What notation software do you use and why?

[Andrew Chung]

I'm curious to see what everyone uses and why.

I use, and for a long time have used, MuseScore because it's free and open-source and cross-platform. I've tried Sibelius and Guitar Pro, but I felt neither were worth sticking to.

• Sibelius: I bought this while I was in high school for the education price, doing amateur orchestral arrangements for my peers. Great workflow—Sibelius keypad my beloved—and obviously very high quality output, but I'd misunderstood that I was paying for a subscription, not a one-time fee, so I never renewed
• Guitar Pro (demo only): I found it confusing to use, standard notation seems to be a second-class citizen (rhythm and accidentals in GP are so hard to use), and I don't want to pay for a subscription again

Being a general notation program, MuseScore's guitar output isn't great, but it's getting better with time as users chime in, wanting better guitar output

 

[Matt Wildcat]

Personally, I use TuxGuitar, but have used others in the past here and there. I used MuseScore in college and just never got round to using it again, and with TuxGuitar I love the fretboard feature you can enable. I'm more of a visual learner and I'm doing a lot of tabbing work at the moment, so I find it helps me memorise shapes and patterns on the fretboard (especially since my theory isn't great atm.. Lol). Cool question!

 

[Javier Wienarjati]

I use Guitar Pro 7, I have tried Sibellius but gotconfused maybe because it's for professionals use, not child friendly app. LOL
I like GP 7, it's easy to navigate and the file is easier to be converted on soundslice. Mom usually makes me soundslice almost on every new song that I learn.

 

[DGLee]

Guitar Pro, probably because I have been using it since about 1999. Just accustomed to its operation ....