Finale 2012 is out. $120 upgrade

[MIDI Life Crisis]

You have duplicate or corrupted fonts. That isn't Finale's fault and is easily fixable.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Font problems?

http://makemusic.custhelp.com/app/answe ... a_id/1726/

[mhschmieder]

Thanks -- now it's arguably more legible than Sibelius -- though for some reason, this time it left out the tempo markings when I imported a MIDI score from DP. Nevertheless, a quick run through the program, templates, etc., gives more confidence this time -- but I still despise the 3D GUI used in the tool bar and find it highly distracting and difficult to parse.

[mhschmieder]

Yeah, scroll view is much better during composition and arrangement stage -- I'm too tired at this hour to discover the shortcuts after enabling Speedy Tools (none of my guesses were correct), but am more motivated now that I have legible type and a friendlier layout and workflow.

Nevertheless, there seem to be way too many quirks for such a mature program. For instance, staff labels get clipped on the left-hand side vs. the right-hand side of text if they are more than a few characters long. But this mostly shows up when importing MIDI, as I label my tracks for the articulation given that I use multiple tracks in many cases to cover that. I doubt I would use such long labels when creating fresh notation from within the program.

Given that Michael Tilson Thomas is the only well-known conductor or musician I know of who prefers Sibelius (and maybe because Avid is quite present in the SF Bay Area due to Digidesign being headquartered in Daly City), I WANT to like FInale more than Sibelius, in spite of those dizzying 3D GUI elements. I just sense that it runs a lot deeper.

I downloaded the demo for the revised version of Encore late last night as well, and it's a toy. I can see some use for it, but not for serious classical composing -- it's way too limited in its features. But it is relatively easy to use. Some prefer it for initial composing elements, until more detailed arranging phases of the workflow. I didn't check its import/export options yet or whether it support MusicXML.

[mhschmieder]

Oh, I know these tools aren't meant to primarily be used for importing and refining compositions that began as MIDI projects, but I could have sworn that the Conductor track was honoured the other night in terms of tempo markings and also arrangement markers.

Not a deal-killer if they aren't, and I suppose it is too non-traditional in classical music to mark sections in that way vs. starting new scores for movements etc.

[mhschmieder]

I finally got around to a more thorough cross-comparison of notation tools tonight, and Finale 2012 wins hands-down. Sibelius 7 isn't even in the running; it is easily trumped by Encore.

It didn't take too long to discover how to customize and configure Finale more to my liking, and I now find it quite easy on the eyes. I still don't quite understand the notation workflow itself, but I was more concerned about overall usability, compatibility, and features, and Finale clearly has the most complete feature set (for advanced needs) of any current notation program, by a mile.

I can't remember if Version 7 is the first release of Sibelius to support MusicXML, but it is laughable -- lots of errors on import, and an unreadable result, plus an inability to do untainted round-trip exchange. Encore and Notion both did a superb job of importing MusicXML saved from Finale, as well as a better job of importing MIDI.

One of the most annoying things about Sibelius 7 that I couldn't figure out how to turn off, is the music playback at startup time. When I am launching a notation program, the last thing in the world that I want is for some "feature score" to play back during the initialization of the app and potentially wipe out whatever multi-part score I have in my head that I am racing to annotate. Also, I usually work late at night and don't like audio "surprises". I guess they think this "feature score" will inspire creativity. Apparently, Sibelius is oriented towards students.

Sibelius does have the most score templates, followed closely by Encore. How useful are these in reality though? I rarely ever write a traditional score myself -- almost all of my compositions diverge significantly from "standard instrumentation", regardless of genre or ensemble size. And most of the variants are either inconsistent, don't follow standard conventions, or are easily derived from a smaller subset of useful templates. I'm sure we can create our own anyway, in most notation programs.

I give Encore the highest score by far for ease of use and speed of workflow out of the box. I might buy it just for that reason, for super-quick capture of initial ideas, as I tend to have blinding flashes where an entire orchestration comes to me at once and so often have to work quickly using short-hand techniques in order to minimize the loss of details (I can easily fill them in later if I use my well-developed mnemonic devices).

Notion is as easy or easier to use, but has been growing into more of an entry-level DAW for students of late. It still has its place and can give more satisfactory audio rendering due to its Synful-like approach vs. the standard sample library approach of the others. Anyway, I already own it, it's just that it isn't really growing as an app and isn't full featured (especially regarding MIDI interoperability).

Quite simply, I will be taking advantage of Finale's cross-grade pricing sometime soon. I am convinced it will help me to improve my classical arrangements in terms of markings etc. so that I don't unconsciously limit what I do based on what MIDI is capable of (and what I can do inside DP using QuickScribe).

It's too bad the demo versions block most file save options. I was hoping to get a better idea of whether any of these programs alter MIDI content based on markings and dynamics. Or do we simply have to treat the MIDI mock-up stage as a whole new process from scratch in that regard? It affects my overall workflow, but I know I still need a pro-level notation app like Finale regardless, even if I still end up having to do my fine-tuning of articulations, phrasing, note lengths, dynamics, etc. inside DP using MIDI and QuickScribe.

[bdr]

Turn off Sibelius' startup music in Preferences>Other>when Sibelius starts.
They have a tradition of having a short piece of Sibelius' music as the startup music.

Here are some thoughts on mockups and notations that I pretty much agree with.
http://bennewhouse.berkleemusicblogs.co ... but-equal/
although Sibelius' sounds are now at the point when I can get some reasonable mockups straight from it...certainly not all cases but quite a few.
It's also very easy to make your own templates, as well as customise shortcuts.

I'm interested as to why you say Finale has the most features 'by a mile' as I haven't yet found Sibelius lacking and I have written some extended technique pieces with no problem.

As far as other users, they may not impress you but there are quite a few interviews in the Sibelius Blog:some well known film scorers, arranger/orchestrators, composers etc.
http://www.sibeliusblog.com/

[mhschmieder]

BDR, you may not have seen earlier replies of mine over the course of a longer period of time: I was HEAVILY biased TOWARDS Sibelius due to a local dominance of that program in the SF Bay Area by prominent people, until people on this forum began curing me of my anti-Finale prejudice.

Thanks for telling me how to turn off the auto-score-playback feature. Sibelius is one of my three favourite composers of all time, and much of my music borrows from his techniques, but I need silence when I start a program.

It may be that Sibelius features are more hidden than in Finale. I found my copy buggy and quirky as all get out. It kept jumping modes on me, and it was near impossible for me to scroll through lists of markings etc. Maybe the demo version is unstable. Finale offers the most features in their demo in terms of stuff you can use to actually verify the usefulness and "plays well with others" aspects of the program. The trust factor matters a great deal with me.

I may still have a day or two left for eval; I got drafted onto another project at work and will probably not have any more time for exploring new programs for the rest of May, so choices have to be made on instinct and gut feelings. But maybe I can quickly investigate your link late tonight and see if it gives me warm fuzzies about Sibelius.

[mhschmieder]

Thanks also for the notation vs. sequencing link; I can't read it right now, unfortunately, but self-sent it so I can print it out at home tonight (our work printer network is fouled up right now). On very quick skim, it looks like it will be of huge benefit, and the timing is right, as I just completed an eighteen-movement suite and am now ready to move on (finally!) to fleshing out my first Mass (it might become a Requiem).

[mhschmieder]

I have now read and studied the Ben Newhouse article in full, and completely concur with his advise and reasoning. Luckily, it is how I am already doing things -- composing via sequencing first, and finessing a proper notation score afterwards.

Thanks again for posting that link -- it has removed a lot of stress at a time when I am working at breakneck speed and can't afford any more "redo's" or "restarts" on my overall workflow.

Of course, I don't mean any of this as absolutes; just as a general way of working.

I still think there are plenty of times where a more complex composition with very little repetition and a gazillion tempo and other changes is best approached as notation first, and then perhaps "practiced" one part at a time from the produced score in order to generate a good mock-up sequence, so that one doesn't compromise the composition for expediency.

[mhschmieder]

Also, I will probably eventually buy Sibelius as well as Finale; they're quite cheap as cross-grades, after all. It's simply that the choice of which one to get first can be critical in terms of getting into the sorts of practices one needs to adopt for greatest effectivity long-term.

I do not compose music that even remotely resembles modern day orchestral film scores. I cover a gazillion genres, styles, and instrumentations. But I also want to start using notation programs to create lead sheets for my jazz combo (though Notion may end up handling this task for me). As I said earlier though, my needs rarely match normal templates, so those aren't a big selling point for me; nor are the sounds or the plug-in architecture.

I'm mostly interested in improving my knowledge and use of notation devices, as I only ever really got deep (at conservatory) on voice and my own instruments. Thus, I am feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment regarding articulations and markings for the string family, for instance. But fortunately we can also load scores to study by and learn from.

[mhschmieder]

I've just reviewed this entire thread for the first time in eons, and there's a wealth of advice in here that will come in handy, both in terms of Finale use as well as overall composing and inter-app workflow.

My demos have now run out, but I think the programs will still launch for awhile just for purposes of exploring the GUI's and templates etc. (no file save or anything useful). So I'm not going to delete them from my disc.

As for Finale, I'm guessing it is updated EVERY year, and generally around the time that fall semester begins at most universities? If so, I may hold out for Finale 2013, as it seems that would just be a few months away by now. And maybe there'll be a grace period again for free updates if Finale 2012 is bought in July or August.

[nk_e]

Does anyone have any advice on the following:

I've been trying to get the Finale demo to launch since last week. It crashes EVERYTIME. I'm pretty sure it's some plugin. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that Finale logs which plugin craps it out, so it crashes out a the same point over and over if you let it. I've been using the crash reports to guess at which plug in is the culprit and remove it, but it doesn't always generate a crash report, and I don't see that log anywhere.

I think it would help alot if Finale would display something on screen that shows plug ins as they are tested. That way a person can watch for where it pukes out and remove an offending plug in before restarting the program. Right now, I've no idea where in the process it crashes, it just does about 2 minutes in to the launch.

The website and tech support (which did get back with me inside of 24hrs) has only one suggestion: Remove all plug ins and put them in the folder one at a time to find the culprit. Really? That's it? Shades of OS 7 and extensions, I have not heard something like that in ages. With the number of plug ins I have, that simply isn't practical. If they would display the file names or keep some sort of log, at least I can watch it to know when it crashed and remove the offender.

I'll give it a few more tries, but an on screen display of which plug-ins are being tested would help. Most DAWs have this at least.

I guess my question is: has anyone else run into this problem?

One other factoid that me be of benefit for someone down the road or may jog a memory: I ran into a very similar problem with the TimeFreezer VST a few months back. Turns out the problem was that it was trying to write a log file to a directory that had permissions set incorrectly. Because it couldn't write the file, it crapped out. Once I corrected he permission, things were fine.

I'm new to scoring programs. In truth, I've never been interested in them before. But I'm trying really hard to learn "stuff" in a formal way now (enrolled in a Theory course, taking formal piano instruction, etc.) I'm just getting to the point where I really appreciate these capabilities.

[mhschmieder]

Are these plug-ins that aren't crashing DP? I forget whether Finale supports VST, so maybe it's a VST version of a plug? I had issues mostly with demos I was evaluating at the same time, but those demos have expired so my last few days of using my Finale 2012 demo were hitch-free.

Based on this FAQ page, I think they only support AU vs. VST on Macs:

http://makemusic.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/244/~/finale's-support-of-vst%2Fau-plug-ins

[nk_e]

Hmmm,... Interesting idea. I'll investigate. Thanks.