iWriteMusic Pro SE vs Crescendo Masters Edition
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
iWriteMusic Pro SE
Create beautiful, professional-quality sheet music with an intuitive interface. This app offers efficient input systems, comprehensive notation tools, and useful playback options for musicians of all levels.
- Intuitive user interface
- Efficient input systems (One-Flick & Traditional)
- Professional quality sheet music
- Comprehensive notation elements
- Useful playback options
- Export to PDF, JPG, and MIDI
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Music Writing is easy and fun when you use iWriteMusic! Experience the perfect harmony of ease and versatility in sheet music creation with iWriteMusic! Say goodbye to complicated notation apps and hello to intuitive design. Enjoy quick and beautiful sheet music creation with a comprehensive suite of essential tools for concerts, lessons, and music classes. Best fit for professional musicians, music teachers and students. For songwriters, composers and arrangers. For both singers and instrumentalists (piano, violin, cello, guitar, flute, saxophone, trumpet, drums, etc.). Great for writing down ideas, creating lesson materials, creating lead sheets, or creating scores and parts for chorus groups, choirs, chamber orchestras, jazz bands, Latin bands, orchestras, and more. For daily practice, rehearsals, concerts, iWriteMusic will help you enrich your musical life! Check out 8 reasons to choose iWriteMusic SE (Special Edition) 1. You can understand this app almost instantly! Because of Truly Intuitive and Extremely Simple user interface, you barely need to read pages of manuals nor watching numbers of instruction videos. Unlike Finale, Sibelius and other similar apps, you just have a few things to learn to be able to use this app pretty well. 2.Double your productivity with our Highly Efficient Input System. If you’re already familiar with notation apps and looking for faster & more efficient entry system, try our innovative One-Flick Entry System along with Traditional Entry System to get your job done in no time! What is Traditional Entry System? - The choices will appear with ToolBox. - Select a value and the location separately. - Recommended to those who are not yet familiar with any music notation apps. What is OneFlick Entry System? - The choices will appear when you touch the screen. - Select a location and the value at once. - The selection will change as you slide your finger to left/right. - Recommended to those who are familiar with music notation apps and looking for faster and more efficient entry system. 3. Creates beautiful sheet music / music score - absolutely professional quality! - rich options for page layout adjustment - easy parts creation - easy score/parts management - direct print-out via AirPrint 4. Supports most of major notation elements - multi-track writing - multi-voice writing - percussion/drums notation - chord symbols and lyrics - multi-bar rest - time change - key change - clef change - tempo change - grace note - articulations and dynamics marks - easy song transpose - partial transpose and many more! 5. Useful playback options for practice - mixer with solo, mute and voice select - loop and swing options 6. Data & sheet music sharing - exports/Imports iWriteMusic data file - exports PDF or JPG - exports Standard MIDI file which can be imported by other apps such as GarageBand 7. Extremely Compact Size (15 MB) You can save your device storage space for photos and other apps. 8. Best of all, it's Free! Yes, it's Free and Over 1.4 Million people all over the world has created music with this app family. Let's get started now! Note: This is for iPhone (iPad version sold separately) ATTENTION: Latency during playback and drawing may occur by device capacity or number of tracks and background applications. Limitations on SE (Special Edition): 1. Water mark appears on page views and printouts. 2. Can’t save more than 5 songs. 3. Can't play more than 30 seconds at a time. 4. Can't import iWriteMusic data file. (export only) 5. Can't export Standard MIDI file.
Crescendo Masters Edition
Easily arrange professional-quality sheet music, guitar tabs, and percussion notation. Add notes, accidentals, text, and lyrics, then listen back to your compositions with MIDI playback. This tool is ideal for composers to write, save, and print their musical ideas.
- Create sheet music, guitar tabs, percussion notation
- Change time and key signatures
- Add whole to thirty-second notes with accidentals
- Drag notes to adjust pitch and placement
- Add text for titles, tempo, dynamics, lyrics
- MIDI playback for compositions
- Save and print music
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Crescendo Masters makes arranging your own professional quality sheet music fun and easy. Create sheet music, guitar tabs, or percussion notation. With Crescendo, you can easily change the time signature and key signature and choose between Treble, Bass, Tenor, and Alto Clefs. Add notes from whole to thirty-second and assign sharps, flats, or natural accidentals to them. You can also easily drag notes to change their pitch or placement. Place text wherever in your sheet music to add titles, specify tempo changes and dynamics, or write lyrics. When you are finished, listen back to your composition with MIDI playback. Crescendo is the perfect program for composers to write, save and print their music compositions on their computer. This version of Crescendo is under a 7-day free trial. Once the trial expires, you will have to pay for the subscription in order to access the full features.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: iWriteMusic Pro SE at 4.5 against Crescendo Masters Edition's 3.9. iWriteMusic Pro SE also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 1) and ratings volume (207 vs 7). Crescendo Masters Edition's advantage is device support (3 vs 1) and iOS requirement (11.0 vs 16.0). On price, review sentiment, update cadence and ads there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Crescendo Masters Edition sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $2.99 per month. iWriteMusic Pro SE asks for nothing beyond the download.
iWriteMusic Pro SE holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 3.9. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: iWriteMusic Pro SE has 207 ratings behind it against 7, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 53% of iWriteMusic Pro SE's written reviews are positive against 50% of Crescendo Masters Edition's.
iWriteMusic Pro SE ships an update every 4 weeks, Crescendo Masters Edition fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and November 4, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | iWriteMusic Pro SE | Crescendo Masters Edition |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.5 (207 ratings) — better | 3.9 (7 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 53.2% of reviews — better | 50.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 207 — better | 7 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 weeks | Fortnightly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free — better | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 | 11.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 19 MB | 19 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | iWriteMusicProject | NCH Software |
Customer experience
iWriteMusic Pro SE
Crescendo Masters Edition
Bugs and requests
iWriteMusic Pro SE
Reported bugs
5 issues- Incorrect transposition of notes
- Inability to save compositions
- Overlapping/unreadable menu text
- Freezing when trying to copy/paste
- Inconsistent behavior when adding new measures
Requested features
5 requests- Add more music notation options (e.g. glissando, ghost notes)
- Improve playback to follow dynamics and expressions
- Allow multiple key signatures in the same piece
- Provide an undo/redo function
- Implement a chord entry mode for guitarists
Crescendo Masters Edition
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
iWriteMusic Pro SE
No in-app purchases
Crescendo Masters Edition
- Full Features (Monthly)7 Days trial$2.991 Month
Questions
Is iWriteMusic Pro SE free?
Is Crescendo Masters Edition free?
Which has better reviews, iWriteMusic Pro SE or Crescendo Masters Edition?
Do iWriteMusic Pro SE or Crescendo Masters Edition have ads?
Which is updated more often, iWriteMusic Pro SE or Crescendo Masters Edition?
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