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From: sdo@piccolo.Sun.COM (Scott Oaks - Sun Consulting NYC)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: music typesetting & text notation..
Message-ID: <290@gotham.COM>
Date: 8 Oct 89 17:19:55 GMT
References: <1403@syma.sussex.ac.uk> <479@artsnet.UUCP>
Sender: news@gotham.COM
Reply-To: sdo@piccolo.Sun.COM (Scott Oaks - Sun Consulting NYC)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.  New York City
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 >The best software package I've experienced is SCORE (Passport,
 >Half Moon Bay, CA).  It is thorough, still buggy a bit in its most
 >recent incarnation, and is quite complex--it is not for the casual
 >user.  I recommend it only if you (like I) are interested in
 >investing yourself into the music typesetting or publishing
 >business.  It is relatively user-unfriendly and is poorly
 >documented.  It is also *very* expensive (over $1000 now, I
 >understand).  If you want something easier to use for the purpose
 >of typesetting your own music for performance purposes only, get
 >something else.  If you want to compete on the commercial market
 >with Theodore Presser, E.C. Schirmer, Oxford, or C.F. Peters, then
 >you have no other alternative than SCORE and the extensive
 >training you'll have to give yourself to create competitive
 >results.  (The much touted Macadoodle programs and Sonata Fonts
 >don't even come close.  Period.)

Well, I can't comment on SCORE, having never used it.  But that Macdoodle
program Finale, despite having all the drawbacks that SCORE apparently has, 
(expensive, complex, etc.) produces commercial quality results.  In fact,
I just used it to produce a score for a division of Lawson-Gould.

-sdo (sdo@sun.COM)