I have to say that Tom Carrathers did a very slick presentation.
Apparently, he showed just how close to Sibelius using Finale has come,
at least at the presentation level. I don't know Sib so can't say for
sure. I also don't use most of the Finale features he touts, being mired
in the old ways of doing things. His presentation was well-attended, and
many people left with a quite favorable impression. The new Mass Copy
features will doubtless make for an even slicker presentation to newbies.
Personally, I will not adopt Fin08, even though it will be on my hard
drive for plugin testing. The changes in workflow would take too much
time and effort to adapt to. (Think about programmed keyboard macros.)
And beyond the workflow changes, there is nothing to entice me from
Fin07. If the Combine Scores plugin is reliable enough, it is the only
thing that could possibly even tempt me.
I have never seen Sibelius as an acceptable alternative to Finale. That
is to say, with every version I've tried (through v4), I can't even get
past the template creation stage before I hit an unacceptable
limitation. Someone tell me if Sib5 can create an orchestral template
that matches The Rite of Spring. The limitation in earlier versions was
that there was no way to create multiple nested desk brackets.
I have worked hard on and lobbied for too many Finale features over the
years (including nested desk brackets!) to give any of them up to
migrate elsewhere out of mere spite. Furtheremore, with keyboard macros
and plugins, I can work so fast that I can't imagine Sibelius (or any
other program) being any faster. I thoroughly agree this year's upgrade
is very disappointing, the most disappointing in years if not ever, but
I am resigned to accepting it with uncharacteristic calm and prudence.
--
Robert Patterson
http://RobertGPatterson.com
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
