Bye, bye Finale

[Rick Cornish]

It’s true….

https://www.scoringnotes.com/news/makem ... Y3N5JCO3Nw


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[mikehalloran]

The letter:

The end of Finale

35 years ago, Coda Music Technologies, now MakeMusic, released the first version of Finale, a groundbreaking and user-centered approach to notation software. For over four decades, our engineers and product teams have passionately crafted what would quickly become the gold standard for music notation.

Four decades is a very long time in the software industry. Technology stacks change, Mac and Windows operating systems evolve, and Finale’s millions of lines of code add up. This has made the delivery of incremental value for our customers exponentially harder over time.

Today, Finale is no longer the future of the notation industry—a reality after 35 years, and I want to be candid about this. Instead of releasing new versions of Finale that would offer only marginal value to our users, we’ve made the decision to end its development.

Effective immediately, we are announcing these changes:

There will be no further updates to Finale, or any of its associated tools (PrintMusic, Notepad, Songwriter)
It is no longer possible to purchase or upgrade Finale in the MakeMusic eStore
Finale will continue to work on devices where it is currently installed (barring OS changes)
After one year, beginning August 2025, these changes will go into effect:

It will not be possible to authorize Finale on any new devices, or reauthorize Finale
Support for Finale v27 or any other version of Finale will no longer be available
A new journey with Dorico
There is, however, a new future for the notation industry: Dorico, developed by Steinberg, the creators of Cubase and a subsidiary of Yamaha.

Many have competed with Finale over the past four decades, enabling positive and healthy stimulation leading to incremental innovations, but when Dorico launched in 2016, it set a brand new bar for the industry. The dozens of quick releases since then have demonstrated the Dorico team’s passion, dedication, expertise, and long-term commitment—qualities that have been the foundation of Finale’s DNA and success.

While Finale development has come to an end, we know your musical journey has not. I want to sincerely express our warm and deep gratitude to all of our loyal and passionate users. Our entire organization thanks you for your trust, and we believe you have a bright new phase of creativity, productivity, and efficiency ahead with Dorico.

To ensure that Finale users continue to have access to the most advanced and efficient tools available, MakeMusic has partnered with Steinberg to offer an exclusive discount on Dorico Pro.


For a limited time, users of any version of Finale or PrintMusic can purchase Dorico Pro – the highest tier of the product – for just $149 (retail price $579).

Dorico is the best home for Finale users. We know that migrating to a new software will come with its own challenges, which is why we are happy to provide this FAQ that will assist you as you transition from Finale.

To receive your discount on Dorico Pro 5, please log into your MakeMusic account, where you will see the discount available for purchase.

[mikehalloran]

Glad this announcement waited till today. I went to the 10cc concert with Michael Good, retired VP at MakeMusic and inventor of MusicXML. My wife would have not have been happy if all we did was talk shop.

Besides Finale, I have both Dorico and the latest version of MuseScore.

Steinberg licensing and installation is still a major PIA that they promise to fix by 2019 or 2021-no 2023-no, no — 2025 for certain… I’m not holding my breath. They do have good telephone support, however. MusicXML import is ok but export still needs a lot of work.

Frankly, I believe that MuseScore is the future. Muse Group, based in Cyprus, is flush with Russian cash. Their purchase of HalLeonard Publishing last December was HUGE in ways that very few in the music industry understand. MuseScore 4 still sucks but is no longer horrible and Muse readily admits this. Version 5 is expected to be the de facto notation app for HL (like Sibelius is for Oxford Press) and they promise it will be good by then. I use it in some of my work and hope that v.5 will be good enough that I can ignore Dorico except when working with Client’s scores.

Of course, I'll keep Finale around till it no longer does the job for me but it's definitely time to move on… eventually…

We’ll see…

[mikehalloran]

I was just reminded of the following:

At least they told us. Mark of the Unicorn simply stopped and we had to figure it out (and switch) on our own.

Yea, lots of people were stranded by MOTU abandoning Mosaic/Professional Composer.

[mhschmieder]

Yep, I just got the email, being towards the end of the alphabet. I'll post it below, as I think it's a different version of the announcement than what was printed above.

Hope you said hi to Michael Good for me! We played in a Chicago tribute band years ago, while we were both working in the printer/video division of Digital Equipment Corp. He used to frequent this forum, but then I think he got too busy managing MusicXML (which he invented) and related stuff, until finally retiring. I thought he had returned to Boston from Silly Valley?

---------

Today, we have important news to share with you regarding the future of Finale. Effective immediately, we are announcing these changes to the Finale software:

There will be no further development on Finale, or any of its associated tools (PrintMusic, Notepad, Songwriter)

It is no longer possible to purchase or upgrade Finale in the MakeMusic eStore

Finale will continue to work on devices where it is currently installed (barring OS changes)

For over four decades, our engineers and product teams have passionately crafted what would quickly become the gold standard for music notation. However, as technology stacks have changed, and millions of lines of Finale code have added up, delivering incremental value for our customers has become exponentially harder over time. Instead of releasing new versions of Finale that would offer only marginal value to our users, we've made the decision to end its development.

We want to sincerely express our warm and deep gratitude to all of our loyal and passionate users. While Finale development has come to an end, we know your musical journey has not.

To ensure that you continue to have access to high-quality notation software, we have partnered with Steinberg, the creators of Dorico, to offer exclusive discount pricing on Dorico Pro for all Finale and PrintMusic users.

We truly believe Dorico is the best home for Finale users looking for a new music notation tool to continue the amazing work they are doing.

[mhschmieder]

My jazz combo mates all use MuseScore because it's free, but is is flawed in ways that I cannot live with, for now. At least it is getting better at import/export and other forms of crossover use between different apps, but not always.

Thanks for the background info though; I didn't know they had bought HL, which says a lot.

[Rick Cornish]

I was just reminded of the following:

At least they told us. Mark of the Unicorn simply stopped and we had to figure it out (and switch) on our own.

Yea, lots of people were stranded by MOTU abandoning Mosaic/Professional Composer.

Ouch… you had to bring that up!

[stubbsonic]

Would you all consider this $149 Finale-to-Dorico crossgrade offer a "No-Brainer"? Should I strike while the iron is hot?

[EDIT: I just saw @mhschmieder's post, giving the greenlight.]

I occasionally do some small ensemble arrangements; as well as etudes/warm-ups, and reference sheets, for lessons.

I'm not crazy about MuseScore, but I suppose it could be an avenue to share some of my small ensemble arrangements.

I can try to keep Finale going on my 2012 MBP which should be fine until it isn't.

[mikehalloran]

Would you all consider this $149 Finale-to-Dorico crossgrade offer a "No-Brainer"? Should I strike while the iron is hot?

[EDIT: I just saw @mhschmieder's post, giving the greenlight.]

I occasionally do some small ensemble arrangements; as well as etudes/warm-ups, and reference sheets, for lessons.

I'm not crazy about MuseScore, but I suppose it could be an avenue to share some of my small ensemble arrangements.

I can try to keep Finale going on my 2012 MBP which should be fine until it isn't.

What version of Finale do you have on that MBP?

As to Dorico, I would. There are installation/license hassles—and telephone+screen sharing support to get through them if needed. Once installed and working, if you see that an update is available, I recommend quitting Dorico and running the Steinberg Download Assistant—run the updates from there and a lot of hassle will be spared.

Although I suspect that MuseScore 5 will be big, it's not here yet. The current version 4.3.2 has its uses if you deal with others and its MusicXML export has improved.

Sibelius? Love it or don't. I don't. Permanent licenses are available but try finding them. AVID really, really wants everyone on Subscription. If I was submitting to Oxford Press, I'd get a license but I don't. My major client who uses it and I do great through the Dolet 8 plug-in from MakeMusic that adds MusicXML 4 to Sibelius Ultimate.

I have a feeling that Fender will never get around to updating Notion 6, much of which is outdated to the point of being useless. Its 32bit VIs are tired and it cannot use 64bit only libraries on a Mac. Notion 7 was announced in 2021 as coming soon.

Don Williams has been making noises about updating Overture 5 (works over Sonoma!) to 6 but his promised updates to 5 are nearly four years late. I'm not expecting Encore 6 to ever happen. We talk now and then but he does other things.

LilyPond is still out there for those who want "beautiful sheet music" that looks like it's from the 19th C. They just had an update to 64 bit binaries two days ago.
https://lilypond.org/news.html
Oh yea, give me that old time text based notation app. Yes, really. MusicXML … you're kidding, right?

LilyPond is primarily concerned with producing top-quality engraved sheet music; creating a Graphical User Interface (GUI) would distract us from this goal.

https://lilypond.org/text-input.html

[mikehalloran]

Hope you said hi to Michael Good for me! We played in a Chicago tribute band years ago, while we were both working in the printer/video division of Digital Equipment Corp. He used to frequent this forum, but then I think he got too busy managing MusicXML (which he invented) and related stuff, until finally retiring. I thought he had returned to Boston from Silly Valley?

Although the names of the towns are different and there’s a freeway in between, as the crow flies, we live about a mile away from each other. He is a regular globetrotter since retirement. We played in an opera orchestra in 1979 but didn’t get to know each other till we were on stage in the same show (Utopia, Gilbert & Sullivan) in 2014—we’ve done a few since..

[stubbsonic]

What version of Finale do you have on that MBP?

version 27.4.1.146 (which I just updated today)

As to Dorico, I would. There are installation/license hassles

I decided to go ahead with the cross-grade. I just started "recommended" installation with all the included libraries, so it's a pretty big download. I'll check it in the morning.

Although I suspect that MuseScore 5 will be big, it's not here yet. The current version 4.3.2 has its uses if you deal with others and its MusicXML export has improved.

They seem to have made it a bit prettier, and started to add some user interface touches, but still seems kind of clunky. It will be fun to see how v5 does. I'm tense as Ultimate Guitar continues to commercialize Audacity & MuseScore, and swirling their acquisitions into a $#!++`/ shopping mall.

Sibelius? Love it or don't. I don't.

Yea, Sibelius.... ooof.

LilyPond is still out there for those who want "beautiful sheet music" that looks like it's from the 19th C. They just had an update to 64 bit binaries two days ago.

I find it inexplicably comforting that LilyPond still exists and released a recent update.

[labman]

After decades of work with Finale, made the move to Dorico 2+ years ago, and have not looked back in the least. But.... did make $$$ during the many finale years so not complaining.

[mhschmieder]

I'm sure everyone by now has seen the additional announcements today about long-term ability to authorize and other responses to customer feedback.

[mikehalloran]

I'm sure everyone by now has seen the additional announcements today about long-term ability to authorize and other responses to customer feedback.

Clarifications on the initial announcement

1. Finale authorization will remain available indefinitely: Please note that future OS changes can still impact your ability to use Finale on new devices.

It's still dying and will be dead in a year but the company will still be in business so no reason not to keeping the licensing server online. Yes, it will be the least they can do but it's better than pulling the plug.

2. Finale v27 to be included with Dorico Pro Crossgrades: We are currently working on a solution for all customers who have purchased or intend to purchase a Dorico Pro crossgrade to be able to download Finale v27. This will ensure that you can export your Finale files using MusicXML 4.0, the most robust version of MusicXML available. Thank you for your patience, we will provide more information soon.

Much, much better.

[Rick Cornish]

This is good news for Finale users who never upgraded to v27 and will need it to export export MusicXL files of their Finale works to Dorico.