I have been a Finale user since Version 1 - my serial number is under
000650. I actually attended a hotel room demo by Phil Farrand at
NAMM 1988, before the program was released. So I'm a Finale geezer.
I run a small publishing company specializing in young band music -
we have a catalog of about 80 concert and jazz band pieces, all done
in Finale. Our pieces tend to be fairly short - parts are usually
one page, sometimes two - and we require only traditional notation
capabilities.
I have faithfully upgraded each year, but Finale 2007 and 2008 are
sitting unused on my hard drive - I use 2006D for everyday work. My
brief explorations of 2007 and 2008, and particularly my reading
about the problems documented on this list, have kept me away from
them. So count me as another user who is done with being a willing
participant in the "yearly subscription fee" model.
Bottom line is, Finale 2006 does pretty well everything I require. I
always thought linked parts would be nice, but I've tried to work
with the implementation in 2007 and 2008 a bit, and always decided it
wasn't worth it. I find the part extraction process works just fine
for me, and our pieces are simple enough that corrections can be done
very quickly. I am still dazzled by the "modern" speed of part
extraction, since I suffered through early versions where you would
leave it to extract parts when you went to bed, and they might be
done by morning.
Better organization of menus is of little appeal to someone who knows
the "old" organization thoroughly.
When I am composing, I find that the built in (and quick loading)
soundfont is adequate to give me an idea of how things are sounding.
When it comes time to make a demo, I export a midi file (with Human
Playback) to a sequencer, in my case Digital Performer. That is
where I use Garritan Concert Band, Garritan Jazz, Virtual Drumline,
and a marvelous new brass library called WIVI from Wallender
Instruments. This setup gives me editing and processing capabilities
I would never expect to find, or ask for, in a notation program.
I have given Finale courses and have recommended the program to many
people, but I too find myself now suggesting Sibelius to people who
have modest needs and want something that will work well out of the
box. I have dabbled a bit with Sibelius myself and have version 5,
but I am a long time Finale Speedy Entry user, and have yet to
develop any real skill (compared to my Finale abilities) at entering
music in Sibelius, or figuring out how to get the formatting I want.
And then there's my back catalog of Finale files, which I need to be
able to open.
At some point in the future I'm going to want an Intel Mac running
the latest version of OSX, and then the whole thing's going to blow
up on me - I'll probably have to tuck my old computers in a corner to
run Finale archives, and then evaluate the versions of Finale and
Sibelius that are out at that time. The way things are going, I
can't escape the feeling that's likely to be Sibelius - particularly
if they were to add a "legacy Finale users" option to their interface.
Brian Appleby
ApRo Music
apromusic.com
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Power Mac G5, Powerbook G4
On Oct 10, 2007, at 11:40 AM, Daniel Wolf wrote:
I've just reviewed most of the posts dealing with Finale '08, and
-- following what appears to be a consensus around here -- have
decided to stick with '07 until notice of further improvements in
known bugs.
I also took a look at some press statements on the MakeMusic site
announcing quarterly results. Two aspects of those statements are
striking: continued losses, and the importance of notation programs
(relative to other products) in the income stream of the company.
Clearly, this is a company that cannot take a publicity hit with
its prestige notation product.
From my own informal count on this list, at least twenty
established, long-term, professional users have indicated that they
are not switching to '08; most of them indicate that bug fixing is
their main concern, several of indicated a move to a competing
product.
Perhaps it would be useful to document the number of such users
more precisely and use it as a form of leverage to encourage
MakeMusic to concentrate on improving the product's present
functionality before adding other features. I believe that most of
us here would really prefer to be loyal Finale users, but the
benefits of Finale appear for many of us to have been outweighed by
the disadvantages.
Would it be possible now, from the list membership, to get a more
accurate sense of the number of us who are (a) a long-term,
professional users of Finale, (b) have serious concerns about bug
fixes, and (c) iare either skipping an '08 upgrade or switching to
a competing product during this cycle?
Daniel Wolf
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