[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
In a message dated 10/2/2007 5:22:37 AM Pacific Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Johannes Gebauer wrote, on 10/2/2007 4:50 AM:
The best
you could hope for is Fin2k9.
Unfortunately my hopes are really low.
So are mine.
Wait! Even if there is consensus that Fin2k8 is a buggy mess, why isn't the
obvious alternative an earlier version of Finale? David Bailey writes about
Sib5 as if there wasn't a learning curve involved. Well, David's a very smart
fellow, but nowadays there's a learning curve involved in buying a new
television.
Wouldn't the proper equation be: time saved using existing Finale skills
minus time saved not having to learn a new program? That should give you a plus or
minus sign at the end. What am I missing here?
David makes good sense, and many people are simply moving back to
earlier versions (Fin2k6 or Fin2k5 would be safe bets for most folks).
But that means that whatever limitations are in those versions are
limitations you're stuck with. Forever, or until MakeMusic decides to
do the right thing and eliminate these massive bugs which are
frustrating Finale power users when they bring out some future release.
As for the learning curve for Sibelius, I didn't mean to give the
impression there's no learning curve. But it's certainly a lot smaller
learning curve than I had thought it would be, and with the music
engraving skills I developed over many years using Finale I can fairly
quickly find the way to do what I need to do.
And by moving to Sibelius, which has a proven track record of actually
addressing current bugs and frustrations in new upgrades, which come out
when they're ready, not when the accountants holler out "ship it, we
need the cash flow!" a person has a reasonable expectation of upgrades
which are true upgrades, not simply the pasting on of worthless new
features at the expense of internal improvements, which seems to be the
current MakeMusic upgrade model. In short, Sibelius seems to have a
future that will bring out true enhancements and improvements while
Finale seems to have a future which will bring more frustrations. Each
version since Fin2k6 has added to the problems instead of removing problems.
I was amazed at how quickly I picked up Sibelius (I have owned versions
2, 3 and 4 and each time prior to 5 when I had tried Sibelius I found it
very frustrating, but version 5 somehow helped many things fall into
place and it's really easy to learn and use.)
As for learning curves, there has been a learning curve involved with
each of the past few upgrades -- learning curves involved in working
with GPO when that was introduced, learning curves in figuring out how
to work around the hyphens bug and learning curves in figuring out how
to resolve the enharmonic flip bug which still remains unsolved. And
such an attitude as Finale has taken which has essentially said "We
don't like the Speedy Entry tool anymore so we're not going to address
any Speedy Entry issues -- suck it up and learn Simple Entry!" forces a
larger learning curve than ever as we are forcibly migrated to using a
tool many of us have never liked to begin with. So what's the
difference in learning curves, whether it's for a new program with a
better prognosis for improvements or for a new tool in an existing
program with a proven track record of not caring about real
improvements. A learning curve is a learning curve.
So the choice is to remain with an earlier version of Finale which works
(I still use Fin2k5 a lot) or move to an entirely new tool with a
brighter future.
As I've often said, Sibelius is probably not for everybody, and I'm not
trying to say that everybody will have an easy and instantaneous
transition to it, but for me it's been a very good thing to have done.
My first project in it paid for all the upgrades I paid Sibelius for and
then some! And that was within a month of when I decided to really
learn it and migrate my new projects to it.
--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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