Tyler Turner wrote:
No, I'm quite sure that a large majority of Finale
users use Finale at least in part for their own
personal compositions. I can draw this conclusion from
my own experience dealing with a sampling of thousands
of Finale users as well as other sources.
Compositional use of Finale is the rule rather than
the exception.
This is true.
Finale absolutely needs to maintain its success among
composers, and playback plays a key role.
Addressing the point in another post about the
inclusion of GPO being a catch up to Sibelius Kontakt
implementation - this isn't the case. Finale was
already pretty much on par. The sounds weren't quite
up to Sibelius', but Sibelius only includes 20 sounds,
and only 8 can be used simultaneously. That's not
enough for any decent size ensemble. Finale GPO gives
100 sounds and 64 can be used simultaneously.
The sounds included with previous Finale updates were laughable.
Seriously. They were sad.
Have those who want the better sounds of GPO already
purchased GPO? Most haven't. This isn't the way
Finale's market works. Users by in large are looking
for the 1 program solution where everything just
works. They don't want to mess with MIDI controllers.
They certainly don't want to try to link together
multiple applications. Even selecting instruments
manually is too much to expect from the average user.
The new notation software company Virtuoso Works,
makers of Notion, correctly identified the need for a
notation program with outstanding playback and no
hassles. What they didn't understand was that they
weren't alone, and so now they are left with an
application with playback inferior to Finale's and
notation capabilities not much better than NotePad's.
I can't tell you how many times I answered questions
such as "Can I make this sound any better?" by
explaining the options of using sample software or
purchasing hardware synths, sound cards, etc. When I
explained these options to people, nearly all of them
said, "oh well, I guess my existing sounds will be
good enough." Most people who want better sounds are
not willing to go to great lengths to get it. But as
Finale 2004 proved, they will upgrade their Finale to
get it. If it just works, they're interested.
On the flip side of this, there are people, including myself, who have
very functional computers, which simply cannot use GPO effectively. My
2.5Mhz Athlon PC drops out after about 6 instruments, and the 933Mhz G4
I have does even fewer. The people I know who use Finale still use it on
older machines. They are going to get this "update" and go "how comes it
doesn't work?".
Instead of bundling GPO, why not offer like a huge discount on a Good
Midi sound device. Like what PG Music does. Offer up a Roland Sound
Canvas synth at a discounted price.
If you TAKE OUT the GPO aspect, the update is more like a bug fix.
Hardly anything to write home about. Unless you include the textured
paper "feature". Woohoo. Oh, and the handbell notation. Yeah, I'm going
to use that a lot.......
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