Guitar Pro 6 Review

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(More customer reviews)Hey music lubbers. I wanted to write this review anyway but even more so that GP6 has received some tough criticism. Much of the dissatisfaction is from owners of previous versions of Guitar Pro. Since I'm new to the product I have a different perspective, one not colored by certain expectations. By the way, I'm also a software developer so I can add that to the equation as well.
From my "dual point-of-view" GP6 is both a great musical tool and a well-done piece of software. The slams it's gotten for being unresponsive, hard to use, buggy, etc. are a bit exaggerated. I believe those who have trouble with it don't have computers with the required firepower; it does ask for a fairly modern machine and it's not kidding! Though I've had it crash a few times, this is certainly no worse than Firefox; moreover, the program does very frequent updates that happen hemidemisemi-automatically.
It has a rich and satisfying palette of tools for painting your musical masterpiece. It has a plethora (oh yes El Guapo...a plethora!) of RSE2 instruments to fill up your canvas. Some of them sound great (fine oil paint), some are "good enough" (acrylics) and some are like throwing a crayon into the dryer (uh, don't try this!) Strangely, the best sounding ones are guitars and similar stringed instruments; oh wait, this is *Guitar* Pro, not Bassoon Hero!
I also love the effects/amps you can use to shade and enrich your tableau. They really make a dramatic difference to the sound, just as they do in the real world. You can try out effects you don't quite understand instead of "Daddy, what does a phaser do?" "Well son, it's used to kill Klingons." Yeah, dad's a trekkie, not a musician.
You probably already know that there are thousands of GP-based tab/chord downloads out there; unfortunately, it's hard to find sites that use the new .gpx format at this time. Regardless, GP6 can import all of its predecessor formats and others such as Power Tab. It also does a nice job with many ASCII tab files, which surprised me somewhat.
As nice as all of these features are, composition/playback is the heart of the package. Let's just keep it simple here. You can represent just about any musical notation and the scores are easy to manipulate. You'd likely go bonkers trying to figure out how many possible built-in scales there are, and what each term means; learn Latin and Italian if you really want to know what these are (c'mon, you really just wanna impress chicks--I know you!) The playback will let you set each track individually so you can use it for backing while you play...say...your bagpipes. And if you want to input via something other than a computer keyboard, voila, summon the useful (albeit slightly hokey) virtual fretboard/keyboard. Better yet, attach a MIDI piano/synth and do a live 'captcha'.
Anyway, you can find all of this out yourself, I'm just letting you know what I find impressive about Guitar Pro 6. Get a copy and let's all paint some great scores together!

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Guitar Pro 6, a Win/Mac hybrid, is the ultimate toolbox for the guitarist! It includes all the tools you need to improve, compose and accompany yourself on the guitar. This simple and intuitive multitrack tablature editor is specifically designed for guitar, bass or other stringed instruments.

Guitar Pro 6 features the newest in playback technology including RSE - Realistic Sound Engine. RSE gives you real time playback of your scores with realistic sound samples taken from high quality guitars and real time effects such as wah-wah. Advanced notation features add drum notation, vocal notation and tablature support for any stringed instruments with four to seven strings. The newest version, Guitar Pro 6.0, includes over 40 new features while improving on those that have made it the most popular guitar tablature editor available.

Known for its ease of use, Guitar Pro allows you to enter notes by using keyboard keys, mouse clicks on an on-screen fretboard or directly through a connected MIDI device, all in just a few minutes. This revolutionary software can handle up to 256 tracks and you can switch from tablature view to standard notation for viewing or editing scores. With automatically calculated rhythms, Guitar Pro works out the note durations for you, and when you play the score, the music scrolls along with you, rendering guitar-specific effects like bends and slides.

Also included in Guitar Pro are a digital guitar tuner, a chord diagram engine, and a scales tool. You can easily import and export MIDI and ASCII tab formats allowing Guitar Pro to be used with a limitless number of songs. Tens of thousands of Guitar Pro format files are available on the Internet. The WAVE Export allows you to convert a Guitar Pro file into an audio file which is playable without Guitar Pro and can be burned onto an audio CD.

With its ease-of-use, versatility and variety of tools, Guitar Pro will have you creating music in no time! Features:

Multitrack/monotrack display, horizontal or vertical scrolling, the screen display adjusts to your preferences and score types.
Chord Diagram editor allows you to easily add chord diagrams to your score. Ask for any chord in any tuning and Guitar Pro will show you every diagram possible.
Scales Tool allows you to view and listen to a large number of scales, from the most common to the most exotic.
Digital or MIDI Tuner allows you to tune your guitar for every tuning possible, from 4- to 7-strings.
Fretboard (or Keyboard) allows you to view and enter notes on the score. It is able to show the notes of the current beat, but also the notes for the next beat, the complete bar or the selected scale.
Metronome gives the tempo while playing a score or even without playing it.
Professional Quality Paper Printings can be monotrack or multitrack. This way you can print several views of the same score, perfect for a band.

New Features for Guitar Pro 6:

Over 50 pedal effects and numerous sound banks (guitar, bass, drums, piano, orchestral etc.)
A New MDI User Interface (including full screen mode)
Piano Grand Staff
Rhythm slash
Simile marks
Multi-rest
Concert tone
Parametric equalization on each track
Configurable tones
Tap tempo
Jazz fonts
Anacrusis

Guitarist Magazine: "Guitar Pro is an intelligent, simple, clear and precise tool … the standard of its field."

Guitar Part: "Complete and easy to use … for a very low price considering its possibilities…"

RIFF Magazine: "Guitar Pro is unquestionably the best that can be found in the field of tablature editing for the PC."

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Finale PrintMusic 2010 Review

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(More customer reviews)I've had this for roughly a month and I love it. Let me go through my uses and skill level so you understand what I've needed so you can determine if this is the right one for you. (I spent a lot of time debating since there's such a huge price difference between this and the full version, or even Allegro).
First - understand that you can always update your version to Allegro or full via the Finale website for the difference in price. That helped me be even more comfortable with my purchase.
I am a musical hobbyist and (very) part-time instructor. I use Finale to write out my musical ideas so I can mess around with other instruments and parts which I may not have available or even know how to play. Often, being able to SEE what I've written allows me to arrange better--some people need to hear and play, and I am not like this. At least not yet. I also love taken written songs and creating new arrangements for them. I'm a big geek so I love arranging video game songs on piano or guitar. It's so easy to find midi files online and I just open the file in Print Music and viola! I have the whole song written out. Saves me hours upon hours of listening and re-listening and frustration until I'm tired of the song. If I had to find a gripe, the only one would be that the tabbing tool is poorly put together, and that sucks since my primary instrument is guitar. But honestly it doesn't ruin anything, it's just annoying (I'd ding it .01 stars for that if I could).

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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. You'll be proud of the results you get with PrintMusic.

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Finale SongWriter 2010 Review

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(More customer reviews)They call it Finale Songwriter, and that's who it seems to be aimed at; I bought it to do charts for a friend who is a singer/songwriter, and I found it to be quite up to the task.
I got tired of updating the full Finale program, which I purchased back around 1995; the last update I bought was Finale 2001; updating every year was expensive, some $100 for each year's new update; and it was annoying, too, since each new version seemed like it had to be learned all over again; so I finally stopped getting updates and stayed with my 2001d version. Since I don't do much music charting, it was pointless to keep shelling out money for new updates.
Now, here we are in 2010; I'm using a newer Mac with OS X, and the few times I have to do notation, I have to run Classic Mode in order to use my ancient 2001d version of Finale, and already, the updates are requiring a later version of the OS than I have... so I checked out the various versions of Finale, and found this one; Songwriter 2010 is (I think) the last of the Finale programs that will still work with 10.4... and it's also the least expensive, so I thought I would check it out. There is a fully-functional 30-day trial version available to download, so I tried it out by charting a few of my friend's songs with it.
Even with Songwriter, there is a bit of a learning curve, since music notation is a bit of an involved, detailed process. But I found that all of the important functions are easily accessible, and once you get the hang of what menu they're under, it seems to flow pretty well. All the important functions are present; what seems to be missing is all the customizing capability of the full Finale, such as all the little variations of the Repeat signs. It has Simple Note Entry, which is just grabbing a note with the mouse and placing it on the staff; this can be streamlined quite a bit if you have a MIDI keyboard: you use the numeric keypad to select a note value, and play a note on the MIDI keyboard to place it on the staff. I was thrilled to discover that Songwriter also has the Hyperscribe feature, which starts up a metronome, and lets you play a part into the program in real time. All the important text functions and spacing and layout controls are available too, so you can get a chart looking just right. It is limited to 8 staves, but for ordinary song charting, I can't imagine needing more than 3 or 4.
In my opinion, Songwriter is more than adequate to most basic charting needs, and Finale has an upgrade policy if you should ever need more capability. Best of all, you can try the program for 30 days to determine if it will suit your needs.

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While Finale SongWriter makes it easy to create great sheet music at an affordable price, that's just the beginning. Finale SongWriter allows you to enter notes from a mouse, computer keyboard, or midi keyboard. You can add chord symbols, fretboard diagrams, and multiple verses of lyrics. Finale SongWriter can automatically add two and three voice harmony to your melodies and instantly add a drum part. The music you create sounds great through your computer's speakers thanks to Human Playback and 128 professional sounds. You can import and export MIDI files, create MP3 files, and save your work as a standard Finale file which can also be shared with users of Finale Notepad (a free download). If getting music on the printed page is part of your songwriting project, Finale SongWriter is the perfect collaborator.

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