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I realize this is an Encore forum, but like some others I’m interested in possible alternatives, given the lack of any updates here. On the face of it, MuseScore looks interesting, clean, maybe usable, and being free is nice. Yet I have read some brief negative comments about it on this forum. I was wondering if Mr. Halloran, and any others with experience in using this program, would mind going into more detail about what it is they don’t like (or do like) about it. My primary use at this time is for quick, flexible, detailed Jazz leadsheets. Of course the ability to use it for symphonic scores would be great too! If I missed discussions about this elsewhere, I couldn’t find them. If you could direct me to where they are, I’d appreciate it. Thanks in advance for any response!
The current version of MuseScore 4.4 is no longer horrible (I’ve had it since the beginning). I don’t think it’s very good either -— certainly does not equal Encore’s ease of use. Its open-source model is dead and Cyprus based Muse Group has hired a small army of developers and AI engineers to build MuseScore 5 which they hope will rival Finale/Dorico/Sibelius as a professional notation app.
Muse Group began as Russian based Guitar Unlimited has Billion$ at its disposal and intends to dominate the world of music publishing where the really big money is — which is why they bought Hal Leonard, the world’s largest music publisher last December.
No reason not to try MuseScore. It’s free and will continue to be. BTW, Muse Group makes a lot of money on this free app through their subscription service where people upload scores for free, done in MuseScore only, while millions of subscribers pay $30 a year to download what they want from MuseScore.com while Hal Leonard makes sure that all the rights holders are paid. It’s a brilliant business model.
Would it mean that MuseScore is planning to become unavoidable?
I do believe that is their plan.
Doesn’t mean I am going to follow, however. As MuseScore gets closer to being a pro notation app, it will become more complicated to use than it already is.
I still believe that there’s a place for a compact, easy to use, relatively simple app like Encore — but with better looking output, MusicXML 3.0 export and some of the annoying bugs squashed, especially the copy/paste bug that deletes data in other staves when you paste (don’t know if this is Mac only or not).
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