, imported a MIDI file of a Harpsichord work, then imported same file into Finale Songwriter, Muse score placed it all on one treble staff, Songwriter did open a bass and treble staff, but didn't place many notes on the bass, probably more the fault of the MIDI file than either of the apps. Will do some more comparisons (read have a play) this evening and try to give a more considered comment.

[Serassi1836]

MuseScore places a staff for midi channel when importing. But if you click with right button on a staff, you can use "divide staff", choose the note where you want to divide and there will be two staves, a treble one and a bass one.

[Mat]

Hey Serassi,

I've been thinking of installing Musescore on my PC. It looks very promising and it's available in many languages (including mine). The thing is I've got a lot of scores created in Sibelius (with .sib file extension) and I was wondering if it's possible to open/edit them with Musescore?

[Dorsetmike]

Mat, can you export from Sibelius in MIDI format or Music XML, Musescore can read those and some others.

[Contratrombone64]

How on can you state that it's as good as Sibelius and Finale - I assume you use all these to an advanced level to make such an ascertion??

[Serassi1836]

Well, I have tried my teacher's Finale and a friend of mine's father's Sibelius and I think MuseScore can be compared with those very expensive softwares

[BatChic]

While I don't think it's quite as good as Sibelius, MuseScore is definitely a competitor. The fact that it's free and is as good as it is is tremendous and if they had the financial backing that Sibelius has, it would be far superior I think