Frescobaldi

Frescobaldi is a straightforward piece of software that gives you the possibility to edit music sheets. It features some basic and advanced options that should be pleasing to both types of users, including syntax highlighting and auto-completion support, together with a built-in MIDI player.

The setup procedure is a fast and easy job that requires minimal supervision. Once finished, you are welcomed by a large window with a clear-cut structure, representing Frescobaldi's interface. Multiple tabs are supported, which means that you can work in multiple projects at the same time.

The software application provides you with an easy-to-follow wizard for setting up the musical score, where you can edit the dedication, title, subtitle, subsubtitle, instrument, composer, arranger, poet, meter, piece, opus, copyright and tagline, as well as preview this information in the sheet in real time.

You can put together the list of instruments to include in your score. They are organized into several categories by type, namely strings, plucked strings, woodwinds, brass, vocal, keyboard instruments, percussion, special (chord names, figured bass), and containers (staff group, score, book, book part).

As far as score settings are concerned, it is possible to set the key and time signatures, pickup measure, metronome mark, and tempo indication. You can also use typographical quotes, remove the default tagline and bar numbers, enable smart neutral stem direction, create MIDI output, or show the metronome mark.

When it comes to general settings, you can undo and redo your actions, use a common search-and-replace function, wrap lines, disable syntax highlighting, show line numbers, view matching pairs, clear all marks, zoom in and out, insert document fonts, remove trailing whitespace, and much more. Other tools are also available and they focus on the pitch, rhythm, lyrics, quick removal, and others.

We haven't come across any problems in our testing, as Frescobaldi did not hang, crash or pop up error messages. Its impact on computer performance was low. Taking into account its rich features and configuration parameters, a lot of users should find Frescobaldi useful for creating and editing musical sheets.