Finale 26 Sale—Should I Upgrade?

[Rick Cornish]

I just got a notice that the Finale 26 upgrade is available for $40-off through midnight tomorrow (4/29). I have v25.5 and am running under Mojave (for now). Most of the work I currently do is master rhythm charts for a Jazz/R&B singer and my own guitar music. Is it worth upgrading?

[mikehalloran]

I did and like 26.

Is the sale price $109?

Don't feel too much pressure, though. Reseller upgrade pricing is $119 @ Sweetwater/GC/MF...

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... n-download

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I'm in F26 a lot and love it. The one thing that didn't interest me is the feature that has proved most useful. Stacked articulations! No more futzing with organizing articulations. The self locate based on the stack order you set. It's really saved me hours on larger orchestral scores.

I still hate Make music for killing the movie window (I have a better work around now) and the OCR, while not used much by me, is occasionally useful. I use F2014.4 if I need to for that.

Otherwise, F26 is really worth the upgrade, IMO.

[Rick Cornish]

I did and like 26.

Is the sale price $109?

Don't feel too much pressure, though. Reseller upgrade pricing is $119 @ Sweetwater/GC/MF...

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... n-download

Yup, Mike... the coupon price from Make Music would be $109. Thanks for hipping me to the Sweetwater discount... good to know it’s there.

I was set to upgrade DP, Komplete, Finale, Office, QuickBooks, FileMaker, and more right before COVID cancelled my biggest show of the year. I had to pull the trigger on Office to get my kid set up for distance learning, so I may just wait until freelancing kicks back in to upgrade the rest and move to Catalina.

Thanks, as always.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Rick Cornish]

I'm in F26 a lot and love it. The one thing that didn't interest me is the feature that has proved most useful. Stacked articulations! No more futzing with organizing articulations. The self locate based on the stack order you set. It's really saved me hours on larger orchestral scores.

I still hate Make music for killing the movie window (I have a better work around now) and the OCR, while not used much by me, is occasionally useful. I use F2014.4 if I need to for that.

Otherwise, F26 is really worth the upgrade, IMO.

Thanks for the insight, MLC.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[mikehalloran]

I found FileMaker Pro 2016 at a good price on Amazon — good enough so that, if I had to upgrade to 2018 to run on Catalina, I still saved money. You register the license first, then Claris allows the download.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TH ... S6YR&psc=1

Turns out that FMP 2016 runs well enough on Catalina that I declared victory and stayed pat.

[mhschmieder]

I agree -- even though it took about four launches for it to properly complete initialization and open a project or template after my Catalina upgrade last night, I would say this is the most stable and performant version in years, and definitely has some streamlining of workflows and sharper rendering (although that may be completely owed to stuff that Apple did for Catalina).

[mhschmieder]

Lots of emails about Finale 27 this week. I haven't had time to delve deep, even to see the expected timeline and/or upgrade cost. Mostly I notice they talk a lot about "sharing". So I'm guessing there's more integration with various on-line services. Also, I did see that MusicXML 4.0(?) is supported.

[mhschmieder]

Finale v27 is out today at $149 upgrade cost. I'll skip this one for now, as I plan on extracting some parts for local musicians soon and using a newer version likely will lead to compatibility issues at their end.

[mikehalloran]

Finale v27 is out today at $149 upgrade cost. I'll skip this one for now, as I plan on extracting some parts for local musicians soon and using a newer version likely will lead to compatibility issues at their end.

If you don't let it replace 26 on installation, the two apps coexist. The .musx file type is backwards compatible to 2014 except for any new features, of course.

Although Sweetwater does not have any Finale upgrades on their site, guitarcenter.com still has it for $119, which it's been for years—so no rush on that. This link should change to 27 soon.
https://www.guitarcenter.com/Alfred/Fin ... 27&index=3

They email you a link and a code that you use in your Finale account. I never pay $149 and don't intend to start now.

[mhschmieder]

Cool; thanks -- I should be receiving a points token from GC soon, so as there's little they sell that I need (I'm fairly specialist in what I buy), I can put it to good use on the Finale 27 upgrade.

[mhschmieder]

I forgot to comment earlier, that the upgrade appears to be conditionally free. I've been too busy preparing for an indefinite time span on the east coast (family emergency), to prioritize Finale, so don't know if I'm eligible. If it's based on when the last upgrade was purchased, definitely not, as I did that one fairly early. But maybe this one is a freebie for anyone who isn't two versions or more behind.

Anyway, just be alert that you might not have to pay for it. Sorry that I don't have time to investigate the details right now; I'm trying to wrap up some recording sessions before I become separated from some of my gear for a while, so that's my priority right now.

[mikehalloran]

I forgot to comment earlier, that the upgrade appears to be conditionally free. I've been too busy preparing for an indefinite time span on the east coast (family emergency), to prioritize Finale, so don't know if I'm eligible. If it's based on when the last upgrade was purchased, definitely not, as I did that one fairly early. But maybe this one is a freebie for anyone who isn't two versions or more behind.

Anyway, just be alert that you might not have to pay for it. Sorry that I don't have time to investigate the details right now; I'm trying to wrap up some recording sessions before I become separated from some of my gear for a while, so that's my priority right now.

Free depends on the date you purchased. With Finale, the upgrade price is the same no matter which build you own as long as it's registered. So 26, 25. 1998, 3… doesn't matter. If you want to save $30, do it through Sweetwater — on purchase, they'll email you an upgrade code that you'll apply after logging into your MM Users Account. Otherwise, if not in a hurry, MM occasionally offers a $99 upgrade price but I don't recall having seen that in awhile.
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... n-download

Likewise, the upgrade from previously paid non-Pro versions, PrintMusic, Allegro, Songwriter, is the same and year doesn't matter. Again, one can save $40 through a reseller or wait for the occasional MM sale.
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... o-download

[Oleg Vostyakov]

I just got a notice that the Finale 26 upgrade is available for $40-off through midnight tomorrow (4/29). I have v25.5 and am running under Mojave (for now). Most of the work I currently do is master rhythm charts for a Jazz/R&B singer and my own guitar music. Is it worth upgrading?

If you have possibility do it, upgrade it

[stubbsonic]

That post you quoted is from over a year ago. I just went to the Finale Music site and it says that everything is 33% off. (Future lookers, the date is Nov of 2021, the version of Finale is 27)