Ease of Use:  

iMake Sheet Music comes with a manual and a tutorial that guide you through music composition—this is the reason this software received a very good rating in this category.

We did run into some hitches as we first began using the program. We had a hard time entering notes on the stave and other notes would sometimes appear when we tried to enter a note. This may be due user error but we couldn't find information in the help section to remedy the problem.

Feature Set:  

iMake has percussion notation, sample files, a metronome and time display but lacks the ability to notate guitar.

The most impressive feature is that iMake will hold over 1000 different staves per system in case you really feel ambitious. With this amount of space, it would be hard to fill it with melodies.

Ease of Installation:  

We didn't encounter any problems while installing iMake Sheet Music.

Input/Output Capabilities:  

The MIDI files imported quickly and we were able to use the playback and editing features right away.

The mixer that appeared at the bottom of the page was extremely helpful; you can adjust each track's volume and hear different results.

The keyboard, real-time and step-time note entries worked well and the tools were user-friendly. After making an entry, the editing process is simple. You can delete unwanted notes and drag notes to a different position using the mouse.

However, we had a difficult time entering notes using the mouse. When we selected the duration and entered a note on the staff, notes with different durations appeared randomly.

Editing:  

The feature that stood out the most was the ability to punch record. Only a few music notation programs that we reviewed had this capability. Punch gives you the ability to remove parts of files and replace them with new recordings.

Help/Support:  

You can reach iMake Sheet Music's customer service by telephone and through an online form.

If you use an older operating system, like Windows 98, you're out of luck; you'll need Windows XP or Windows 9x to run iMake.

If iMake Sheet Music offered easy-to-use note entry with the mouse and supported more operating systems, this program would be top notch. If you use a newer operating system and you need a lot of space for music, this may be music notation software to look into.