The endgame for Finale 25

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MIDI Life Crisis
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The endgame for Finale 25

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

Below is my post on the Finale forum run by Make music. Kind of says it all...
I'm done here. I'll still lurk with questions and comments about versions of Finale prior to F25 and help when I can, but as far as future updates to Finale, I am done.

I have paid for every update since 1996 when I started using the program and have really enjoyed using it. The results have been used at the Olympics, in multiple scores for the Chicago Symphony, Harvard Pops, The Academy of Motion Pictures, the Library of Congress, the National Archives, Turner Classic Movies, and countless other venues over the past twenty years.

When I score for real musicians, I start and end in Finale and never touch my DAW. That includes my work for film. I write the notes, start to finish and everything in between, in Finale. It is the fastest and most efficient way for me to compose to picture - or at least, it was.

The loss of the MOVIE WINDOW was the deal breaker for me. For one, it simply DOES NOT WORK. Audio from Finale is not successfully passed thru to the DAW (Digital Performer). The audio appears on the DP meters as an "instrument" and I can see the VU meter in DP responding, but no audio is present.

Even if that could be fixed, the connection between the apps is otherwise lost. Finale stops scrolling after a few minutes and that ends the usefulness of that session. Restarting Finale regains the connection but it is soon lost again.

And that's not the worst of it! Once you link via Rewire, there is no playback possible in Finale when you are actually IN Finale. As long as the DAW is running, Finale plays back NOTHING. One has to quit the DAW and Finale and then launch Finale w/o the DAW running to get anywhere in F25. As long as the DAW has an audio track with the Finale output as the source, Finale no longer will playback ANYTHING.

Then there is the logistics problem. Even if this convoluted system worked, one is still required to move between apps to accomplish a simple task - playback to picture, which all recent version of Finale did flawlessly.

One can only guess at the motivation for removing the window, but I suspect it is a cost cutting measure. Since the app was rewritten for this release, perhaps it was not cost effective to have that code be redone if MM could simply "job the video out" via Rewire. I'm only guessing, but whatever the rationale, this composer will not be updating to ANY version of Finale that retains that method. I'll just stick with F2014.5 and that's where the road ends, at least at this point. It simply makes no logical sense to have to jump between programs to run a simple quicktime movie. Add to that the dysfunction of the Rewire implementation and there is really nothing to be done until MM restores the MOVIE WINDOW.

While you're at it, you might want to also restore OCR via TIFF imports. The excuse for removing that was, quite frankly, not believable. Again, I suspect it was a matter of not wanting to have to rewrite that code in the new version. F2014.4 does the job just fine.

I will be requesting a refund for the dysfunction and crippled F25 update and cannot recommend the application to anyone seriously scoring to picture.

This is a very sad day for me.
2013 Mac Pro 32GB RAM

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mikehalloran
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Re: The endgame for Finale 25

Post by mikehalloran »

Can't argue with that regarding the loss of the movie window.

What galls me on the OCR issue is that they announced that scan and import was much improved in 25. SmartScore would be gone because there was no longer a need. Then someone complained it would be easier to copy scores and, poof!, it was gone. It was already fairly easy with SmartScore Lite and an additional $199 got you what I have—I can't imagine that the new scanning app would do it better. In other words, the genie is already out of the frickin' bottle and no one's ever putting it back!

One can buy SmartScore X2 Pro for less than $10 over the upgrade price from B&H and others. Except for Sweetwater, most resellers are announcing being out of stock till mid September (on a download?). I wonder if Musictek will announce an upgrade or new product designed to fill the gap left by the missing functionality in Finale.
DP 11.31; 828mkII FW, micro lite, M4, MTP/AV USB Firmware 2.0.1
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Phil O
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Re: The endgame for Finale 25

Post by Phil O »

I don't do a lot of OCR, but when I needed it Smartscore Lite (or whatever it's called) filled the need. I can't believe Finale dumped it.

I was looking forward to F25's lack of reliance on Java, but it's not worth the upgrade just for that.

Looks like I'll be using 2014.5 for the foreseeable future. :(


Phil
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mikehalloran
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Re: The endgame for Finale 25

Post by mikehalloran »

Phil O wrote:I don't do a lot of OCR, but when I needed it Smartscore Lite (or whatever it's called) filled the need. I can't believe Finale dumped it.

I was looking forward to F25's lack of reliance on Java, but it's not worth the upgrade just for that.

Looks like I'll be using 2014.5 for the foreseeable future. :(

Phil
That's one of the reasons I feel sorry for new customers. We can scan into 2014.5 or 2012 and then work the score in F25 (if there's an advantage to doing that). If need be, that score can again open in 2012 or 2014.5 (but not 2011—different file format).

Losing the movie window really sucks, however. I forgot that I used it back in my infomercial scoring days.
DP 11.31; 828mkII FW, micro lite, M4, MTP/AV USB Firmware 2.0.1
2023 Mac Studio M2 8TB, 192GB RAM, OS Sonoma 14.4, USB4 8TB external, M-Audio AIR 192|14, Mackie ProFxv3 6/10/12; 2012 MBPs Catalina, Mojave
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Re: The endgame for Finale 25

Post by mikehalloran »

Michael, you are far more polite than I. My printing issue is that they have ignored the basic print functions and have hidden such "advanced" functions such as printing more than one copy in a sub menu. Screen shot here:
https://p6.zdusercontent.com/attachment ... NPlJZUbk6A

My response, in part:

Please note that this is nowhere documented or if it is, cannot be found in the new help center, no matter how I search for it. . . .

That printing multiple copies does not work in the main print menu means that the developers have ignored the Apple programmers guide. You can’t do that with basic print functions on a Mac. Whichever Windows-centric developer thought this was a good idea should be reprimanded (and so on). . .

That this nonsense is not documented properly is appalling.
DP 11.31; 828mkII FW, micro lite, M4, MTP/AV USB Firmware 2.0.1
2023 Mac Studio M2 8TB, 192GB RAM, OS Sonoma 14.4, USB4 8TB external, M-Audio AIR 192|14, Mackie ProFxv3 6/10/12; 2012 MBPs Catalina, Mojave
IK-NI-Izotope-PSP-Garritan-Antares, LogicPro X, Finale 27.4, Dorico 5.2, Notion 6, Overture 5, TwistedWave, DSP-Q 5, SmartScore64 Pro, Toast 20 Pro
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Elektroakoustika
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Re: The endgame for Finale 25

Post by Elektroakoustika »

Sorry to hear about the troubles Michael. I made my thoughts on Finale quite clear in the other thread. I am also done with Finale upgrades (and maybe even Finale period) for the time being.

BTW, want me to go egg the MakeMusic headquarters? I live about 40 miles from them. :lol:
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MIDI Life Crisis
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Re: The endgame for Finale 25

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

Nah, no eggs. It's still the best notation app out there. :) I'll go read the other post.
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