I just noticed this thread. Wish I would have seen it before the expiry on Forte 10 Basic.

I've got a long history with this product. It used to be known as MidiSoft Studio. I bought a copy of it back in 2000 -- for about $60, as I recall. It was my first introduction into a notation-based sequencer, and to me it was the equivalent of discovering a word processor after writing longhand all my life. I took to it with a passion. I was running Studio on Win98 back in those days and it was kinda buggy. Between the inherent instability of Win98 and Studio's bugs, I learned to save my work early and often. This was the product I used to get my thoughts down into the computer for my first two albums. I used Cakewalk's Pro Audio 8 and later 9 to complete the projects. Back in those days, I had BiaB, and I used it for rhythm sections on a few tracks, but that was about the extent of its use.

I really liked Studio a lot, despite its bugs. But then MidiSoft went out of business, so there were no more bug fixes. Something like a couple years pass, and I notice Studio 6 is on the market, released by a new outfit that had bought the rights to it. Studio 6 was basically a bug fix of the earlier Studio, which was also v6, so sorta confusing. It worked pretty well, but by then I was running Win XP. XP broke Cakewalk's Pro Audio and Cakewalk never offered a fix. Instead they wanted everyone to upgrade to Sonar -- at a pretty steep price, as I recall. So I balked and it was years before I finally upgraded to Sonar. During this time, I was busy with a number of other projects and my musical output was just about nil, so Studio didn't get used much.

But this new outfit that had re-released Studio didn't last and the I'm seeing ads for Forte, and it sure looked like Studio to me. It was, in fact. The early version of Forte was scarcely different. Except this new German outfit was asking a lot for their product, so once again I balked. Even back then you could d/l a copy of Forte. But it was crippled. You couldn't save your work. I don't like this sort of crippling because you can't really get anything done. So I've always said "no thanks" to Forte, cuz I just didn't want to pay their inflated price. And then Forte started coming out with premium versions of Forte and these premium version were getting really expensive. So I've remained on the sideline, frustrated.

Why frustrated? Well, by Win7 or so, I found that I couldn't get Studio to run anymore. It would crash almost as soon as it would load. This was frustrating because I had dozens of files in Midisoft's *.mmm format, and I wasn't able to access any of them. And I couldn't do anything with them with Forte because it was crippled.

Until now. Forte Premium is being offered as the full program for a 14-day try out period. I doubt seriously I'm gonna buy it because it's too expensive, but I checked, and Forte still supports the old MidiSoft *.mmm format. I just d/l'd and installed it a little while ago, and I'm converting every single MidiSoft format file I can find to MIDI. So, I'm gonna get some mileage out of this product before it turns into a pumpkin.

Forte's interface is still very similar to Studio's. In a lot of ways, I feel like I've come home after a very long absence. Some of the menus and the general look of the console and staff views are all straight Studio -- but this version has a lot of additions. I've just touched the surface as to all it will do. It's definitely more full-featured than Studio, but you know -- I was able to get a lot done with that old product, so I'm wondering just how useful all this additional stuff is. I'll be sure to check it out pretty well before it expires, though.

So, here's my recommendation -- if you're into using musical notation to score out your music, this product is definitely worth considering. It's full-featured and easy to use. But the downside is the more full-featured versions are expensive, although those folks are starting to wise up. Forte Home is available for a reasonable $109. These days, I've been using Muse, which is free to download. I bought a copy of Notion a few years ago, and really didn't like it. But there are other products out there, like Sibelius (very expensive unless you're a student or educator), and Finale, which is a solid good product that's been around probably the longest. It can be picked up for as little as $99. I think a bit of test driving is in order. Each of these products has its own way of getting things done. Some may appeal to you and some may not. Me, I've always liked Studio -- well, Forte's interface, but a couple of the others are pretty good, too. Except Notion. Yuck.

Best,
Michael

My Music:
https://soundcloud.com/michaelmcbroom/albums