Bye, bye Finale

[stubbsonic]

"It will be the best notation app and that it's free will be icing on the cake."

Someone should remind them that there's no such thing as free. We'll pay one way or another.

I don't love the idea of a notation program that will make me want to take a shower after I use it. ('cuz I won't feel clean.)

[mikehalloran]

"It will be the best notation app and that it's free will be icing on the cake."

Someone should remind them that there's no such thing as free. We'll pay one way or another.

I don't love the idea of a notation program that will make me want to take a shower after I use it. ('cuz I won't feel clean.)

Yeah, the handicapped shower in my hotel was nice and big with multiple jets—it took awhile.

Muse Group is very profitable, has bought the largest music publisher in the world and are getting ready to purchase the largest sheet music reseller in the world. Hmmm... Did I say that last part? looking around for any NDA.. Nope! Audacity, likewise, will remain free for similar reasons. Will they heed my advice that pro apps have live support? I don't know.

Nobody is making money on notation apps and that includes Yamaha/Steinberg and AVID/Sibelius. AVID wants to suck everyone into ProTools while Yamaha has their own world. Peaksware has decided that Finale no longer meets any of Alfred's revenue goals. Had they not come to the rescue, it's probable that Finale 2011 or 2012 would have been the last version of Finale ever — the source code was for sale but nobody wanted it.

The really big money in the Music Business is Publishing and Performance Rights. Muse Group hasn't launched a PRO yet but I expect that they will. Not to do so will be stupid.

[Phil O]

One odd thing with importing musxml files is that Dorico doesn't seem to know what to do with Finale's measure number formatting. Having to go through each import and fix the measure number placement and format is very time consuming and slows down the transition process. I don't want to complain too much because I have found Dorico a bit more approachable than Sibelius, which I felt compelled to try a few years ago.

Yeah I've run into the measure number issue too. Also, Dorico doesn't recognize Finale's custom rehearsal marks. I use Verse, Chorus, Bridge, etc. as custom rehearsal marks for lead sheets and Dorico substitutes A, B, C. I tried a trial version of Sibelius as well and wasn't impressed. I think Dorico will do what I need but after using Finale for so many years, learning it will be painful.

[stubbsonic]

For those who haven't seen it, it might be helpful context to (re)visit this vid from 5 years ago, critiquing the UI design of MuseScore (v3). It does provide some illuminating context for the others. The style is goofy and wanders around with sight-gags-aplenty; but it is kind of worthwhile viewing for those who are interested in such things.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Having been a Finale user since v.1 in 1989, I imagine that it will be my go-to until I can't.

Eggzactly! I started with Finale in 1996 and took to it right away. It thinks like do about music and aside from Frodo's observation about idiosyncrasies, it works well for me. I'm soaking it in now in a 90 minute score for a small ensemble. I am determined to stay on Mojave as long as possible. Otherwise I lose all my Adobe creative stuff as well as Word and Quicken (well, lose them to subscriptions, which are ridiculous, IMO).

I don't see what the big deal is about Finale not being updated as long as it continues to work. I also HATE the other notation apps almost as much as I hated Dr. T and a dot matrix printer. Just sayin'

[mhschmieder]

With the release this week of MuseScore-specific sound packs from Vienna Symphonic Library, I'm afraid the prophets (profits?) may have been correct when they stated that MS is the inevitable future, not Doritos.

I am going through the process tonight, of cataloguing all my true scores (as opposed to MIDI files tweaked in DP for reasonably useful lead sheets as PDF export), to see how many apps they are dispersed between.

As I will be switching my 2017 Intel iMac to a 2025 Silicon Mac Studio very soon, I am facing the piper and deleting dead apps that won't transfer, which unfortunately includes Finale at this point.

[mikehalloran]

With the release this week of MuseScore-specific sound packs from Vienna Symphonic Library, I'm afraid the prophets (profits?) may have been correct when they stated that MS is the inevitable future, not Doritos.

I am going through the process tonight, of cataloguing all my true scores (as opposed to MIDI files tweaked in DP for reasonably useful lead sheets as PDF export), to see how many apps they are dispersed between.

As I will be switching my 2017 Intel iMac to a 2025 Silicon Mac Studio very soon, I am facing the piper and deleting dead apps that won't transfer, which unfortunately includes Finale at this point.

What version of Finale are you running?

[mhschmieder]

I forget what version I had (it was whatever the latest update was); I deleted it from my system late last night. I'm a strong believer in moving on and adapting. If I wasn't so super-busy with my career and with constant gigs, rehearsals, and recording sessions, and had time for regular use of notation apps, I would probably be more inclined to keep a legacy system alive for Finale -- especially if my "perpetual" licenses to Adobe apps were still honored.

I just now ordered my M4 Max Studio, which should arrive in mid-June. I only did the 1 TB SSD upgrade from the base model after a compelling in-depth video linked at GS the other day, that showed every conceivable maxed-out workflow and the impact of anything more than 32 GB of RAM in the context of Apple Silicon systems (a different story for modern Intel!).

I suppose I'll eventually have to adapt to MuseScore, as much as I detest it, but surely it will also improve once it becomes the de facto monopoly and effectively a public domain tool with major composers and publishers dependent on it. The writing on the wall was probably when they purchased one of the three largest publishers on the planet.

What I hate most about the modern notation choices is the impact on sheet music, where you can rarely get a preview before purchase, but buying a score from Schott can cost $80 or more so I suppose most of us will resort to online scores sooner than later. There's a Bruch trio for clarinet, violin, and viola, that I've wanted for several years. I don't dare buy the MuseScore version, not being able to view it first to verify the quality.