[Bahamut]

Yet another question. I find inputting notes on notepad a bit of a drag, so I tried to use my yamaha keyboard. When I did this, I noticed that any key I hit, the note's duration will not be based on how long I held the note, but instead on what type of note I have chosen in notepad (e.g. I hold a note on my keyboard for 4 beats, but on notepad I have eighth note highlited, so one eighth note appears instead of one whole note). Are there any programs that might allow me to input notes without having to constantly change the type of note on the program?

[Nicol Armarfi]

I believe, once again, that that is merely one of Notepad's fallbacks. However, you may be able to find the answer the the help file. If it doesn't tell you, I know that Noteworthy Composer is a good freeware notation program that does this.

[Bahamut]

Man, this thread seems to be made just to find faults about notepad. Anyway, does Finale Allegro have this feature?

[MelloSinfonian]

Notepad's not all that bad...I mean, it's great for what it is. It's just that it's a free introductory software.

[Nicol Armarfi]

I've been using Allegro up until last Christmas when I received a copy of Finale as a gift. I had no trouble with Allegro, as it has nearly every feature of Finale, with the exception of a few options to make your score more esthetically pleasing, and the ability to import audio tracks.

[Kimberly Boman]

I have the 2005 demo and I'm very limited in what I can do...obviously. If I could afford the full version I would take advantage of things like tempo changes, key changes, time signature changes (can you even do this? I thought you could), grace notes, tremolos, repeats, changing the bass clef to treble and vice versa, and the list could go on and on and on...*sigh*...someday.

[Nicol Armarfi]

Well, I'm not sure I can give a complete list of the features of the full Finale, but some of the most useful ones I find myself taking advantage of the most would be:

- Tempo and key changes
- Clef changes (including several types of obscure clefs)
- Ability to save arrangements as .wav, .mp3 and .mid/.midi files
- Several note appearance editing options (changing the angle and height of a stem or beam, moving notes horizontally on the staff, etc.)
- The ability to define your own expressions

The list goes on very, very long. It takes a huge chunk out of your wallet, but it's definitely worth it if you can manage to get a hand on a copy. Otherwise, I'd suggest Allegro or Print Music (as previously stated), as they cost a much lower amount but still support most of the features, including tempo and key changes.

[Jisho]

You forget that you can't change time signature. Not that it matters w/ most arranging, very few vg musics are in a true mixed meter.

And I say do yourself a favor and drop the cash to get Sibelius. Lousy sound sets aside, it has probably the best interface.

[Nicol Armarfi]

What? You can indeed change the time signature with Finale. This can be done even in Finale Songwriter.

[Jisho]

I have notepad (2006). Where is the button to do that?

I thought that was implied... the thread is "Notepad"