MIDI is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and related audio devices for playing, editing, and recording music.
Finale is a proprietary music notation software developed and released by MakeMusic for Microsoft Windows and macOS since 1988.
GarageBand is a line of digital audio workstations developed by Apple for macOS, iPadOS, and iOS devices that allows users to create music or podcasts. GarageBand was originally released for macOS in 2004 and brought to iOS in 2011. The app’s music and podcast creation system enables users to create multiple tracks with pre-made MIDI keyboards, pre-made loops, an array of various instrumental effects, and voice recordings.
A scorewriter, or music notation program is software for creating, editing and printing sheet music. A scorewriter is to music notation what a word processor is to text, in that they typically provide flexible editing and automatic layout, and produce high-quality printed results.
SCORE is a scorewriter program, written in FORTRAN for MS-DOS by Stanford University Professor Leland Smith (1925–2013) with a reputation for producing very high-quality results. It was widely used in engraving during the 1980s and 1990s and continues to have a small, dedicated following of engravers, many of whom hold the program in high regard due to its ability to position symbols precisely on the page. Several publications set using SCORE have earned Paul Revere and German Musikpresse engraving awards.
capella is a musical notation program or scorewriter developed by the German company Capella Software AG, running on Microsoft Windows or corresponding emulators in other operating systems, like Wine on Linux and others on Apple Macintosh. Capella requires to be activated after a trial period of 30 days. The publisher writes the name in lower case letters only. The program was initially created by Hartmut Ring, and is now maintained and developed by Bernd Jungmann.
Band-in-a-Box is a music creation software package for Windows and macOS produced by PG Music Incorporated, founded in 1988 in Victoria, British Columbia. The software enables a user to create any song and have it played by professional musicians playing real instruments. It does this by accessing a large database of real musicians' recordings that can be manipulated to fit any user's song. The user enters four basic keyboard inputs consisting of: chords; a key; a tempo; a musical style. The screen resembles a blank page of music onto which the user enters the names of chords using standard chord notation. The software generates a song typically played by four or five studio musicians to fit those specified parameters. The developers have enlisted musicians as supporting instrumentalists to build huge databases of phrases in many styles of music. The software retrieves and customizes groups of musical phrases that are appropriate for soloing or comping over a particular chord at a chosen key, genre and tempo. It can create backgrounds, melodies or solos for almost any chord progressions used in Western popular music, and can play them in any of thousands of different music styles.
LMMS is a digital audio workstation application program. It allows music to be produced by arranging samples, synthesizing sounds, entering notes via mouse or by playing on a MIDI keyboard, and combining the features of trackers and sequencers. It is free and open source software, written in Qt and released under GPL-2.0-or-later.
Mozart the music processor is a proprietary WYSIWYG scorewriter program for Microsoft Windows. It is used to create and edit Western musical notation to create and print sheet music, and to play it via MIDI.
Notion, previously stylized as NOTION, is a computer software program for music composition and performance, created by NOTION Music of Greensboro, North Carolina. NOTION Music was acquired by PreSonus in 2013 which in turn was acquired by Fender Musical Instruments in 2021. Notion 6 is available on Microsoft Windows and macOS, and Notion Mobile is available for Windows, macOS, iOS, Android and Fire OS.
MuseScore is a music notation program for Windows, macOS, and Linux supporting a wide variety of file formats and input methods. It is released as free and open-source software under the GNU General Public License. MuseScore is accompanied by a freemium mobile score viewer and playback app, and an online score-sharing platform.
Overture is a music notation (scorewriter) program for Windows and Macintosh platforms, published and developed by Sonic Scores. While Overture is primarily a scorewriter program, it also allows editing the score's MIDI audio playback data in the manner of sequencer and digital audio workstation (DAW) software.
Master Tracks Pro (MTP) is music-sequencer software for Windows, to author and/or edit MIDI data. David Kusek and Don Williams et al. at Passport Designs originally created it, continuation of marketing and development by GVOX, and, as of Aug. 8, 2013, by Passport Music Software, LLC.
MusicEase is a proprietary WYSIWYG scorewriter created by Gary Rader and produced by MusicEase Software. It enables computers using Microsoft Windows and MacOS to produce musical notation and listen to them in MIDI.
Musink is a scorewriting computer program for Windows. It is a WYSIWYM editor, with automated music- and page-layout functionality. Two versions of Musink exist: Musink Lite, which is freeware; and Musink Pro, which is not free but contains additional features.
MagicScore is a music notation and composition software product for PCs running Microsoft Windows. Versions of the product sell under the names Maestro Composer, Maestro Notation, and Maestro Notation for MS Word. Two free products in the same product line are offered under the names Maestro Performer and Maestro Online.
Forte is a music notation program developed by the German company Lugert Verlag, located in Handorf. Its name is derived from the dynamic marking of forte. The program is available in both German and English.
Anvil Studio is a multitrack MIDI and audio editing, digital audio workstation program that runs on Microsoft Windows. It is developed by Willow Software, based in Shoreline, Washington, U.S.A.
