Allegro 2005

Reader Reviews
A frustrating, counter-intuitive, and unnecessarily difficult program. The people at this company are very knowledgeable about music; they just need to hire a software designer and some support people. Here's my first-hand example of what to expect: The first problem I hit was trying to add a pickup measure mid-score; a simple thing...or so I thought. The instructions were an overly involved work-around obviously engineered by a user and which didn't work. I contacted "support", who offered, "That's exactly how I do it and it works fine for me." Period. I thanked this person for confirming that I had followed the instructions correctly, and asked if we could get to the matter of why it wasn't working. I was asked to send the file. So I uploaded it and clicked "submit"...ERROR! I informed this person that their attachment tool was broken. Same response, "Works fine for me." My, that was certainly some helpful info...both times. It's no secret that this software line is notoriously user-hostile; take a glance at its user forums. But this program isn't just poorly designed; it's broken. "Support" confirmed this. And there were other things that didn't work. Also, the "search" feature of the "manual" is broken too. For example, the search term "pickup" yielded 0 (zero) results. This word even appears in some headings of the "manual". In short, nearly everything is just difficult. Sorry, I gave this program and this company every chance; they blew it. If you want notation software that really is user-friendly, I suggest spending 15-20 bucks and getting "Melody Assistant" by a company called Myriad. (I have no ties to this company; I'm just a delighted user.) It does everything imaginable, including singing vocal music via a synthesized voice, a great tool and something the Finale line can only dream of doing. Great documentation that yields tons of search results...very helpful ones too. And even if you don't like it, at least you're not out $170 or so like I am after buying Allegro 2005.