Sound check, please?

[codetrucker]

Please note I am copying this exact post to the "other" forum.

I have to make a financial decision soon and I do not have the time nor the inclination to add learning a DAW in order to polish the sound of a sound file. I need to know what you think is the best sound out-out-of-the-box with either contender + GPO4. No post-production tweaking allowed.

I would appreciate input from anyone who has had personal experience with both in producing finished sound files from Finale and Sibelius, preferably of the same score. I simply want to know which sounded better to you, generally? Which had the best (truest) instrumentation sounds, specifically. Why you think so? I realize this is all very subjective, so everyone's opinion is valid and there are no wrong answers.

Due to the nature of my goal, I respectfully request that if you have not had personal experience with Finale and Sibelius, please refrain from offering an opinion on this, but if you have experience with other VSTs, I would appreciate comments in comparison to GPO4 too.

FYI - My personal (and limited) experience has been that Finale's Human Playback with GPO is a more realistic and pleasant sounding, but the effort to produce sound is substantially easier for me in Sibelius.

Thank you for your time.

[Peter Jeffrey Gale]

Hi Codetrucker, and welcome to the forum!

You'll find a lot of people willing to help here ... though I think you've more or less answered your own question and excluded most people from helping.

I'm A Sibelius user and have had difficuty getting a decent sound out of GPO using it, though I have heard it said that Finale is better "out-of-the-box". But whether you use a notation program or a DAW, you're using the same GPO samples, so in theory should be able to get the same results whatever front-end program you choose, though I think most will say that it is easiest to get the best results from a DAW, and in the end it's your judgement that counts.

It seems "flawed" (or just confusing?) to me then that you want to base your decision on which product gives the best sound, yet exclude the route which will most easily lead to the best sounding results, yet .

Perhaps you could descibe a little more of your background and what you'd like to achieve, and you may get more response then.

Also, I think it might be fair to say that the GPO sounds are not designed to sound at their best without some degree of "tweaking" to achieve that, which is perhaps part of their attraction.

You should be aware that there are other (more expensive) sample libraries which may sound better "out-of the-box" but which are not packed with notation programs ... however, many of these have been integrated into Sibelius by Jonathan Loving of the Siblius Sound set project, so you could investigate that route also before you buy, as that may influence your decision.

Cheers!

Peter