Runs on Linux and even OpenBSD. Though have they finally added a feature where you can play on the midi piano and it writes down what you play? I have very low conscientousness so that would help me a lot.
As someone who started with Finale, switched to Sibelius for many years, and now uses Dorico I confidently say that Dorico while the biggest shift in philosophy from the other two once learned has been the best experience of three by far.
I've heard a few people with this take. I tried Dorico a few years back and just didn't have the time to actually dive in and learn from the ground up. Now that the decision has been made for me...I'm kinda excited about learning a new software.
Yeah the "roll out" was...strange. haha I got a personal email from my rep at 8 am and then a news letter email from the company at like 2 pm. But I know people that got the news letter email at wildly different times of the day so I'm assuming they scheduled the news letter email blast to go in sections to their list because they knew it would likely crash their servers if they hit everyone at once haha. BTW - love the channel and the stuff you put out!
I’m pretty devastated by this news, especially because Finale is not a niche program (in terms of music notation). I will say, Finale was always clunky for percussion/drum set notation, and I don’t think they ever took enough steps to improve those things. I learned how to invidually do tons of tasks to work through it, but I guess I’m going to try the free trial of Dorico and explore it since I didn’t even know it existed.
Agree on all fronts. Dorico is going to be my first stop but I might actually A/B Sibelius at the same time and see what's what with both. I've got a lot of learning to do. haha
@@TimBuell I wouldn't recommend doing testing them at the same time. Dorico is a bit of a different mindset in work flow and if you are trying to do both it can be confusing. This is from experience of working with Sibelius while trying to move to Dorico. You gotta just take the plunge with Dorico and learn their workflow. It can be a little odd when coming from other software but it is awesome once you get the feel.
1. Create a VM with your Finale installation. You can back it up somewhere and if you ever find a finale file that you forgot to convert (or got converted wrong), you can fix it later. 2. There are several active lawsuits in the states about companies who closed shop without a permanent ownership option to keep it alive. The behavior Make Music has demonstrated is a direct target of these lawsuits. They better have a perpetual license generator that’s published or I’m confident, they’ll be added to the list of suits. 3. I do a lot of shape note music. Finale was the only software I’ve used that got this right. I’ll explore the others, but I’m pretty frustrated at the news. 4. Thanks for making the video.
I expect a monetary deal was done because Finale’s PR were so overtly promoting Dorico in the announcement that Finale is ending. Thankfully a day later Finale announced that the authorization is now unlimited rather than just one year.
@@OrpheusSonOfCalliope Correct. Dorico is not free. Having used Finale, Sibelius and Musescore, I feel Dorico is the best. Test drive it with a free trial.
What a wild day. I thought of you specifically when I heard the news, as I've gone to your vidoes as a resource as a drummer. You're clearly a super power-user. If the software I've used all day every day had news like this, I'd be tripping out a bit. It will be interesting to see what you switch to. I had recently tried out Dorico and was considering the $300 "crossgrade". At $149, it seems like I'll be doing it. A cool thing about drum notation is you don't need two layers to easily deal with stems up vs. stems down - something us drummers deal with. I like stems down much of the time for snare & bass drum for grooves, but that quickly changes for fills, etc. Dorico handles that nicely. Another cool thing is you don't enter rests. Just notes - a nice touch. *if* you're at all interested, hit me up, and I'll send you my notes I made for myself while starting exploring drumset notation in Dorico. (As in, open the program... start creating drum notation...) It's the least I could do after getting so much from your Finale vidoes!
This is all awesome info! And I'm glad you could hear my suffering as soon as you heard the Finale news haha. I did notice (when I was messing around in Dorico for like 5 minutes yesterday) the 1-layer but you have stems up and down. That is a pretty interesting feature. I prefer the "all stems up" look but didn't even think about how nice that is for people that want it. I might have to take you up on the notes you have! haha
finale user since -95. After a little research I am recommending Dorico for my work. We are about 20 teachers using Finale at the moment. What we need is a batch converter for making finale-files to xml
UPDATE: Finale authorization will remain available for the foreseeable future: Please note that future OS changes can still impact your ability to use Finale on new devices.
I had Sibelius 7.5 from years ago when it was a perpetual license, and I just discovered you can now update it to the latest version still as a perpetual license for the same price as the Dorico license. I ended up getting both at that price. Then Finale gave me a free update to the last version for buying Dorico. So I went from two old, not-great programs to all three new ones for $300.00.
I'm in college for music, ive never had to use a notation software in my life, i used musescore a little last year which was a frustrating experience, but this semester im in a class that requires the use of Dorico. I actually find dorico to be very intuitive once you get past the initial learning curve, as someone who doesnt have experience in notation softwares
At least it isn't Sibelius, where the company fired the entire staff including the two guys who developed it and ended up with a competitor because Yamaha hired all of them to develop a scoring program. One thing about Dorico is it has good support and you often get asnwers straight from Daniel Spreadbury, their lead dev.
I left finale for dorico about a year ago (and have used sebelius in the past) and greatly prefer it... So i do agree with their choice to point people toward dorico. It's got some great unique features and is still new enough that it gets interesting new features regularly.
It didn't come as a surprise to me, and I say this more as a former programmer than as a composer. Finale was programmed long time ago and it has come to a point where it is no longer maintainable (or to stay compatibel with current and future operating systems. Only alternative to keep it around: rebuilding it from the ground up and the huge investment is probably not worth it because other notation programs, specifically Dorico did that already. That was one of the reasons I opted for Dorico already years ago (and super happy I did). BTW Finale doesn't stop working all of a sudden; you can use it forever as long as you keep the same hardware configuration. And to upgrade to Dorico Pro, there is an inexpensive deal for that and lots of helpful tools to make the transition.
It came as a surprise only in that they are still the program 50% (at least) of the industry used for notation. Figured they would hang around and just keep not really addressing this issue haha. But you are right - the program would need to be rebuilt from the ground up and that likely just wasn't financially feasible.
Bud, do not worry about Finale format files. 10 years from now 'John Silver' versions of Finale will still be working. Could be under emulation of Windows 10\8\7\Vista\XP but they will work.
Maybe so! But I (and all the people I know that rely on notation software to make a living) like to have something a bit more reliable than hoping someone figures out an emulation for Finale to access the previous 10 years of work I have tied up in Finale files haha. So MusicXML files is the most surefire way to back everything up.
@@TimBuell MusicXML is fine but for the time being it breaks from export to export during import. You might miss bars, pages… and have to edit the open\closing tags manually sometimes to retrieve elements. MusicXML is like rough sketch archiving. Nothing wrong with XML though. It is the "Standard" Music Notation system that is clumsy, bloated, over-complicated but that is another topic.
'Overture 6' is on its way. I recommend it and it is by Sonic Scores (Don Williams, the developer of the legendary music notation program Encore, which is also expected to be updated to v6).
@@TimBuell Yeas, give it a chance. A few (several) years ago I bought a license for $120 (as a transition license allowance from Notion 6 by Presonus). I think Overture still has a transition license discount. It supports VSTi and has its own DAW-like interface. It is not perfect as it has been developed in small increments by Don Williams himself.
I expect a monetary deal was done because Finale’s PR were so overtly promoting Dorico in the announcement that Finale is ending. Thankfully a day later Finale announced that the authorization is now unlimited rather than just one year.
Wow, thank you for the tip about converting the whole folder full of Finale files. Will need to grab all my files and start the conversion process over the weekend!
Search your hard drive and sort by file type and just copy those into a new folder and convert it. Should be easy enough. Just not sure how long 4,000 files will take...haha
@@TimBuell I was reading Tim Corpus's comments on his video that one user converted 1,000 files on an M1 chip, and it took about 4 hours to convert everything. I also want to go in and save everything as a PDF, just in case!
Yea, but let's be realistic Do you *want* to work with finale in 20 years? By then you will probably tell the computer what to do by words, sounds, playing it on a normal piano and it will generate the sheet music with AI. Not that i like what's coming. But we are by far not at the end of computational development.
Finale user since 1999. I bought Dorico last night and am trying it out. Brutal so far, but if it saves me formatting time down the road I'll give it a go.
I've been using Sibelius for over 20 years (switched from Finale) and have been extremely happy with it. I primarily use if for large ensemble writing (Orchestras, Symphonic Bands, Marching Bands, etc...). I'm not sure how Finale worked, but it sounds like their financial model maybe part of the reason that they failed. Sibelius went to a subscription model, but at least I think that helps the company stay afloat with a steady yearly income (I chose the Perpetual License - which is what I would recommend). For new users, Sibelius is extremely easy to use and intuitive. I'm not saying that you won't have to look something up (which is also easy ), but for the most part you can just start writing, which is what a good notation program should do.
Wow and I was about to purchase Finale after using Musescore for years. Guess I'll stand by. Band director friends are also suggesting Dorico. I'll have to check that out.
Honestly I'll probably end up trying Dorico and Sibelius but it will be an uphill battle. I know Finale SO well I'm just so sad at the idea of every project taking 4 times as long for the next few months haha.
I’ve given musecore a try and I didn’t love the workflow. I typically used finale’s speedy entry with a midi controller. Going to start looking into Dorico
Use Dorico! I used Finale since 1993 (v 2.2), later migrated a lot of work to Sibelius. When Sibelius went subscription, and seeing such paltry updates went back to Finale. Switched to Dorico the day it came out. Dorico is far superior for output and the workflow (if you learn to do it the Dorico way) is faster.
That's what my gut tells me. I like what you say here too, I'm going to make an effort to not "find a Finale replacement" but "find a notation software replacement" and try to learn how the devs want me to use the software (not try to force my Finale habits on a new software).
Gutted! I used to Finale because of the layout function. I have used Musescore and it’s good (see Tantacrul on TH-cam) but… for drum notation, not quite there yet. I have no experience of Dorico although, when searching for drum notation software, i came across your channel and tutorials for Finale. Bought it and enjoyed getting my ideas transcribed and got relatively fast at it. Looks like i have to learn all over again. I just don’t get how a company that tool my money can just stop supporting its customers. Anyways.. thanks for letting us know. Greets from Germany 🥁
I (and my 4,000 finale files) are ALSO gutted haha. Musescore was pretty clunky for drum notation when I tried it too so Dorico will be my first stop. The "learning all over again" is what I'm dreading the most for sure. Rest assured - whatever program I end up at I will create tutorials for it as soon as I feel like I have a grasp on it.
@@TimBuell soo.. i bit the bullet and got Dorico because of the great deal finale offered. I guess that’s some consolation. It seems really well laid out. It’s definitely going to take getting useful to but the first impressions are good. 😊
I used Sibelius very frequently for about a decade, loved how fast and easy entering notation was with a regular keyboard compared to Finale (at as it was about 20 years ago), hated how much janky bloat was stuck under the hood. I remember when they were bought by Avid there was a lot of discussion about the future of the software, if it was going to undergo the substantial overhaul it desperately needed or just get a new coat of paint, and obviously it got the latter with half of the dialog boxes coming straight from its pre-Windows Acorn days. It's been a few years since I've used Sib, has it changed much or is it still more or less the same?
I've never had Finale not work after an OS upgrade. So I am hoping it works for a hell of a long time. I think I will try Dorito because I love nacho cheese and because they are discounting it for me heavily, and I've been interested in trying a DAW and we see how it goes.
Another notation software is Presonus’ Notion 6. It’s no where near the power software of Finale but it should be a viable option to consider depending on your needs.
@@TimBuell Just as a point of reference, I use Notion Mobile (which is free) on iPad , and it has been receiving updates regularly, along with Notion 6, and I like it quite a bit, but I don't do anything too demanding. It is getting updates both on desktop and mobile, but it would be interesting to know how the ongoing development of it compares with Dorico Pro and how much value you get per dollar spent. I haven't used Dorico Pro or Dorico on mobile, but it does look appealing.
Thanks for the clear video Tim! Much appreciated. I have over 200 solo transcriptions aside from lead sheets which I really need to convert asap to xml files... thanks for pointing that out, lifesaver Still struggling to decide where go next, but I've used MuseScore a bit when students showed their files and it was hard to adapt to that. My main concern is being able to insert the notes with the keys, the software that is closest wins Curious to see where you will pivot to.
I hadn't heard of it until now (just checked it out). Seems like for drummers it could be super easy as it seems like what they had in mind when developing it. For me, I'll likely have to end up going where a considerable chunk of "the industry" goes since so much of what I do these days is client work.
Just to clarify - you can get a perpetual license for sibelius, but the way avid link keeps checking for your license and regularly throws up problems honestly id be saying go musescore as your first port of call as its getting better all the time
A couple people have mentioned the perpetual license so you are right on that! Although...weird I didn't find that option when I was researching and went to their site before filming this video. It's almost like they don't want you to know so that you opt in for the subscription...
This sucks for Finale users. I use Dorico and find it easy to use. And it’s a one off purchase or $7/mth for iPad. Not a fan of Sibelius or Musescore. They feel clunky to me but other users I know don’t have issues. I guess you get used to whatever’s in front of you. But I’m definitely happy with Dorico and the scores look awesome!
All good things come to end, but in the modern audio software world, any good thing that you're usually paying rent to never own might come to an end whenever it feels like.
Crazy thing is Finale was a straight purchase. Not a subscription. So as long as your operating system handles it you’re good to go. But that’s thin ice at best haha.
Man that’s super frustrating! I use Sibelius and hopefully they are not next because learning a new program is such a tedious process. I know a lot of cats use Dorico, but I am hoping Sibelius stays put. Sibelius is also pretty intuitive. Keep me posted on what you choose!
I switched to Sibelius from Finale 12 years ago and never looked back. I’ve tried muse score a few times and it never seems quite up to the level needed for real music engraving even if it’s fine for hobbyists.
Have you tried it recently? They made some HUGE changes in the last while. Check out the videos on Tantacrul's channel - he dissed it pretty hard, and then became the primary graphical designer on the project, and they improved it a LOT since then
@@gorak9000 It's probably been over a year since I tried it? I watched one of Tantacrul's videos and wasn't fully convinced, but I'll take your rec and try it again! Doesn't hurt to check it out and know what's out there!
@@gorak9000 I checked it out again. I did try MuseScore 4. I agree that the UI has improved for actually using the software, but the quality of the actual engraving is still not great. The scores still have that squishy ugly MuseScore look to them
I have PDFs of every final copy - but if in 10 years a client wants me to tweak that it will be WAY more work to recreate and edit the file than just simply editing it in a different notation software.
Take out a 60 day fully working trial version of Dorico, maybe.? MM have said the 'special' crossgrade offer price will still be around for at least that amount of time (said 1 day ago). Also, with your transcription work - I presume you are/were doing all that in Finale.? So, not sure how good Dorico will be for that specific task (there's no 'audio track' playback facility, per se... However, you can output a 'dummy' video with your intended audio muxed together in a 3rd party video editor software, then output the video and attach that to a 'flow' inside Dorico, (with a tempo map) and everything will keep in sync. May be useful for you posing some direct 'how would I do this...' type questions on the Steinberg (Dorico) forums too.! Whatever you choose though, good luck.! (difficult times for all...)
Ha! In a video that was so somber I like that you are bringing up the comments with more positive drum talk haha. That's a Tama Starclassic Birch/Bubinga in "Aqua Glitter". Not sure that's the actual finish name as I bought the kit used but it is an accurate description of the color haha.
Correct (however illegal it might be). But the bigger issue is that I (and everyone I work with) use this software everyday to work with other freelancers and the music industry. Certainly not everyone will pirate Finale and maintain their commitment to using the program - so the clock is ticking before the industry at large moves on and that's something we are all having to adjust for.
@@TimBuell I switched to it after Tantacrul (who was asked to lead Musescore after making a pretty critical UI-focused video about Musescore) did a long-ass video about the newest version, and how he decided to scrap all the legacy code and start afresh. That video is very entertaining and I’d recommend anyone with an interest in music making or even just computers, design or general making-of videos to watch it. The new playback engine in particular is a true industry leader(!), but the new font and how it now places everything is very good too. The old menu system was apparently horrifyingly random and illogical. I don’t know about that and I can’t say I’ve been completely able to figure everything out without looking in the manual, but it hasn’t been difficult and the manual is pretty great. The shortcuts I don’t particularly like, but I can say the same about Finale
TimBuell Since when did you use Musescore before? Right now, Musescore is better than before. I started to use Musescore in 2009, it wasn't that good during that time as you need to get a sound font that works on all musical instruments (without any of them out of tune). The default sound font seemed to play only one instrument sound no matter what instrument you choose. Right now, Musescore is so much better, it is not limited to only its own sounds before version 4. Starting with version 3.0, it had collision avoidance (called auto-place), it prevents elements from overlapping. In version 4.0, there are Musesounds, and accidentals in trills and other ornaments. Not to mention that version 4 separates things (such as the elements of music) more clearly in the palettes section than in version 3.
I'm VERY suspicious of a company that goes out of business and then recommends only ONE place for their customers to go to. That just seems odd especially since the other company is new and isn't the most popular software. It would be like Ford going out of business and telling everyone to buy a Telsa. Something weird is going on here.
Dorico is actually made by Steinberg which has been around since the 80's so certainly they aren't "new". As well, Dorico's core developers are actually a team that built Sibelius (the other software in the "big 2" of music notation). In the music industry it has been Finale vs Sibelius for the longest time. Finale sending everyone to Dorico means that Finale doesn't give their longest competitor business and Dorico gets to finally have a chance at winning over a bigger slice of the market now that one of the "big 2" is stepping out of the race. I'm sure there are also financial incentives for Finale to do so as I'm sure they see a cut of the current cross-grade offer they have going on right now. I've spoken with developers at Dorico in the past and they are a super passionate team of people so I'm hoping this is the chance they needed to show the world how good their software is. You only get one chance like this and hopefully they don't fumble the bag!
Musescore will likely emerge as a major player in the music notation industry. Why? Well, their purchase of Hal Leonard at the end of 2023 seems like a major indication they are serious about professional engraving.
Avid bought Sibelius then fired the whole Sibelius creative team. Steinberg hired the old Sibelius team, and they created Dorico. Dorico is the best new platform.
Dorico - hands down. I've used them all, and once I switched to Dorico, I never looked back. Dorico was developed by the same team who created Sibelius right after being let go by Avid. It is do much better! Finale had a few advantages when it came to special notation techniques, but Dorico is quickly catching up on those as well. I hope this helps...
Well I'm only 60 seconds into this, but the tenor of your commentary suggests that software people purchased and installed on their own computers just stopped working... completely? Certainly you can't actually mean that right? It's installed, it's going to work, right?
Clearly I should have waited another 60 seconds. The traditional solution in a case like this is for the vendor to ship a final update that turns off the necessary Installer Authentication so that people can reinstall stuff they've purchased without running into the 'my company no longer exists' failure. If they're not going to do that...
I wrote this to Finale: Hello, pardon me for getting a little bit upset if not angry. You as a company decide for whatever reason to cease support and continuation of Finale. You then expect loyal customers of years length to first by Dorico Pro, be it at a nice discount, and then buy(!) Finale V27 so as to be able to import 100’s if not 1000’s of music files. In the light of your rather harsh decision without any warning whatsoever to kill Finale, not even allowing users the opportunity to get the latest version V27, I feel it is your duty to make V27 freely available to any Finale customer. You owe this to all Finale users for putting them in an unwanted position, costing all of them money they didn’t plan to spend like this and cutting them off the last chance to get the latest version. And not in the least for forcing loyal users to start a considerable learning curve getting to know Dorico which takes time and thus costs money. I sincerely hope you will reconsider some of your decisions and be loyal to all of your loyal Finale users. Kind regards Paul Delcour
Sibelius is now being treated very neglected by Avid and most of the developers have been laid off and are now developing Dorico. That's why Dorico is more future-proof...
I hear you. The announcement didn't make Finale useless but for everyone that uses it all day every day for client work it does mean that you have to start NOW to make sure you have everything backed up and are learning a new program ASAP to make sure you can handle your projects and hit deadlines with a software you didn't know you needed to learn until Monday haha.
I guess with this one you do "own" the software. My copy of Finale will keep working forever...as long as my computer doesn't break the software. So, there is a world where you could buy a computer and install Finale on it and as long as you never update the operating system it will likely work forever.
Is it legal to use a hacked copy of software from a company that no longer exists? A hacked version of finale needs no registration! Asking for a friend 😂 PS I'm still using my copy of finale 2000 on my windows 11 computer and it works perfectly.
I stopped using Finale in like 2007. Garbage program. Just use Guitar Pro. It can do almost everything Finale can, but it actually makes sense. Want to know how to do something? There's just a button for it. No bullshit. Need special formatting? Just upload a pdf to canva or adobe
I haven't used GuitarPro for years, but as far as I remember its formatting was ugly as hell, and it was never intended to make it a real engraving software. Of course, things may have changed, so I'm not denouncing it completely.
Part of the migration decision that myself and a bunch of other professionals are having to deal with is what is EVERYONE going to move to. I might have a preference but if the city I work in (Nashville) decides to adapt a different software then that might add friction when trying to pass files back and forth. So there are huge benefits to working with the same program everyone else lands on.
Stop saying the software “no longer exists.” It exists! They didn’t erase every copy off of every hard drive! They just announced that it is no longer getting new features. It will still work with your current and future operating system for many more years! And yes, they said they will eventually stop authorizing new installations, which is bizarre, but you can get around that. Under the circumstances, circumventing their copy protection scheme is totally defensible from an ethical and perhaps even a legal perspective. If you paid for the software, you absolutely should be free to continue using it for many more years.
I hear you. It definitely didn’t stop working the day they announced. But for people that use this software professionally every day this meant we all have to find sure fire, reliable, legal ways to continue to do our engraving and notation work ASAP. And yes, finale might work for several more years on whatever operating systems evolve - but it’s also possible that one tweak Apple makes to their OS tanks Finale and then it’s lights out. When you have 4,000 old finale files and multiple client projects every week these are things that can’t be left to chance.
Dorico has a very poor and confusing instruction manual. No search bar. No instructions of how to connect to midi input. I returned it. It might work well for a tech pro, but it is not user friendly.
The software "doesn't exist"???? WTF do you mean. It still exists and will exist as long as your computer continues to function and doesn't die. This news doesn't mean, that it simply going to stop working.
That’s totally true. But for those of us that make a large portion of our income working in Finale it means that all our old projects and any new projects need to take these changes into account. Maybe Finale works for another decade on current/future operating systems. But maybe it stops working tomorrow because of some patch Windows or Apple pushes out in an update. There’s no way to know. So anyone doing this for a living needs to make sure they are prepared for the worst (even if they expect the best).
@@TimBuell - At my age - 71 - the days of being a professional engraver are long over. I started in the early '90s and got out in the mid 2000's, mostly priced out by eastern Europeans and southern Asians. I need to charge existence prices where I live, not where THEY live. Upgrading Finale and upgrading my Finale machine, even after I officially closed shop, was the last thing I did, because I did hang onto a couple of long true customers who wanted revisions of their piece periodically. Unfortunately I experience many, many times, that an OS update made my then version of Finale unusable - wouldn't even start-up. But buying an update meant,, that opening older Finale scores meant that many of the "things" I'd forced Finale to do, now had gotten "fixed", and these fixes automagically destroyed thos "special places" in the score, where I'd twisted Finale's arm to get the visuals the composer insisted on. So I got used to keeping around an "older machine with an older Finale version": My present M2 "work" (how do you defined "work"?) with Ventura and Finale v. 25, but not as well as my Intel MacBook Air (2015 2.2GHz) running Monterey. And as long as hat machine lives and I do, it will continue to efficiently and effecively run Finale and accomplish everything I've done in the past 5 years for my own purposes. So Finale lives on and well and will as long as I do and this machine does. And I still have a 2012 pre-retina MacBook Pro I could use with v. 25 running Mavericks. Even my 2012 multi-media/Data Server could run Finale 25 and Apple's antiquated Server software. That won't stop me from investigating MuseScore 4.4 - which would do fine for the next view years I may be "blessed" with to do my work. I remember the line from a Dirty Harry movie "A good man always knows his limitations". While it was meant ironically as a dig to Harry's superior officer, I too "know my limitations". And while I still have some open questions concerning MuseScore 4.4, Finale suits my limitations just fine. And my machines' limitations. On the M2, that means re-adopting to old 1990's strategy of hitting cmd-s every 10 key-strokes or so, since Finale 25 on an M2 running ventura loves to provoke Murphy's Law. The same version on my 2015 Intel MacAir runniing Monterey is nowhere near as .... sadistic.
Musescore is free - still have my old copy of Sibelius as well
Runs on Linux and even OpenBSD. Though have they finally added a feature where you can play on the midi piano and it writes down what you play? I have very low conscientousness so that would help me a lot.
As someone who started with Finale, switched to Sibelius for many years, and now uses Dorico I confidently say that Dorico while the biggest shift in philosophy from the other two once learned has been the best experience of three by far.
I've heard a few people with this take. I tried Dorico a few years back and just didn't have the time to actually dive in and learn from the ground up. Now that the decision has been made for me...I'm kinda excited about learning a new software.
Thanks for the heads up! Appreciate you making this video since I certainly didn't hear about it from Finale.
Yeah the "roll out" was...strange. haha I got a personal email from my rep at 8 am and then a news letter email from the company at like 2 pm. But I know people that got the news letter email at wildly different times of the day so I'm assuming they scheduled the news letter email blast to go in sections to their list because they knew it would likely crash their servers if they hit everyone at once haha.
BTW - love the channel and the stuff you put out!
I’m pretty devastated by this news, especially because Finale is not a niche program (in terms of music notation). I will say, Finale was always clunky for percussion/drum set notation, and I don’t think they ever took enough steps to improve those things. I learned how to invidually do tons of tasks to work through it, but I guess I’m going to try the free trial of Dorico and explore it since I didn’t even know it existed.
Agree on all fronts. Dorico is going to be my first stop but I might actually A/B Sibelius at the same time and see what's what with both. I've got a lot of learning to do. haha
@@TimBuell I wouldn't recommend doing testing them at the same time. Dorico is a bit of a different mindset in work flow and if you are trying to do both it can be confusing. This is from experience of working with Sibelius while trying to move to Dorico. You gotta just take the plunge with Dorico and learn their workflow. It can be a little odd when coming from other software but it is awesome once you get the feel.
@@maxsteel32totally think the same way as I make my decision to plunge into Dorico Pro…
1. Create a VM with your Finale installation. You can back it up somewhere and if you ever find a finale file that you forgot to convert (or got converted wrong), you can fix it later.
2. There are several active lawsuits in the states about companies who closed shop without a permanent ownership option to keep it alive. The behavior Make Music has demonstrated is a direct target of these lawsuits. They better have a perpetual license generator that’s published or I’m confident, they’ll be added to the list of suits.
3. I do a lot of shape note music. Finale was the only software I’ve used that got this right. I’ll explore the others, but I’m pretty frustrated at the news.
4. Thanks for making the video.
I expect a monetary deal was done because Finale’s PR were so overtly promoting Dorico in the announcement that Finale is ending. Thankfully a day later Finale announced that the authorization is now unlimited rather than just one year.
It looks like MuseScore has the most active development.
Especially if someone is doing Drumline/Percussions, there is a huge update this week.
Dorico also has a great dev team and are very active on updating and tweaking.
@@TimBuell But not free like MuseScore, right?
@@OrpheusSonOfCalliope Correct. Dorico is not free. Having used Finale, Sibelius and Musescore, I feel Dorico is the best. Test drive it with a free trial.
I've been using Finale since the 90s, when it was basically the only software to use until Sibelius, and then we still used Finale.
Yeah - it is quite a wild change we will all have to do. But life goes on and client projects still need to meet deadlines! haha
What a wild day. I thought of you specifically when I heard the news, as I've gone to your vidoes as a resource as a drummer. You're clearly a super power-user. If the software I've used all day every day had news like this, I'd be tripping out a bit.
It will be interesting to see what you switch to.
I had recently tried out Dorico and was considering the $300 "crossgrade". At $149, it seems like I'll be doing it.
A cool thing about drum notation is you don't need two layers to easily deal with stems up vs. stems down - something us drummers deal with. I like stems down much of the time for snare & bass drum for grooves, but that quickly changes for fills, etc. Dorico handles that nicely.
Another cool thing is you don't enter rests. Just notes - a nice touch.
*if* you're at all interested, hit me up, and I'll send you my notes I made for myself while starting exploring drumset notation in Dorico. (As in, open the program... start creating drum notation...) It's the least I could do after getting so much from your Finale vidoes!
This is all awesome info! And I'm glad you could hear my suffering as soon as you heard the Finale news haha.
I did notice (when I was messing around in Dorico for like 5 minutes yesterday) the 1-layer but you have stems up and down. That is a pretty interesting feature. I prefer the "all stems up" look but didn't even think about how nice that is for people that want it.
I might have to take you up on the notes you have! haha
finale user since -95. After a little research I am recommending Dorico for my work. We are about 20 teachers using Finale at the moment. What we need is a batch converter for making finale-files to xml
From using Dorico for 2 days, I will say that I like it. I have only scratched the surface, but it seems intuitive.
If you watch toward the end of the video I throw up the steps to take to catch concert finale files to xml
UPDATE: Finale authorization will remain available for the foreseeable future: Please note that future OS changes can still impact your ability to use Finale on new devices.
I had Sibelius 7.5 from years ago when it was a perpetual license, and I just discovered you can now update it to the latest version still as a perpetual license for the same price as the Dorico license. I ended up getting both at that price. Then Finale gave me a free update to the last version for buying Dorico. So I went from two old, not-great programs to all three new ones for $300.00.
Also Sibelius does have a perpetual license. That’s what I purchased because I am not a fan of subscription models.
That is good to know! Thanks man!
The only perpetual thing about Sibelius is your frustration with it.
@@BrunodeSouzaLino I never really had issues with it but I have heard customer support is not good.
I'm in college for music, ive never had to use a notation software in my life, i used musescore a little last year which was a frustrating experience, but this semester im in a class that requires the use of Dorico. I actually find dorico to be very intuitive once you get past the initial learning curve, as someone who doesnt have experience in notation softwares
Thanks much Tim! Great ideas.
At least it isn't Sibelius, where the company fired the entire staff including the two guys who developed it and ended up with a competitor because Yamaha hired all of them to develop a scoring program. One thing about Dorico is it has good support and you often get asnwers straight from Daniel Spreadbury, their lead dev.
VERY cool to hear about their good support. I'll likely need it! haha
He is on the forum all the time. I even got personal e-mails from Daniel Spreadbury who is the product manager himself. Very cool!
I left finale for dorico about a year ago (and have used sebelius in the past) and greatly prefer it... So i do agree with their choice to point people toward dorico. It's got some great unique features and is still new enough that it gets interesting new features regularly.
It didn't come as a surprise to me, and I say this more as a former programmer than as a composer. Finale was programmed long time ago and it has come to a point where it is no longer maintainable (or to stay compatibel with current and future operating systems. Only alternative to keep it around: rebuilding it from the ground up and the huge investment is probably not worth it because other notation programs, specifically Dorico did that already. That was one of the reasons I opted for Dorico already years ago (and super happy I did). BTW Finale doesn't stop working all of a sudden; you can use it forever as long as you keep the same hardware configuration. And to upgrade to Dorico Pro, there is an inexpensive deal for that and lots of helpful tools to make the transition.
It came as a surprise only in that they are still the program 50% (at least) of the industry used for notation. Figured they would hang around and just keep not really addressing this issue haha. But you are right - the program would need to be rebuilt from the ground up and that likely just wasn't financially feasible.
Bud, do not worry about Finale format files. 10 years from now 'John Silver' versions of Finale will still be working. Could be under emulation of Windows 10\8\7\Vista\XP but they will work.
Maybe so! But I (and all the people I know that rely on notation software to make a living) like to have something a bit more reliable than hoping someone figures out an emulation for Finale to access the previous 10 years of work I have tied up in Finale files haha. So MusicXML files is the most surefire way to back everything up.
@@TimBuell MusicXML is fine but for the time being it breaks from export to export during import. You might miss bars, pages… and have to edit the open\closing tags manually sometimes to retrieve elements. MusicXML is like rough sketch archiving. Nothing wrong with XML though. It is the "Standard" Music Notation system that is clumsy, bloated, over-complicated but that is another topic.
'Overture 6' is on its way. I recommend it and it is by Sonic Scores (Don Williams, the developer of the legendary music notation program Encore, which is also expected to be updated to v6).
Haven't heard of that. I'll look into it!
@@TimBuell Yeas, give it a chance. A few (several) years ago I bought a license for $120 (as a transition license allowance from Notion 6 by Presonus).
I think Overture still has a transition license discount. It supports VSTi and has its own DAW-like interface. It is not perfect as it has been developed in small increments by Don Williams himself.
They should open source the entire codebase instead of just disappearing
1,000%.
I expect a monetary deal was done because Finale’s PR were so overtly promoting Dorico in the announcement that Finale is ending. Thankfully a day later Finale announced that the authorization is now unlimited rather than just one year.
Wow, thank you for the tip about converting the whole folder full of Finale files. Will need to grab all my files and start the conversion process over the weekend!
Search your hard drive and sort by file type and just copy those into a new folder and convert it. Should be easy enough. Just not sure how long 4,000 files will take...haha
@@TimBuell I was reading Tim Corpus's comments on his video that one user converted 1,000 files on an M1 chip, and it took about 4 hours to convert everything. I also want to go in and save everything as a PDF, just in case!
A year or two? If you keep your old PC for Finale only and off the network, you can get 15 to 20 years!
Yea, but let's be realistic
Do you *want* to work with finale in 20 years?
By then you will probably tell the computer what to do by words, sounds, playing it on a normal piano and it will generate the sheet music with AI.
Not that i like what's coming. But we are by far not at the end of computational development.
Finale user since 1999. I bought Dorico last night and am trying it out. Brutal so far, but if it saves me formatting time down the road I'll give it a go.
From what I've watched it does seem like there are certain things that are going to be SO much easier.
I've been using Sibelius for over 20 years (switched from Finale) and have been extremely happy with it. I primarily use if for large ensemble writing (Orchestras, Symphonic Bands, Marching Bands, etc...). I'm not sure how Finale worked, but it sounds like their financial model maybe part of the reason that they failed. Sibelius went to a subscription model, but at least I think that helps the company stay afloat with a steady yearly income (I chose the Perpetual License - which is what I would recommend). For new users, Sibelius is extremely easy to use and intuitive. I'm not saying that you won't have to look something up (which is also easy ), but for the most part you can just start writing, which is what a good notation program should do.
Great insight! Thank you so much.
MUSESCORE IT PRETTY GREAT!
I’ve tried it and really couldn’t get off the ground. But I’ll likely be giving everything another go haha.
@@TimBuell It do be improving!
It’s ok, but there is amazing software out there.
I've been using Aered for about 10 years now. It just does drum notation and is kind of limited, but super easy to use and it's free.
Haven't heard of it before! I'll check it out.
Wow and I was about to purchase Finale after using Musescore for years. Guess I'll stand by. Band director friends are also suggesting Dorico. I'll have to check that out.
Honestly I'll probably end up trying Dorico and Sibelius but it will be an uphill battle. I know Finale SO well I'm just so sad at the idea of every project taking 4 times as long for the next few months haha.
I’ve given musecore a try and I didn’t love the workflow. I typically used finale’s speedy entry with a midi controller. Going to start looking into Dorico
Same here. But hoping Dorico sticks this time.
Use Dorico! I used Finale since 1993 (v 2.2), later migrated a lot of work to Sibelius. When Sibelius went subscription, and seeing such paltry updates went back to Finale. Switched to Dorico the day it came out. Dorico is far superior for output and the workflow (if you learn to do it the Dorico way) is faster.
That's what my gut tells me. I like what you say here too, I'm going to make an effort to not "find a Finale replacement" but "find a notation software replacement" and try to learn how the devs want me to use the software (not try to force my Finale habits on a new software).
Gutted! I used to Finale because of the layout function. I have used Musescore and it’s good (see Tantacrul on TH-cam) but… for drum notation, not quite there yet. I have no experience of Dorico although, when searching for drum notation software, i came across your channel and tutorials for Finale. Bought it and enjoyed getting my ideas transcribed and got relatively fast at it. Looks like i have to learn all over again. I just don’t get how a company that tool my money can just stop supporting its customers. Anyways.. thanks for letting us know. Greets from Germany 🥁
I (and my 4,000 finale files) are ALSO gutted haha. Musescore was pretty clunky for drum notation when I tried it too so Dorico will be my first stop. The "learning all over again" is what I'm dreading the most for sure.
Rest assured - whatever program I end up at I will create tutorials for it as soon as I feel like I have a grasp on it.
@@TimBuell soo.. i bit the bullet and got Dorico because of the great deal finale offered. I guess that’s some consolation. It seems really well laid out. It’s definitely going to take getting useful to but the first impressions are good. 😊
Musescore released a big update for drum notation today...
Fantastic! 🫣☺️
I used Sibelius very frequently for about a decade, loved how fast and easy entering notation was with a regular keyboard compared to Finale (at as it was about 20 years ago), hated how much janky bloat was stuck under the hood. I remember when they were bought by Avid there was a lot of discussion about the future of the software, if it was going to undergo the substantial overhaul it desperately needed or just get a new coat of paint, and obviously it got the latter with half of the dialog boxes coming straight from its pre-Windows Acorn days. It's been a few years since I've used Sib, has it changed much or is it still more or less the same?
I've never had Finale not work after an OS upgrade. So I am hoping it works for a hell of a long time. I think I will try Dorito because I love nacho cheese and because they are discounting it for me heavily, and I've been interested in trying a DAW and we see how it goes.
Another notation software is Presonus’ Notion 6. It’s no where near the power software of Finale but it should be a viable option to consider depending on your needs.
Notion 6 has basically been out of development for years. Absolutely stay away and get Dorico Pro for $149.
Heard!
@@TimBuell Just as a point of reference, I use Notion Mobile (which is free) on iPad , and it has been receiving updates regularly, along with Notion 6, and I like it quite a bit, but I don't do anything too demanding. It is getting updates both on desktop and mobile, but it would be interesting to know how the ongoing development of it compares with Dorico Pro and how much value you get per dollar spent. I haven't used Dorico Pro or Dorico on mobile, but it does look appealing.
Used finale for my beginning scriber work. . . Haven’t had to use a full fledged program in a while but thought I might go back to it. . . 😢
Thanks for the clear video Tim! Much appreciated. I have over 200 solo transcriptions aside from lead sheets which I really need to convert asap to xml files... thanks for pointing that out, lifesaver
Still struggling to decide where go next, but I've used MuseScore a bit when students showed their files and it was hard to adapt to that. My main concern is being able to insert the notes with the keys, the software that is closest wins
Curious to see where you will pivot to.
Sorry I can’t edit my spelling mistakes for some reason!
Thoughts on Musink? I've heard it's great for drum sheet music from others.
I hadn't heard of it until now (just checked it out). Seems like for drummers it could be super easy as it seems like what they had in mind when developing it. For me, I'll likely have to end up going where a considerable chunk of "the industry" goes since so much of what I do these days is client work.
Just to clarify - you can get a perpetual license for sibelius, but the way avid link keeps checking for your license and regularly throws up problems honestly id be saying go musescore as your first port of call as its getting better all the time
A couple people have mentioned the perpetual license so you are right on that! Although...weird I didn't find that option when I was researching and went to their site before filming this video. It's almost like they don't want you to know so that you opt in for the subscription...
THINGS changed in one day AND THEN - they changed again! So... I will thank you.
Yeah - it has been a weird week for sure!
Ain't Nobody Got Time for That
Song by Sweet Brown
hahah
Fun fact: you can get finale AND dorico pro under dorico pro's price before this happened😇
This sucks for Finale users. I use Dorico and find it easy to use. And it’s a one off purchase or $7/mth for iPad. Not a fan of Sibelius or Musescore. They feel clunky to me but other users I know don’t have issues. I guess you get used to whatever’s in front of you. But I’m definitely happy with Dorico and the scores look awesome!
Good to hear that Dorico is working for ya! That's what I'll be checking out first.
What's best for aleatoric notation?
Logic has basic notation built-in and that is enough for me.
All good things come to end, but in the modern audio software world, any good thing that you're usually paying rent to never own might come to an end whenever it feels like.
Crazy thing is Finale was a straight purchase. Not a subscription.
So as long as your operating system handles it you’re good to go.
But that’s thin ice at best haha.
Welcome everyone to the Sibelius crowd. We’re happy to offer tech support during the transition.
I appreciate the help! haha
It’s still on your drive and it still works, yes? My 2012 version still works. 🤷
Guitar Pro for the win!!!
Man that’s super frustrating! I use Sibelius and hopefully they are not next because learning a new program is such a tedious process. I know a lot of cats use Dorico, but I am hoping Sibelius stays put. Sibelius is also pretty intuitive. Keep me posted on what you choose!
Dude - this is great insight. I think I'll likely try both just to see what's what. Man - I'm dreading this so much haha.
I switched to Sibelius from Finale 12 years ago and never looked back. I’ve tried muse score a few times and it never seems quite up to the level needed for real music engraving even if it’s fine for hobbyists.
Have you tried it recently? They made some HUGE changes in the last while. Check out the videos on Tantacrul's channel - he dissed it pretty hard, and then became the primary graphical designer on the project, and they improved it a LOT since then
@@gorak9000 It's probably been over a year since I tried it? I watched one of Tantacrul's videos and wasn't fully convinced, but I'll take your rec and try it again! Doesn't hurt to check it out and know what's out there!
@@gorak9000 I checked it out again. I did try MuseScore 4.
I agree that the UI has improved for actually using the software, but the quality of the actual engraving is still not great.
The scores still have that squishy ugly MuseScore look to them
Also recommend print every file you have to pdf. Worst case, you have a copy.
I have PDFs of every final copy - but if in 10 years a client wants me to tweak that it will be WAY more work to recreate and edit the file than just simply editing it in a different notation software.
@@TimBuell By then chatGPT will be able to take the PDF and convert it to whatever format you want.
Take out a 60 day fully working trial version of Dorico, maybe.? MM have said the 'special' crossgrade offer price will still be around for at least that amount of time (said 1 day ago).
Also, with your transcription work - I presume you are/were doing all that in Finale.? So, not sure how good Dorico will be for that specific task (there's no 'audio track' playback facility, per se... However, you can output a 'dummy' video with your intended audio muxed together in a 3rd party video editor software, then output the video and attach that to a 'flow' inside Dorico, (with a tempo map) and everything will keep in sync.
May be useful for you posing some direct 'how would I do this...' type questions on the Steinberg (Dorico) forums too.!
Whatever you choose though, good luck.! (difficult times for all...)
Hi! Which model is your drum set? Had to ask, really loved that color!
Ha! In a video that was so somber I like that you are bringing up the comments with more positive drum talk haha.
That's a Tama Starclassic Birch/Bubinga in "Aqua Glitter". Not sure that's the actual finish name as I bought the kit used but it is an accurate description of the color haha.
@@TimBuell hahaha thank you!
There is also Presonus Notion 6
In case people don't know about it. 🤷♀
Haven't heard many people mention that so I'll check it out.
Dorico. That's what I'm switching to. I feel the industry will move towards it.
Seems like the city of Nashville in particular is leaning that way.
Try Lilypond
You know whats crazy about software like this? If you pirate it, you own it forever.
Correct (however illegal it might be). But the bigger issue is that I (and everyone I work with) use this software everyday to work with other freelancers and the music industry. Certainly not everyone will pirate Finale and maintain their commitment to using the program - so the clock is ticking before the industry at large moves on and that's something we are all having to adjust for.
Musescore is the alternative
I've used it before and didn't fall in love at first sight. But I'm going to give it another shot.
@@TimBuell I switched to it after Tantacrul (who was asked to lead Musescore after making a pretty critical UI-focused video about Musescore) did a long-ass video about the newest version, and how he decided to scrap all the legacy code and start afresh. That video is very entertaining and I’d recommend anyone with an interest in music making or even just computers, design or general making-of videos to watch it. The new playback engine in particular is a true industry leader(!), but the new font and how it now places everything is very good too. The old menu system was apparently horrifyingly random and illogical. I don’t know about that and I can’t say I’ve been completely able to figure everything out without looking in the manual, but it hasn’t been difficult and the manual is pretty great. The shortcuts I don’t particularly like, but I can say the same about Finale
TimBuell
Since when did you use Musescore before?
Right now, Musescore is better than before.
I started to use Musescore in 2009, it wasn't that good during that time as you need to get a sound font that works on all musical instruments (without any of them out of tune). The default sound font seemed to play only one instrument sound no matter what instrument you choose.
Right now, Musescore is so much better, it is not limited to only its own sounds before version 4.
Starting with version 3.0, it had collision avoidance (called auto-place), it prevents elements from overlapping.
In version 4.0, there are Musesounds, and accidentals in trills and other ornaments.
Not to mention that version 4 separates things (such as the elements of music) more clearly in the palettes section than in version 3.
This is precisely why I never used Finale or
Sibelius.
I'm VERY suspicious of a company that goes out of business and then recommends only ONE place for their customers to go to. That just seems odd especially since the other company is new and isn't the most popular software. It would be like Ford going out of business and telling everyone to buy a Telsa. Something weird is going on here.
Dorico is actually made by Steinberg which has been around since the 80's so certainly they aren't "new". As well, Dorico's core developers are actually a team that built Sibelius (the other software in the "big 2" of music notation).
In the music industry it has been Finale vs Sibelius for the longest time. Finale sending everyone to Dorico means that Finale doesn't give their longest competitor business and Dorico gets to finally have a chance at winning over a bigger slice of the market now that one of the "big 2" is stepping out of the race.
I'm sure there are also financial incentives for Finale to do so as I'm sure they see a cut of the current cross-grade offer they have going on right now.
I've spoken with developers at Dorico in the past and they are a super passionate team of people so I'm hoping this is the chance they needed to show the world how good their software is. You only get one chance like this and hopefully they don't fumble the bag!
make a vm out of your os, uninstall everything but finale and backup the vm. keep using finale forever.
Honestly. The best idea so far for the route of “never update your OS”
Musescore will likely emerge as a major player in the music notation industry. Why? Well, their purchase of Hal Leonard at the end of 2023 seems like a major indication they are serious about professional engraving.
Nah they just want to bilk you for public domain scores
@@shmk1 The website is separate from the app.
I learn notation in musicology with Finale, it's clunky but can do a lot of contemporary/modern music.
All things with special notation.
Thankfully all the alternative software seem to be able to do all that (and more).
Some of the best music ever written was with a feather pen.
😁🎶🎹🎶Play On
Why a notation program if your daw does it for you?
Avid bought Sibelius then fired the whole Sibelius creative team. Steinberg hired the old Sibelius team, and they created Dorico. Dorico is the best new platform.
Dorico - hands down. I've used them all, and once I switched to Dorico, I never looked back.
Dorico was developed by the same team who created Sibelius right after being let go by Avid. It is do much better!
Finale had a few advantages when it came to special notation techniques, but Dorico is quickly catching up on those as well.
I hope this helps...
Well said!
Well I'm only 60 seconds into this, but the tenor of your commentary suggests that software people purchased and installed on their own computers just stopped working... completely? Certainly you can't actually mean that right? It's installed, it's going to work, right?
Clearly I should have waited another 60 seconds.
The traditional solution in a case like this is for the vendor to ship a final update that turns off the necessary Installer Authentication so that people can reinstall stuff they've purchased without running into the 'my company no longer exists' failure. If they're not going to do that...
I wrote this to Finale:
Hello,
pardon me for getting a little bit upset if not angry.
You as a company decide for whatever reason to cease support and continuation of Finale.
You then expect loyal customers of years length to first by Dorico Pro, be it at a nice discount, and then buy(!) Finale V27 so as to be able to import 100’s if not 1000’s of music files.
In the light of your rather harsh decision without any warning whatsoever to kill Finale, not even allowing users the opportunity to get the latest version V27, I feel it is your duty to make V27 freely available to any Finale customer. You owe this to all Finale users for putting them in an unwanted position, costing all of them money they didn’t plan to spend like this and cutting them off the last chance to get the latest version.
And not in the least for forcing loyal users to start a considerable learning curve getting to know Dorico which takes time and thus costs money.
I sincerely hope you will reconsider some of your decisions and be loyal to all of your loyal Finale users.
Kind regards
Paul Delcour
If this company closed Finale like this then nothing is stopping them from closing Dorico in a few years when they get bought out.
Sibelius is now being treated very neglected by Avid and most of the developers have been laid off and are now developing Dorico. That's why Dorico is more future-proof...
"As of today, Finale no longer exists." "Today, right now, Finale isn't ruined."
🙄
I hear you. The announcement didn't make Finale useless but for everyone that uses it all day every day for client work it does mean that you have to start NOW to make sure you have everything backed up and are learning a new program ASAP to make sure you can handle your projects and hit deadlines with a software you didn't know you needed to learn until Monday haha.
Apple did this with Aperture. :(
Just break it and continue using it.
Its really easy.
Importing files is always a disaster. Not everything translates. Every time I've tried it I wind up spending hours to clean up the file.
This sucks. I hate this new trend of the consumer not actually owning anything anymore.
I guess with this one you do "own" the software. My copy of Finale will keep working forever...as long as my computer doesn't break the software. So, there is a world where you could buy a computer and install Finale on it and as long as you never update the operating system it will likely work forever.
As far as I understand, you absolutely do own your existing copy of Finale. What you don’t own is someone maintaining that software in perpetuity.
keep an old computer… I just don’t realize why people don’t think this
#MuseScore4Life
As far as charts, AI will handle all that soon.. as another classical skill gets foggy.
Dorico is the way
Stop giving companies money that don't respect your right to ownership.
Sibelius...
Sibelius
Is it legal to use a hacked copy of software from a company that no longer exists? A hacked version of finale needs no registration! Asking for a friend 😂 PS I'm still using my copy of finale 2000 on my windows 11 computer and it works perfectly.
Don't even think about Sibelius. Development has basically stopped, plus it is VERY outdated. Dorico is the way to go.
That's my gut instinct for sure.
I stopped using Finale in like 2007. Garbage program. Just use Guitar Pro. It can do almost everything Finale can, but it actually makes sense. Want to know how to do something? There's just a button for it. No bullshit. Need special formatting? Just upload a pdf to canva or adobe
I haven't used GuitarPro for years, but as far as I remember its formatting was ugly as hell, and it was never intended to make it a real engraving software. Of course, things may have changed, so I'm not denouncing it completely.
Part of the migration decision that myself and a bunch of other professionals are having to deal with is what is EVERYONE going to move to. I might have a preference but if the city I work in (Nashville) decides to adapt a different software then that might add friction when trying to pass files back and forth. So there are huge benefits to working with the same program everyone else lands on.
it's all depending on your needs. I am sure that Guitar pro is great. But it is way to limited for my use
Stop saying the software “no longer exists.” It exists! They didn’t erase every copy off of every hard drive! They just announced that it is no longer getting new features. It will still work with your current and future operating system for many more years! And yes, they said they will eventually stop authorizing new installations, which is bizarre, but you can get around that. Under the circumstances, circumventing their copy protection scheme is totally defensible from an ethical and perhaps even a legal perspective. If you paid for the software, you absolutely should be free to continue using it for many more years.
I hear you. It definitely didn’t stop working the day they announced. But for people that use this software professionally every day this meant we all have to find sure fire, reliable, legal ways to continue to do our engraving and notation work ASAP. And yes, finale might work for several more years on whatever operating systems evolve - but it’s also possible that one tweak Apple makes to their OS tanks Finale and then it’s lights out.
When you have 4,000 old finale files and multiple client projects every week these are things that can’t be left to chance.
Hi Tim. I am ruined.
Nahhhhhh. We will get through it together. haha
Wow... this is not cool.... 😢
...you aren't wrong. It's gonna be a LOT of learning on the job no matter which program I land on. haha
Dorico has a very poor and confusing instruction manual. No search bar. No instructions of how to connect to midi input. I returned it. It might work well for a tech pro, but it is not user friendly.
The software "doesn't exist"???? WTF do you mean. It still exists and will exist as long as your computer continues to function and doesn't die. This news doesn't mean, that it simply going to stop working.
That’s totally true. But for those of us that make a large portion of our income working in Finale it means that all our old projects and any new projects need to take these changes into account.
Maybe Finale works for another decade on current/future operating systems. But maybe it stops working tomorrow because of some patch Windows or Apple pushes out in an update. There’s no way to know.
So anyone doing this for a living needs to make sure they are prepared for the worst (even if they expect the best).
@@TimBuell - At my age - 71 - the days of being a professional engraver are long over. I started in the early '90s and got out in the mid 2000's, mostly priced out by eastern Europeans and southern Asians. I need to charge existence prices where I live, not where THEY live.
Upgrading Finale and upgrading my Finale machine, even after I officially closed shop, was the last thing I did, because I did hang onto a couple of long true customers who wanted revisions of their piece periodically. Unfortunately I experience many, many times, that an OS update made my then version of Finale unusable - wouldn't even start-up. But buying an update meant,, that opening older Finale scores meant that many of the "things" I'd forced Finale to do, now had gotten "fixed", and these fixes automagically destroyed thos "special places" in the score, where I'd twisted Finale's arm to get the visuals the composer insisted on. So I got used to keeping around an "older machine with an older Finale version": My present M2 "work" (how do you defined "work"?) with Ventura and Finale v. 25, but not as well as my Intel MacBook Air (2015 2.2GHz) running Monterey. And as long as hat machine lives and I do, it will continue to efficiently and effecively run Finale and accomplish everything I've done in the past 5 years for my own purposes. So Finale lives on and well and will as long as I do and this machine does. And I still have a 2012 pre-retina MacBook Pro I could use with v. 25 running Mavericks. Even my 2012 multi-media/Data Server could run Finale 25 and Apple's antiquated Server software.
That won't stop me from investigating MuseScore 4.4 - which would do fine for the next view years I may be "blessed" with to do my work. I remember the line from a Dirty Harry movie "A good man always knows his limitations". While it was meant ironically as a dig to Harry's superior officer, I too "know my limitations". And while I still have some open questions concerning MuseScore 4.4, Finale suits my limitations just fine. And my machines' limitations. On the M2, that means re-adopting to old 1990's strategy of hitting cmd-s every 10 key-strokes or so, since Finale 25 on an M2 running ventura loves to provoke Murphy's Law. The same version on my 2015 Intel MacAir runniing Monterey is nowhere near as .... sadistic.