Re: [Finale] A question from a Mac-newbie
A-NO-NE Music schrieb: The way I do, I get the best one available at the moment, and never depend on anything that is the 1st generation from Apple! If I were you, I'd go for either G5 dual 2.7GHz or AlBook(Powerbook)15 1.67GHz. Better machine lasts longer. However, as my Dual 2.5GHz also is, the machine which has Liquid Cooling System means the CPU is over- clocked. If you want to play safe, go with one which doesn't have it. I really would not go by this recommendation, unless you have very special needs (ie do a lot of Video editing). The top of the range machine is always overpriced (especially true for the whole Powerbook range, if you want a portable get an iBook). I would consider it a complete waste of money to get a top of the range machine unless you are really going to utilize its power now. To me, SuperDrive is very important because it would make backup easier. On the other hand, I wasn't able to determine if PCI-X is really important to my needs especially it means AMD Hyper-Transport bug inside, but I went with Dual 2.5GHz anyway and hoping I will have enough power for a while. It's extremely easy to add an external DVD-R later on. You can get a Pioneer drive, similar to the Superdrive, but two generations better, for very little money. Unless you need it built in in a laptop I recommend you get an external drive. Johannes -- http://www.musikmanufaktur.com http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] A question from a Mac-newbie
On Jul 4, 2005, at 8:21 PM, Owain Sutton wrote: I'd temped by the idea of getting a Mac, because I end up supplying stuff to people and I'd like to know that they're getting what I've sent! If I were to get a Mac with the main purpose being running Finale, what should I look for in terms of specifications? What would be the minimum to run Fin2k5 satisfactorily, or well,...? (FWIW I'm not worried about playback, etc. - final printed scores is my concern :) ) Hmm, what do you mean by I'd like to know that they're getting what I've sent? If you're only talking about Finale, any possible cross-platform issues between the Mac and PC versions are taken care of by 1) making sure that the files have the .mus extension 2) zipping the file before you send it, especially if one of you is on AOL 3) if you are sending a .lib file, don't. Instead send a .mus file with the library loaded, and let the receiver extract the library himself. Other than that, the Mac's EPS creation and built-in PDF creation is the only real advantage over the PC. I am a Macker myself, but I wouldn't want you to spend your money needlessly. Christopher ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] A question from a Mac-newbie
And I like multi-monitor displays. I like to be able to set everything up however I want. Within reaons ;) Hi Owain, If you want to have more than one monitor going, you will have to go with either the Powerbook (not the iBook) or a G5 Tower. You can hook a second monitor up to the iBook G4 and the iMac G5 but the image will be mirrored...in otherwords, you won't have an extended desktop and it sounds like that is what you are looking for. I have both a G5 Tower and a powerbook. I need the power of the G5 in my studio to run all of my audio apps. (film scoring and music production) But my powerbook is just fine for my Finale application usage and the light use I make of DP when I'm doing Midi Transcription. I often hook up a second monitor to my powerbook as well as a regular sized keyboard and mouse. I like having the portability of the powerbook as I take this rig to the scoring stage and on the road when I need to. But the powerbook isn't enough to run my studio...it does choke under a heavier CPU load. So if you are going to make use of Logic or Digital Performer with a lot of plugins going etc. You may think about getting a G5 Tower. I wouldn't recommend getting a refurbished machine unless you also get Applecare if you can afford a new machine. I would suggest getting the most powerful machine you can afford no matter which model you decide on. And buy a bunch of RAM if you are going to run heavier audio applications. I wouldn't go with less than 1GB of RAM two is even better. Good luck and have fun! Best, Karen ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Grace Note Spacing
Imo, it's been changed, but hasn't been fixed. There are more options now, but unfortunately not the ones needed. Johannes David W. Fenton schrieb: Do post 2K3 versions of Finale fix the grace note spacing problems that have plagued Finale forever? I just can't fathom why two parts with the same pattern of rhythm and grace notes should be spaced completely differently. I'm not even talking about the poor handling of accidentals in grace notes, just the vertical alignment of the same rhythm in different parts. Has any part of this been fixed in newer versions? -- http://www.musikmanufaktur.com http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
Sibelius 4 has been announced, and one aspect which we have clamored for on this list for years is in their list of added features: Dynamic linking of parts to the score. Apparently you only have to change things in the score, and the changes are reflected in the parts. I know no more about it, but thought I would let you folks know about it and give you this link. But it does allow the user to tweak certain things in the parts which don't show up in the score, so nudging of items for better legibility won't affect the score but can make the parts more legible. It sounds like a glorified Special Parts Extraction, where each part is maintained in its own layout, unlike Finale, where whatever layout changes are made in special parts extraction affect the score as well. There is a flash movie which supposedly shows how it all works: http://www.sibelius.com/products/sibelius/4/dynamicparts.html If Finale doesn't start listening to its core users and stop dicking around with fancy playback issues, it's going to lose the entire educational and professional market, plain and simple. Let's hope that Finale2006 has this feature, too! Wait, I just checked, and it's nowhere to be seen. But they're making it easy to use GPO -- wow! Incredible, just what every engraver needs! And wait a minute more, there's a new MIXER panel, something I've seen every engraver clamor for time and again. I am beginning to fear for Finale's continued well-being -- those of us on this list who care about GPO probably already have it! And those of us who don't have it probably don't really care about it. So why integrate it with Finale (and add the cost to the product when many don't want/need it) when something which would truly make getting the music onto paper (oh, let's not forget, TEXTURED paper on-screen! Will it print like that, I wonder?) like linked score/parts isn't included. On the more realistic side of things, the jury will be out on Sibelius' linked parts/score for a while, since it, too, may just be another marketing ploy which won't work very well. I kind of doubt that, though -- Sibelius' developpers seem to be a lot more on the ball these days in meeting users' needs/wishes than Finale's developpers are. But Sibelius is taking a large leap forward while all the new stuff I read about Finale2006 is just so much fluff and nonsense aimed at turning a notation product into a sequencer. I see very little which is actually new in Finale2006, especially given that half the new stuff is done with plug-ins that third-parties have written. It'll be interesting to see how the new mid-measure repeats business works and whether or not it will adjust the measure numbers appropriately. -- David H. Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
dhbailey wrote: Sibelius 4 has been announced, and one aspect which we have clamored for on this list for years is in their list of added features: Dynamic linking of parts to the score. Apparently you only have to change things in the score, and the changes are reflected in the parts. I know no more about it, but thought I would let you folks know about it and give you this link. But it does allow the user to tweak certain things in the parts which don't show up in the score, so nudging of items for better legibility won't affect the score but can make the parts more legible. It sounds like a glorified Special Parts Extraction, where each part is maintained in its own layout, unlike Finale, where whatever layout changes are made in special parts extraction affect the score as well. There is a flash movie which supposedly shows how it all works: http://www.sibelius.com/products/sibelius/4/dynamicparts.html If Finale doesn't start listening to its core users and stop dicking around with fancy playback issues, it's going to lose the entire educational and professional market, plain and simple. *SNIPPED** Totally agree. Finale is FLUFFY now. I don't know how well this Dynamic linking thing will work, but it i definately a feature to consider if one wants to switch from Finale.. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
On 5 Jul 2005, at 23:56, dhbailey wrote: Sibelius 4 has been announced, and one aspect which we have clamored for on this list for years is in their list of added features: Dynamic linking of parts to the score. Some may have clamoured for it, not me. If Finale doesn't start listening to its core users and stop dicking around with fancy playback issues, it's going to lose the entire educational and professional market, plain and simple. I know that many users are unconcerned about playback, but others are. If Finale were to fall far behind Sibelius in its playback capabilities then it would certainly be in danger of losing much of its share of the market. ...(oh, let's not forget, TEXTURED paper on-screen! Will it print like that, I wonder?) ... I don't imagine it took much time to add that feature. If you're staring at music on a large monitor for long periods, tinted paper is easier on the eye. Some people do in fact print their music on tinted paper for that reason. So I don't think it merits your scorn. Let's wait and see if all the new features of Fin2006 are indeed merely fluff. John ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] GPO - a little disappointing
On 4-Jul-05, at 4:21 AM, Johannes Gebauer wrote: First of all, how about telling us who you are? The guy who wrote the keyswitch program for us, Johannes! He said that. It is a very handy thing. You should thank Richard. Be nice. :) Jerry Gerald Berg ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
I don't know how well this Dynamic linking thing will work, but it i definately a feature to consider if one wants to switch from Finale.. ___ I've been able to try out a preview of Sib 4, and so far the dynamic parts feature works very well. Basically, the parts are now a special view of the score. You can specify what changes are reflected in the score and what are exclusive to the parts, and those elements are highlit to indicate their status in this respect. I haven't used it exhaustively obviously, but what i have seen is excellent. Ken ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
John Bell wrote: I know that many users are unconcerned about playback, but others are. If Finale were to fall far behind Sibelius in its playback capabilities then it would certainly be in danger of losing much of its share of the market. *Which* market? Both products are targeted at MANY markets, from engravers to schools to universities to amateur musicians to ... This seems to me the problem with the way Finale is being marketed. If I didn't know the software - and I only chose to not go down the Sibelius route because of specific highly-reliable recommendations - I would not know that it could do what I need it to do. MM's marketing makes it look like a big bunch of toys for making lots of sounds, but with little real musical function. Sibelius' is very clear that it's about making top-notch scores. And they've got a specific link on the home page targeting Finale users. Hmm. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
At 06:56 PM 7/5/05 -0400, dhbailey wrote: Sibelius 4 has been announced, and one aspect which we have clamored for on this list for years is in their list of added features: Dynamic linking of parts to the score. Ooh, baby, baby, baby. I'm one of the clamorers. I'm now 90% of the way to switching. All Sibelius has to do is make it possible to do contemporary scores easily, and read my Finale graphically designed scores, which it hasn't done successfully yet. Jef, you reading along? You ever try Sibelius for your work? Dennis ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote: All Sibelius has to do is make it possible to do contemporary scores easily Heh...that's all I want from Finale, too. Hasn't Sibelius had straightforward quarter-tones for some time? And I presume Finale 06 will still feature the 'nonstandard key signature' nonsense? ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
Dennis - ' I think this - graphic notation - is still one of Sib's weaknesses, and is likely to remain so although I have found a number of work-arounds. It's one of the reasons I'm trying to find time to learn Finale. My stuff isn't all *that* wild, but I do use proportional notation, improv boxes, feathered beams etc from time to time. As you probably know you basically have to lay it out with traditional tools and then hide stuff. I'm getting more and more able to trick Sib into things after five plus years of intensive use. Like I always say, the learning curve seems to be at the opposite end from Finale. It has always seemed to me that if one is willing to forego playback, then a suite of purely graphic tools could be included that would make much of this possible. Sibelius has the Symbols menu which does do this, but I think what it needs is more drawing tools. Could you point me at some features in Finale which make this kind of notation possible? Ken At 04:40 PM 7/5/2005, you wrote: At 06:56 PM 7/5/05 -0400, dhbailey wrote: Sibelius 4 has been announced, and one aspect which we have clamored for on this list for years is in their list of added features: Dynamic linking of parts to the score. Ooh, baby, baby, baby. I'm one of the clamorers. I'm now 90% of the way to switching. All Sibelius has to do is make it possible to do contemporary scores easily, and read my Finale graphically designed scores, which it hasn't done successfully yet. Jef, you reading along? You ever try Sibelius for your work? Dennis ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
On 5 Jul 2005 at 18:56, dhbailey wrote: Sibelius 4 has been announced, and one aspect which we have clamored for on this list for years is in their list of added features: Dynamic linking of parts to the score. Apparently you only have to change things in the score, and the changes are reflected in the parts. I know no more about it, but thought I would let you folks know about it and give you this link. But it does allow the user to tweak certain things in the parts which don't show up in the score, so nudging of items for better legibility won't affect the score but can make the parts more legible. It sounds like a glorified Special Parts Extraction, where each part is maintained in its own layout, unlike Finale, where whatever layout changes are made in special parts extraction affect the score as well. . . . I have always felt that the easiest way for Finale to get linked parts (I hesitate to use that expression, since it seems tied into the in my opinion erroneous idea that the parts should be in separate files, linked back to a score file) was to fix special part extraction so that the layout changes for each part were stored as deltas from the score layout. . . . There is a flash movie which supposedly shows how it all works: http://www.sibelius.com/products/sibelius/4/dynamicparts.html A very impressive demo, I think. But, of course, the devil is in the details! If Finale doesn't start listening to its core users and stop dicking around with fancy playback issues, it's going to lose the entire educational and professional market, plain and simple. Let's hope that Finale2006 has this feature, too! Wait, I just checked, and it's nowhere to be seen. But they're making it easy to use GPO -- wow! Incredible, just what every engraver needs! And wait a minute more, there's a new MIXER panel, something I've seen every engraver clamor for time and again. Well, I do think that the ability to create good-sounding MP3 demos direct from Finale is a big plus. It's something that, had it been there all along, would have saved me a lot of time and effort (I use Midi2Wav to capture the output from my Turtle Beach sound card' quite decent wavetable synthesizers) over the years. But I definitely agree that non-extracted parts would save me *much* more time than the built-in playback enhancements. I am beginning to fear for Finale's continued well-being -- those of us on this list who care about GPO probably already have it! And those of us who don't have it probably don't really care about it. . . . Well, I'd love to have some of its sounds, but I must say I was distinctly underwhelmed by many of the demos on the Garritan page. Many of the solo instruments sound no better than my old Turtle Beach sound card, which manages to produce these sounds without requiring GBs of RAM to do it. No, the orchestral sounds are not as good, and no there isn't the variety of articulations and so forth, but for the my money, the solo instruments are not enough better to justify the expense (of course, I'd also need a new computer). . . . So why integrate it with Finale (and add the cost to the product when many don't want/need it) when something which would truly make getting the music onto paper (oh, let's not forget, TEXTURED paper on-screen! Will it print like that, I wonder?) like linked score/parts isn't included. Well, I think the textured paper feature is a very good one (though I hate the name of it), allowing you to choose a background for the editing windows, which is a very good thing. It's also absolutely trivial to implament, in comparison to any of the other features you've mentioned. I think MakeMusic should be improving Finale on *both* fronts -- enhancing Finale's ability to produce good-sounding music, as well as enhancing fundamental engraving features. On the more realistic side of things, the jury will be out on Sibelius' linked parts/score for a while, since it, too, may just be another marketing ploy which won't work very well. I kind of doubt that, though -- Sibelius' developpers seem to be a lot more on the ball these days in meeting users' needs/wishes than Finale's developpers are. The demo sure sounded to me like somebody has been listening in on our conversations here over the years! But Sibelius is taking a large leap forward while all the new stuff I read about Finale2006 is just so much fluff and nonsense aimed at turning a notation product into a sequencer. I see very little which is actually new in Finale2006, especially given that half the new stuff is done with plug-ins that third-parties have written. It'll be interesting to see how the new mid-measure repeats business works and whether or not it will adjust the measure numbers appropriately. Isn't it just implemented as a plug-in? Measure number regions are a real pain. Here's one I ran onto today, while combining separate movements into a
Re: [Finale] GPO - a little disappointing
On 5 Jul 2005 at 19:32, Gerald Berg wrote: On 4-Jul-05, at 4:21 AM, Johannes Gebauer wrote: First of all, how about telling us who you are? The guy who wrote the keyswitch program for us, Johannes! He said that. It is a very handy thing. You should thank Richard. Be nice. I think Johannes was referring to the fact that the email message was unsigned, having no real name attached. That's not normal for this mailing list, where no one hides behind an alias, and gives their real names in all discussions. Failure to do so immediately raises my suspicions about the motives of anyone hiding behind an alias. -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
At 12:47 AM 7/6/05 +0100, Owain Sutton wrote: Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote: All Sibelius has to do is make it possible to do contemporary scores easily Heh...that's all I want from Finale, too. Hasn't Sibelius had straightforward quarter-tones for some time? And I presume Finale 06 will still feature the 'nonstandard key signature' nonsense? You button-presser you. Ouch. That hasn't changed since I started with Finale back in FinWin2.2! Actually, I've used Finale for so long that I can do graphical stuff fairly quickly -- and that's where the conversion to Sibelius fails. I mistrust auto flow type programs. I was forever fighting with Graphire because it tried to be too smart and I couldn't keep things in place. It was as hard to do as Finale. I could do this stuff in 2.2: http://maltedmedia.com/people/bathory/music/pdf/moon.pdf And this stuff in 2003: http://maltedmedia.com/people/bathory/music/pdf/phylum-euphoria.pdf Finale can be tamed, but I'm not so sure about Sibelius. I have the Sibelius 3 demo, and I'm pretty clumsy with it. Dennis ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius - Dynamic Parts
On 5 Jul 2005 at 19:35, Darcy James Argue wrote: Actually, I believe the addition of a mixer has been the most-requested new Finale feature request for many years now. It's ridiculous for you to claim there isn't a demand for it just because you don't need it. A mixer in Finale makes absolutely no sense unless Finale is shipping with its own sounds for playback, so, until Finale 2004, there was absolutely no logical reason for it. -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
[Finale] Re: Finale GPO
On Jul 5, 2005, at 4:35 PM, Darcy James Argue wrote: Also, you'll notice that one of the most accomplished engravers on this list, Johannes Gebauer, now uses GPO -- and in fact was recently complaining that GPO-Finale integration in 2k5 leaves a lot to be desired, and requires far too much hand-tweaking. I happen to agree -- hell, I'm sure anyone who uses GPO and Finale agrees -- and I'm very much looking forward to the improvements Fin2006 promises in this area. I am beginning to fear for Finale's continued well-being -- those of us on this list who care about GPO probably already have it! And those of us who don't have it probably don't really care about it. That's demonstrably not true. Lots of people on this list have expressed an interest in GPO, but are still sitting on the fence, or waiting to see what Fin2006 brings, or waiting until they upgrade their machines, or waiting to see what the sample GPO instruments included in Fin2k6 sound like, etc. More to the point, there's been a tremendous interest on the GPO forums about Finale integration, with lots of GPO users considering switching to Finale because of the tighter integration in Fin2k6. Hi Darcy et al, Just got off the phone with Gary Garritan, who is coming to Bellingham tomorrow for more recording of samples, and he expressed pleasure at how the integration of GPO instruments is handled in Finale 2006 - no GPO Studio interface - just automatic loading of instruments and key switches. As one who appreciates an improvement in playback quality, doesn't imagine that it will ever be more than a sketch of a real performance, and doesn't enjoy fussing with settings to control all that (I'm often happy enough to suffer with defaults rather than get into deep level tweaking - quite the opposite of how I feel about the graphic end of things), this seems like a good development to me. On the other hand, I would find controllable linking of scores and parts to be an almost unimaginable boon - a terrific time saver. Finale must survive in a market in which people use it for many different things at many levels of naivete and expertise. It doesn't bother me when things that are useless to me are added (Auto harmonizer - ughh!) as long as I see progress in those things that are important in my work. Seems to me that we are all in pretty much the same boat and simply have to continue to express our personal concerns to MM realizing that others will be doing the same and wanting other things. Chuck Chuck Israels 230 North Garden Terrace Bellingham, WA 98225-5836 phone (360) 671-3402 fax (360) 676-6055 www.chuckisraels.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
Ken Durling wrote: Dennis - ' I think this - graphic notation - is still one of Sib's weaknesses, and is likely to remain so although I have found a number of work-arounds. It's one of the reasons I'm trying to find time to learn Finale. My stuff isn't all *that* wild, but I do use proportional notation, improv boxes, feathered beams etc from time to time. say, the learning curve seems to be at the opposite end from Finale. Could you point me at some features in Finale which make this kind of notation possible? Ken Improv boxes - I make a measure with an independent time signature to suit the notes needed (use a Staff Style), enter the notes and position them as I want, then put an empty text box attached to that staff measure. Others may have a different method. Feathered beams - do you mean accel/decell angled beams, or something else? ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote: You button-presser you. Ouch. That hasn't changed since I started with Finale back in FinWin2.2! I try to please ;) Actually, I've used Finale for so long that I can do graphical stuff fairly quickly -- and that's where the conversion to Sibelius fails. I mistrust auto flow type programs. I understand and sympathise with this. It sounds like we're using Finale in the same way - as a tool to position symbols on pages. However, such users are a miniscule market. Another observation - if Finale implemented a score-part link that was anything like part extraction, I'd simply not use it, because it wouldn't do what I needed. I always end up making parts by deleting staves manually from the score. What extra work is created is negated not dealing with the crap that's created by part extraction. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
At 05:05 PM 7/5/2005, you wrote: Feathered beams - do you mean accel/decell angled beams, or something else? Yes, that's what I mean. You can do them in Sib with a simple line tool. So they don't play back unless you're willing to build up a complex set of nested tuplets. Ken ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius - Dynamic Parts
David, People have been requesting a mixer for use with the QuickTime Instruments (and, later sound fonts) since Finale starting supporting QuickTime instruments and sound fonts. Why is that illogical? The need for some kind of mixer is the same regardless of whether you're using Coda's instruments or the QuickTime instruments. - Darcy - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brooklyn, NY On 05 Jul 2005, at 8:02 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: On 5 Jul 2005 at 19:35, Darcy James Argue wrote: Actually, I believe the addition of a mixer has been the most-requested new Finale feature request for many years now. It's ridiculous for you to claim there isn't a demand for it just because you don't need it. A mixer in Finale makes absolutely no sense unless Finale is shipping with its own sounds for playback, so, until Finale 2004, there was absolutely no logical reason for it. -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
At 04:55 PM 7/5/05 -0700, Ken Durling wrote: It has always seemed to me that if one is willing to forego playback, then a suite of purely graphic tools could be included that would make much of this possible. Sibelius has the Symbols menu which does do this, but I think what it needs is more drawing tools. Could you point me at some features in Finale which make this kind of notation possible? jef chippewa is the genius at this stuff. As for me, I just mentioned this one in a previous post. If that's the kind of thing you're looking for, it's mostly notehead changes, size changes, invisible barlines, and graphics built in the graphic expression tool. Finale 2003: http://maltedmedia.com/people/bathory/music/pdf/phylum-euphoria.pdf This one uses standard tools and graphics placement. Finale 2000: http://maltedmedia.com/people/bathory/music/pdf/ratgeyser.pdf This one uses the same sets of techniques -- graphics tool, stuff placed on page, score measures locked so it doesn't reflow, etc. (Finale 2.2): http://maltedmedia.com/people/bathory/music/pdf/withered.pdf This is plain old quartertone stuff with feathere beaming. Finale 3.7: http://maltedmedia.com/people/bathory/music/pdf/thiele1.pdf I also posted this one earlier. Another original done in Finale 2.2, lots of graphics, expressions, etc., enlarged and reduced, all done on the page and never in scroll view: http://maltedmedia.com/people/bathory/music/pdf/moon.pdf The earlier ones aren't as pretty, and I should redo them some day, but they're more legible than my pencil scores. Dennis ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
Ken Durling wrote: At 05:05 PM 7/5/2005, you wrote: Feathered beams - do you mean accel/decell angled beams, or something else? Yes, that's what I mean. You can do them in Sib with a simple line tool. So they don't play back unless you're willing to build up a complex set of nested tuplets. For these, I fill the required duration with 128th notes (or whatever is necessary). Change noteheads which you don't want to be an invisible character. Use the Secondary Beam Angle tool to create the increasing or decreasing angle. Then use the Note Mover tool to space the stems as you wish - the beam angles lock to the first and last notes, so the intermidate stems can be places to indicate the change of tempo, should you wish. All of this needs to be done at a late stage, when the measure widths etc. are all set up, otherwise it all needs re-doing later on! And if at the last moment you decide you need an extra beam, create a custom line tool, using the width of the beam (in Document Options). I hope this makes some sense! Owain ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
At 08:05 PM 7/5/05 -0400, David W. Fenton wrote: Er, doesn't Sibelius have a little copy protection/activation code problem that ought to prevent you from switching, given that you won't upgrade past Finale 2003? Yes, David, you've caught me in a distasteful ethical compromise, and it embarrasses me even now. I mentioned this on the list back on May 5. I had capitulated back in April, when Finale 2005 was required by a client. The client paid for it, so it was kind of a backroom deal. I still resent it and feel slimy about it, and do work first in 2003 so I always have a recoverable copy. But I have been bought. Dennis ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius - Dynamic Parts
On 5 Jul 2005 at 20:14, Darcy James Argue wrote: On 05 Jul 2005, at 8:02 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: On 5 Jul 2005 at 19:35, Darcy James Argue wrote: Actually, I believe the addition of a mixer has been the most-requested new Finale feature request for many years now. It's ridiculous for you to claim there isn't a demand for it just because you don't need it. A mixer in Finale makes absolutely no sense unless Finale is shipping with its own sounds for playback, so, until Finale 2004, there was absolutely no logical reason for it. People have been requesting a mixer for use with the QuickTime Instruments (and, later sound fonts) since Finale starting supporting QuickTime instruments and sound fonts. Why is that illogical? The need for some kind of mixer is the same regardless of whether you're using Coda's instruments or the QuickTime instruments. Because you're mixing for your own synthesizer, and unless you're recording to some wave-based format, the people listening to the results won't hear anything close to the same thing. And the Quicktime instruments have always been absolutely dreadful, at least whenever I've auditioned them. I don't even bother to download them when I upgrade Quicktime, because I've already got far better sounds in my dedicated sound card. And each version of Quicktime instruments is different, so even mixing for Quicktime isn't going to come out the same for every listener. Thus, it only makes sense to have finishing tools in Finale when you're mixing to a fixed output, a wave-based file, rather than a MIDI file. So, until Finale included playback instruments, it made no sense to have a mixer in Finale. -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
On 5 Jul 2005 at 20:24, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote: At 08:05 PM 7/5/05 -0400, David W. Fenton wrote: Er, doesn't Sibelius have a little copy protection/activation code problem that ought to prevent you from switching, given that you won't upgrade past Finale 2003? Yes, David, you've caught me in a distasteful ethical compromise, and it embarrasses me even now. I mentioned this on the list back on May 5. I had capitulated back in April, when Finale 2005 was required by a client. The client paid for it, so it was kind of a backroom deal. I still resent it and feel slimy about it, and do work first in 2003 so I always have a recoverable copy. But I have been bought. Well, wouldn't switching to Sibelius be significantly more dangerous than upgrading to an activated version of Finale? That is, by contemplating switching to Sibelius, aren't you contemplating getting yourself into a much worse situation than you are with activated Finale? -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
At 01:10 AM 7/6/05 +0100, Owain Sutton wrote: Another observation - if Finale implemented a score-part link that was anything like part extraction, I'd simply not use it, because it wouldn't do what I needed. I always end up making parts by deleting staves manually from the score. What extra work is created is negated not dealing with the crap that's created by part extraction. Absolutely so. Part extraction has never been acceptable for me, and I do the staff-deletion method as well. But if it were truly a linked part (a view of the score), it would be verrry interesting. Dennis ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
On 5 Jul 2005 at 20:46, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote: At 08:40 PM 7/5/05 -0400, David W. Fenton wrote: That is, by contemplating switching to Sibelius, aren't you contemplating getting yourself into a much worse situation than you are with activated Finale? Yup. And at my age and experience with Finale, there would really have to be a good reason. Those linked parts are awfully attractive for most of my standard work, I must admit. I concur on the utility of the linked parts. I've spent hours and hours over the last couple of months trying to get a half dozen piano quartets ready for a reading, and it's just a huge mess. That slope is *so* damn slippery. It's hard to stand up for principle. -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
I'd just like to address a few of the general points mentioned. 1. It was suggested that MakeMusic should stop putting time into playback features because their market doesn't need them. I don't have marketing figures to look at, but I'd be extremely surprised if composers and arrangers didn't make up more than half of the market for Finale - more than all of the other markets combined. Good playback was far and away the single most attractive feature to the composers I spoke to and corresponded with. 2. It was mentioned that Finale's playback has now caught up to and in some ways perhaps exceeded that of Sibelius. There's no competition. Finale's playback is far beyond Sibelius', both in terms of automatic playback and in customizability. For what you get included with the program, Sibelius doesn't come close. Sibelius gives you 20 instruments and the ability to load 8 of them. Finale gives you 100 higher quality instruments, and the ability to load 64. Human Playback is far beyond Espressivo, and is optimized to work with GPO. As alluring as linked parts is to the engraving crowd, I guarantee you that the inclusion of Finale GPO will attract more users than anything Sibelius has included in their new version. 3. Sibelius is not focusing on one market. Their three big features are clearly each aimed at a different part of their market. There is the worksheet creator for educators, linked parts for engravers, and video for composers. Both Sibelius and MakeMusic realize that focusing on a single market is not in their best interest. 4. A mixer was a highly requested feature long before Finale included its own sounds, and with good reason. Many people make their files for their own personal use, and the fact that they might play differently on a different person's equipment matters little - they still want to balance them so that they can hear their work. If this wasn't a valued feature, than thousands of people wouldn't have used the MIDI Tool and Expression Tools for this task all these years. And of course, for people that did want to share their recordings, they've always been able to do this via free recording software. Regards, Tyler __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius - Dynamic Parts
On 05 Jul 2005, at 8:54 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: On 5 Jul 2005 at 20:42, Darcy James Argue wrote: While I never actually tried to do this myself, my recollection is that it was possible to convert a Finale-generated QuickTime MIDI file to audio. Using Finale? How? No, using QuickTime. But without a mixer *in Finale*, it was impossible to set appropriate levels for the individual instruments. - Darcy - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brooklyn, NY ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
David W. Fenton wrote: Er, doesn't Sibelius have a little copy protection/activation code problem that ought to prevent you from switching, given that you won't upgrade past Finale 2003? Yep, they've got the same call-response sort of activation scheme that Finale has. Sibelius was very helpful when I needed to get back one of my 2 installs due to a hard-disk change, as was Finale. But for those who won't upgrade to newer versions of Finale due to key-escrow or other such things to enable continued use of the software in the event of a corporate meltdown, don't bother with Sibelius either. -- David H. Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
On 5 Jul 2005 at 18:25, Tyler Turner wrote: [] 2. It was mentioned that Finale's playback has now caught up to and in some ways perhaps exceeded that of Sibelius. There's no competition. Finale's playback is far beyond Sibelius', both in terms of automatic playback and in customizability. For what you get included with the program, Sibelius doesn't come close. Sibelius gives you 20 instruments and the ability to load 8 of them. Finale gives you 100 higher quality instruments, and the ability to load 64. Human Playback is far beyond Espressivo, and is optimized to work with GPO. As alluring as linked parts is to the engraving crowd, I guarantee you that the inclusion of Finale GPO will attract more users than anything Sibelius has included in their new version. That this may very well be true suggests to me one distressing fact: Fewer and fewer people are actually creating music to be performed by live musicians. Good computer-based playback means you don't need human beings. While Dennis may think this is A Good Thing, I think it's very distressing -- perhaps the beginning of the end of live performance as anything other than a hobby/curiosity. [] 4. A mixer was a highly requested feature long before Finale included its own sounds, and with good reason. Many people make their files for their own personal use, and the fact that they might play differently on a different person's equipment matters little . . . But then the mixer belongs in your *sequencer*, not in Finale. . . . - they still want to balance them so that they can hear their work. If this wasn't a valued feature, than thousands of people wouldn't have used the MIDI Tool and Expression Tools for this task all these years. And of course, for people that did want to share their recordings, they've always been able to do this via free recording software. If I were creating my MIDI files for performance on a single synthesizer, I certainly wouldn't be using Finale to tweak it for performance, mixer or not. It makes no sense to me to do it that way for a carefully tuned performance, given that Finale's tools are just not designed to make it very easy to do these things. Yes, I use Finale to do lots of MIDI work, but only GM performances, not carefully detailed final-quality renditions. If I wanted to do that, I certainly wouldn't want to work within the straitjacket that Finale's horrid UI (especially for continuous data) provides. Replacing that with a mixer still wouldn't do it for me, as I don't like that as an UI for continuous data, anyway (I think it shapes, and would like to be able to draw the shapes for the volume changes). But, again, I agree that once Finale has its own built-in sounds, then, yes, a mixer is an appropriate tool to have built into the program. I just don't think it belonged there before that point. I also think that Human Playback also increases the level of necessity of having a mixer built into Finale, but that's something I haven't experienced firsthand (except very briefly for a 45-minute transposition job I did last August in California for the performance of Handel's Alcina I was playing continuo in). -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius - Dynamic Parts
On 5 Jul 2005 at 21:31, Darcy James Argue wrote: On 05 Jul 2005, at 8:54 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: On 5 Jul 2005 at 20:42, Darcy James Argue wrote: While I never actually tried to do this myself, my recollection is that it was possible to convert a Finale-generated QuickTime MIDI file to audio. Using Finale? How? No, using QuickTime. . . . You're saying that Quicktime could output to a wave format? . . . But without a mixer *in Finale*, it was impossible to set appropriate levels for the individual instruments. Impossible? How so? If Finale could play back through Quicktime musical instruments, why couldn't you then set balances and edit continuous data in Finale? Or, open your MIDI file in a real sequencer and tweak it to sound good on Quicktime musical instruments, before using Quicktime to create the wave output? -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
Tyler Turner wrote: 3. Sibelius is not focusing on one market. Their three big features are clearly each aimed at a different part of their market. There is the worksheet creator for educators, linked parts for engravers, and video for composers. Both Sibelius and MakeMusic realize that focusing on a single market is not in their best interest. What market IS MakeMusic focussing on? A lot of the uncertainty here is that we don't know whether there's a real commitment to engravers, or to serious composers, because most of the 'advances' or of no relevance to these groups. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I mentioned that many of my clients have started to demand a reasonable mockup in addition to a printed score. These clients are most concerned with a good quality score and a reasonably representative mockup that they can take to conductors, grantwriters, etc. Since I am a heavy user of GPO, I switched temporarily to a competing product (the name of which does not begin with an S) that was more GPO-centric and produced acceptable notation. Though this may anger some parties here, I must report that I have received numerous requests for good mockups, but I have NEVER ONCE been questioned about the approach angle of tie ends or other such, even with the competing product. It musi be OK; I'm still working at it, albeit as time permits. Perhaps the local yokels in music here are simply too unsophisticated--or too busy playing--to complain about the ends of the ties on my scores So I guess the long and short of it is this: *Playback is an in-demand feature that will provide a Win-Win for MM and its clients. *Things such as circularly-bending staves aren't and won't for MM. There are other solutions that meet the very legitimate needs of these users. *So my experience echoes Tyler's earlier post. *I expect (indeed, I HOPE) to see notation and sequencing moving even more close together in the future, eventually providing aseamless working environment in which files need not be passed around from a notation environment to a sequencing environment. The competing product with which I work is paving this way, as people will shortly see. I have also ordered 2006 since it seems to be taking some steps in this direction. *For me, it's all about doing the best job with the least amount of nuisance. - Original Message - From: "David W. Fenton" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: finale@shsu.edu Sent: Tuesday, July 05, 2005 8:43 PM Subject: Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking! On 5 Jul 2005 at 18:25, Tyler Turner wrote: [] 2. It was mentioned that Finale's playback has now caught up to and in some ways perhaps exceeded that of Sibelius. There's no competition. Finale's playback is far beyond Sibelius', both in terms of automatic playback and in customizability. For what you get included with the program, Sibelius doesn't come close. Sibelius gives you 20 instruments and the ability to load 8 of them. Finale gives you 100 higher quality instruments, and the ability to load 64. Human Playback is far beyond Espressivo, and is optimized to work with GPO. As alluring as linked parts is to the engraving crowd, I guarantee you that the inclusion of Finale GPO will attract more users than anything Sibelius has included in their new version. That this may very well be true suggests to me one distressing fact: Fewer and fewer people are actually creating music to be performed by live musicians. Good computer-based playback means you don't need human beings. While Dennis may think this is A Good Thing, I think it's very distressing -- perhaps the beginning of the end of live performance as anything other than a hobby/curiosity. [] 4. A mixer was a highly requested feature long before Finale included its own sounds, and with good reason. Many people make their files for their own personal use, and the fact that they might play differently on a different person's equipment matters little . . . But then the mixer belongs in your *sequencer*, not in Finale. . . . - they still want to balance them so that they can hear their work. If this wasn't a valued feature, than thousands of people wouldn't have used the MIDI Tool and _expression_ Tools for this task all these years. And of course, for people that did want to share their recordings, they've always been able to do this via free recording software. If I were creating my MIDI files for performance on a single synthesizer, I certainly wouldn't be using Finale to tweak it for performance, mixer or not. It makes no sense to me to do it that way for a carefully tuned performance, given that Finale's tools are just not designed to make it very easy to do these things. Yes, I use Finale to do lots of MIDI work, but only GM performances, not carefully detailed final-quality renditions. If I wanted to do that, I certainly wouldn't want to work within the straitjacket that Finale's horrid UI (especially for continuous data) provides. Replacing that with a mixer still wouldn't do it for me, as I don't like that as an UI for continuous data, anyway (I think it shapes, and would like to be able to draw the shapes for the volume changes). But, again, I agree that once Finale has its own built-in sounds, then, yes, a mixer is an appropriate tool to have built into the program. I just don't think it belonged there before that point. I also think that Human Playback also increases the level of necessity of having a mixer built into
Re: [Finale] Sibelius - Dynamic Parts
On 05 Jul 2005, at 10:27 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: Er, you could *not* do it *before* the Finale sound font existed. That's entirely my point -- before that point, there was no justification for having a mixer inside Finale. Once that was provided for playback along with Finale (and, I'd argue, Human Playback was included), a mixer became pretty important, because Finale *was* your playback mechanism (I'm perhaps wrongly assuming that you can't play back a MIDI with the Finale soundfont from a program outside Finale). I believe you *can* play back a MIDI file with the Finale soundfont from a separate sequencer. It's a standard soundfont and I think you can use it in any situation you'd use any other soundfont. From the user's standpoint, the only thing that's changed is who supplies the soundfont -- Apple (in the case of QuickTime instruments) or Coda. And a mixer is a desirable thing to have regardless of who supplies the soundfont. I agree that recent changes to Finale's playback (especially Human Playback) have made a mixer even *more* desireable, but I have no reason to doubt the Coda employees (and ex-employees) who have told me that there has been overwhelming demand for a mixer for several years now. (Also, I think you can save MIDI files as uncompressed audio [WAV or AIFF] in iTunes if you adjust your default import options.) - Darcy - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brooklyn, NY ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] More on Sib 4.0
On 6 Jul 2005, at 03:24, Darcy James Argue wrote:BTW, did everyone see this dig (from the "Sibelius or Finale" page)? How do we do it?We invest a huge amount of time, care and attention into every new version. Releasing annual versions is inefficient, and makes for thin upgrades; radical new features require a great deal of time and effort to create.We spend months consulting with musicians and educators worldwide, and take all of their views and ideas into account. Plus, we always add a little sprinkling of our own magic. Followed by many months of specification, programming, feedback and testing, we ensure that every new version of Sibelius is a dramatic improvement. http://sibelius.com/products/sibelius/reviews/finaleusers.htmlThere's some truth to all of that. FWIW, Sibelius contacted me to ask what I wanted to see in the next version, and I'm not even a Sibelius user anymore. Their Dynamic Parts implementation appears to be very close to what I suggested.I do understand that the Dynamic Parts thing is attractive to many people -- it so happens that I don't care about it. It has been suggested that Sibelius is superior to MakeMusic in terms of marketing.we always add a little sprinkling of our own magicSheer poetryJohn___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius - Dynamic Parts
--- David W. Fenton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Er, you could *not* do it *before* the Finale sound font existed. That's entirely my point -- before that point, there was no justification for having a mixer inside Finale. . Discussing the merits of the feature from a functionality standpoint isn't really what's needed here. The justification for the feature was that people wanted it. It was in high demand both before and after sounds were included with Finale. Regards, Tyler __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius - Dynamic Parts
On 5 Jul 2005 at 22:43, Darcy James Argue wrote: On 05 Jul 2005, at 10:27 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: Er, you could *not* do it *before* the Finale sound font existed. That's entirely my point -- before that point, there was no justification for having a mixer inside Finale. Once that was provided for playback along with Finale (and, I'd argue, Human Playback was included), a mixer became pretty important, because Finale *was* your playback mechanism (I'm perhaps wrongly assuming that you can't play back a MIDI with the Finale soundfont from a program outside Finale). I believe you *can* play back a MIDI file with the Finale soundfont from a separate sequencer. It's a standard soundfont and I think you can use it in any situation you'd use any other soundfont. Er, what format is it in? What software synthesizers can play back using it? From the user's standpoint, the only thing that's changed is who supplies the soundfont -- Apple (in the case of QuickTime instruments) or Coda. . . . This just doesn't seem right to me. There has to be a synthesiver t load the soundfont into, since a soundfont is only a description of the waveforms involved, not the mechanism for playing it back. Quicktime instruments don't play back without Quicktime, so I'd assume that the Finale Soundfont can't be played back by anything but Finale, unless it's in a compatible format that other software synthesizers support. . . . And a mixer is a desirable thing to have regardless of who supplies the soundfont. . . I think your Mac orientation has caused you to have an incomplete map of the parts of the process. On Windows, it's historically been hardware that supplies the sound, an add-on piece of hardware originally, but in recent years, every PC has some kind of hardware synthesizer in it (poor as most of them may be). As CPU cycles have become cheaper and RAM more plentiful, there is more use of software synthesizers, but none of the simple ones are even close to my 7-year-old Turtle Beach sound card in terms of quality of sound. Now, shortly after I bought that, the whole landscape changed, and hardware soundcards stopped having the wavetables permantently burned into ROM chips on the card, and instead had the ability to load a set of wavetables from files (soundfonts). Unfortunately, Turtle Beach chose the format that didn't get widespread support, so my soundcard's capabilities in this regard are basically useless. GPO, on the other hand, takes that a step further and eliminates the hardware soundcard from the synthesizing equation entirely (though the D/A converter may very well be on a dedicated sound card or dedicated sound chip on the motherboard). The Finale Soundfont, from my understanding, is similar to GPO in that Finale sends output to a software synthesizer (provided with Finale) that uses the Finale Soundfont for its sounds. I don't know if the software synthesizer that comes with Finale can be used outside of Finale, or if the Finale soundfont is in a format that can be loaded into other software synthesizers that use the same format for their soundfonts. . . . I agree that recent changes to Finale's playback (especially Human Playback) have made a mixer even *more* desireable, but I have no reason to doubt the Coda employees (and ex-employees) who have told me that there has been overwhelming demand for a mixer for several years now. Well, I still say that until the point that Human Playback and the Finale soundfont were added, there was really no justification for a mixer in Finale. Once those were there, the mixer was, in my opinion, essential. (Also, I think you can save MIDI files as uncompressed audio [WAV or AIFF] in iTunes if you adjust your default import options.) You're right about that. I didn't see that. I don't like the iTunes terminology, as I'm not really using iTunes the way it was intended to be used. I'm not importing anything into iTunes, I'm just using iTunes to manage my files and play them back. So, because of that, the options dialog didn't make much sense to me. -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius - Dynamic Parts
On 05 Jul 2005, at 11:10 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: On 5 Jul 2005 at 22:43, Darcy James Argue wrote: I believe you *can* play back a MIDI file with the Finale soundfont from a separate sequencer. It's a standard soundfont and I think you can use it in any situation you'd use any other soundfont. Er, what format is it in? It's a standard .sf2 soundfont file. What software synthesizers can play back using it? Any software that reads standard sounfont files. Quicktime instruments don't play back without Quicktime, so I'd assume that the Finale Soundfont can't be played back by anything but Finale, unless it's in a compatible format that other software synthesizers support. It is, unless it contains some sort of Finale-specific hack that artificially limits its use outside of Finale. - Darcy - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brooklyn, NY ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
[Finale] Re: Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
From: Dennis Bathory-Kitsz Jef, you reading along? You ever try Sibelius for your work? quite recently (for fairly straight-ahead, beethoven notation), some things impressed me, notably of course the implementation of house styles. some things bothered me, like not being able to adjust individual articulation assignment positioning. all in all, i ended up subcontracting a job because i don't have the time (or rather won't take the time at the moment) to learn to use sibelius at the level i can do with finale. but i had to piddle enough with it to be able tell the guy i subcontracted to change settings according to my prefs. and wow were layout changes fast! i wasn't able to control/alter the layout as fluidly as i would have liked, but saw my colleague working with it and was quite impressed. hopefully some interesting times lie ahead... maybe now is the time for some good old-fashioned software wars, MM needs a serious kick in the ass as far as i'm concerned. although admittedly i had the same hopes when sib3 came out. i'll say it again (as others have as well), it's fine for us to bitch here on the list, but for real action it is important to contact and pressure MM to address finale's notational and programming and UI shortcomings. -- shirling neueweise \/ new music notation specialists mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] :.../ http://newmusicnotation.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius - Dynamic Parts
At 11:10 PM 7/5/05 -0400, David W. Fenton wrote: On 5 Jul 2005 at 22:43, Darcy James Argue wrote: I believe you *can* play back a MIDI file with the Finale soundfont from a separate sequencer. It's a standard soundfont and I think you can use it in any situation you'd use any other soundfont. Er, what format is it in? What software synthesizers can play back using it? It's standard sf2. You can use an external device. I copied it over to live along with the others that fill my F: drive, so I can use the Finale soundfont in Sonar. Finale's soundfont has a nice solo flute. :) Dennis ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
At 09:43 PM 7/5/05 -0400, David W. Fenton wrote: Fewer and fewer people are actually creating music to be performed by live musicians. Good computer-based playback means you don't need human beings. While Dennis may think this is A Good Thing, I think it's very distressing -- perhaps the beginning of the end of live performance as anything other than a hobby/curiosity. That's been going on since the piano roll. But the current situation provides the opportunity for committed musicians to rise above a mundane level of performance, technique and repertoire. Really good new nonpop groups are doing a killer business right now, but those few are really good. They have to be, as accurate, effective performances are no longer a dream. Now you can make 'em right off the score. It doesn't reduce opportunities for musicians. For me to be interested in what they do, though, they have to make strong contributions to the presentation of the music. Mere reproduction of notes is no longer sufficient. It never really was, but the 'human playback' reveals clearly how little musical ingeniousness has been part of nonpop performance since the advent of recording. New music and new technology do go hand in hand. Any computer can do a great Mendelssohn now, and you can even 'dial in' the level of idiosyncrasy; we're now getting to the Data character from ST:TNG, albeit four centuries early. On the other hand, great new pieces demand inventiveness from the performers -- not just cadenza-copying, but real involvement in the work from the beginning of composition to the time it appears in the real air. That's definitely enough from me. Off to bed. Dennis ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
--- David W. Fenton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That this may very well be true suggests to me one distressing fact: Fewer and fewer people are actually creating music to be performed by live musicians. Good computer-based playback means you don't need human beings. Yes, problems can arise from this. The plus side is that we'll get to hear the music of a much greater number of musicians. How many musicians have never been able to get their music performed and have thus been missed? Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages? Tough to say. But we definitely can guess that technology will only get closer to human, so I won't spend time worrying about stopping it. Playing instruments and performing will at least for a long time be something people choose to engage in for entertainment. But then the mixer belongs in your *sequencer*, not in Finale. The rule for attracting a large audience is keep it simple. Your average musician doesn't want to work with multiple pieces of software. There's a delicate balance to find. If 80% of the market can be satisfied with only 20% of the functionality (I'm talking about the sequencing stuff here), then that's what to shoot for. MakeMusic is including the most critical 20% of the sequencing features, and with it they'll satisfy most people. Automation is critical too, and Human Playback is actually more helpful to the average user than would be a graphical interface for editing MIDI data - for the simple reason that most people wouldn't use the latter. Finale 2006 already provides by far the best default notation playback of any software in the world. I really want them to press that advantage farther, particularly now that Sibelius has laid its cards on the table for the next two years. If I were creating my MIDI files for performance on a single synthesizer, I certainly wouldn't be using Finale to tweak it for performance, mixer or not. It makes no sense to me to do it that way for a carefully tuned performance, given that Finale's tools are just not designed to make it very easy to do these things. Right - most professionals don't use Finale for this. But it's apparent after the success of Human Playback and the softsynth in selling Finale 2004 that many people are after instant decent playback more than near-perfect playback that takes tons of tweaking and learning to obtain. When Finale 2004 was released, Sibelius 3 came out with its own set of sounds. What would have been a great advantage for Finale turned into more of a means of maintaining equality. Now Finale will have a clear advantage. Most people will be able to say, when I write music with Finale, it sounds better than with Sibelius. Regards, Tyler __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
On 5 Jul 2005 at 23:29, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote: At 09:43 PM 7/5/05 -0400, David W. Fenton wrote: Fewer and fewer people are actually creating music to be performed by live musicians. Good computer-based playback means you don't need human beings. While Dennis may think this is A Good Thing, I think it's very distressing -- perhaps the beginning of the end of live performance as anything other than a hobby/curiosity. That's been going on since the piano roll. But the current situation provides the opportunity for committed musicians to rise above a mundane level of performance, technique and repertoire. I would have thought so, but the GPO demos were very disappointing to me. Not because of flaws in the samples, but because of the lack of attention to detail in what were supposedly fine examples of sequences. I heard all sorts of awful things, as well as an overreliance on reverb to cover a multitude of sins (not least of which being some real shortcomings in the samples themselves). Creating a good, human-sounding sequence is really, really hard work, no matter what tools you are using, because creating a really solid musical performance is very hard work even using actual musicians and actual musical instruments. Music is complicated that way -- the smallest details stick out, the tiniest discontinuities, the smallest not-quite-right rates of change for tempo or dynamics or any of a host of other performance issues. . . . Really good new nonpop groups are doing a killer business right now, but those few are really good. They have to be, as accurate, effective performances are no longer a dream. Now you can make 'em right off the score. It doesn't reduce opportunities for musicians. For me to be interested in what they do, though, they have to make strong contributions to the presentation of the music. Mere reproduction of notes is no longer sufficient. It never really was, but the 'human playback' reveals clearly how little musical ingeniousness has been part of nonpop performance since the advent of recording. Well, Sturgeon's law applies here, don't you think? New music and new technology do go hand in hand. Any computer can do a great Mendelssohn now, . . . Really? I've yet to hear it. . . . and you can even 'dial in' the level of idiosyncrasy; we're now getting to the Data character from ST:TNG, albeit four centuries early. On the other hand, great new pieces demand inventiveness from the performers -- not just cadenza-copying, but real involvement in the work from the beginning of composition to the time it appears in the real air. Well, I had an eye opener the last week. I've always thought of my sound card's piano as having a really good sound, but when I mixed MIDI sequences in with MP3s of live performances in iTunes, and shuffled them, I started hearing that the piano was not so good after all. If all you're listening to is synthesized performances, your ear adjusts, just as it did for early hearers of recorded sound who could not distinguish a live singer from a 78rpm recording of a singer. You learn to hear the music through the imperfections of the performance medium. For me, live performance will always be preferable in terms of quality of sound. And with decent musicians, in every other way, as well. But I am in a minority in terms of ability to hear distinctions that the vast majority of listeners don't even know exist. That's definitely enough from me. Off to bed. I read that as Orff to bed! :) -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
--- Owain Sutton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What market IS MakeMusic focussing on? A lot of the uncertainty here is that we don't know whether there's a real commitment to engravers, or to serious composers, because most of the 'advances' or of no relevance to these groups. ___ MakeMusic is focusing on composers/arrangers, educators, students, engravers, and church musicians - not necessarily in that order. I believe the company takes in most of its money from the composers and educational crowd. Engravers, while a much smaller group, are critical for the success of Finale because they are key in setting Finale's reputation. The number of features dedicated to engravers is highly disproportional in the engravers favor. One thing I've never really brought up, I encourage you all to be creative in thinking about features that would help both you and the vast majority of Finale users. I have a few features in mind that I'm not willing to talk about openly, but I think there are still features, not implemented in any notation program, that could vastly increase the work flow for engravers and virtually everyone else who uses Finale. I know it can be frustrating to wait for years and never see the particular things you've asked for get implemented. And it may be a long time before MakeMusic gets around to improving the particular area that would save you time. But there are some aspects of the program that almost everyone has to use, and I think looking for ways to improve efficiency in those areas is a great approach - after all, time is time. If you save time in part A you get to the annoying stuff in part B more quickly. It's great that MakeMusic can focus features on the engravers because of their importance - but it's a lot better when the features that help the engravers can also help the majority of the users. Regards, Tyler __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius - Dynamic Parts
Discussing the merits of the feature from a functionality standpoint isn't really what's needed here. The justification for the feature was that people wanted it. What is discouraging is that it apparently is the only justification that is needed. This kind of thinking has seemed to increasingly pervade Coda in recent years. Development seems to have been turned over entirely to marketing and the lowest common denominator of demand. There is no longer an independent standard of excellence toward which to strive and of which to be proud. It is the equivalent of politicians giving up principles by which to govern in favor of making decisions according to the polls. Of course, in business there must be fiscal responsibility, but that is still possible without abandoning a vision of excellence entirely. For me the evidence of this trend is in the lists of out-and-out bugs, at least some of which must have rather simple solutions, but which are passed over in favor of flashy and demanded features. (my most often-cursed example is the rubber handles on expressions in staffs that have been reduced. This one was fixed at one time only to re-emerge.) The software writers working on new features know very well that the old bugs are still there. They have daily reminders that quality control is not valued as highly as it might be. This seems to me to be a recipe for more sloppiness and the introduction of more errors with an eventual slide into mediocrity or worse. Richard Yates ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
Engravers, while a much smaller group, are critical for the success of Finale because they are key in setting Finale's reputation. I have no reason to think that this list is not reasonably representative of the engravers who you say are key in setting Finale's reputation. Well, whatever you are doing ain't working so well. Finale's reputation here is sliding dramatically. A few years ago everyone was fervent in defense of Finale against the claims of Sibelius and others. Now the tenor is much more in the direction of posters on the edge of making the jump. One thing I've never really brought up, I encourage you all to be creative in thinking about features that would help both you and the vast majority of Finale users. FIX THE BUGS. Is that creative enough? Richard Yates ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius - Dynamic Parts
At 09:17 PM 7/5/2005, you wrote: Going over the promo videos for Sib 4, one other thing I notice is that Sibelius has finally fixed what was one of the most frustrating and infuriating aspects of its UI back when I was learning to use it -- it now has an insertion point. Darcy - Could you say more? I haven't run into this yet, nor have I missed it obviously! ;-) .What is it? Ken ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] GPO?
Human Playback isn't worth it. I'd disable it if I were you. GPO is a software Orchestral Sample player. Garritan Personal Orchestra. It sucks a LOT of CPU power, so, you'll need a fairly beefy CPU to use it effectly. (IE: 2.6+ AMD/P4 or a 1.2+ G4 or a G5) keith helgesen wrote: Hi all. Excuse silly questions, from a real non-professional dabbler. What is *“human playback” *(as opposed to gorilla, or what playback?) And – what is *GPO*? I gather it does not mean “General Post Office” as it did in the pre-electronic age in which I grew up. Cheers K in OZ. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius - Dynamic Parts
OK, just looked at the Finale Insert measure dialogue, (as per page 14/6 in the F2K manual) and it's really no different from the Sibelius CreateBarOther (or Single multiple times) which allows you to insert any number of measures of the time signature or in a different one. Am I missing something? ken ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius - Dynamic Parts
At 10:31 PM 7/5/2005, you wrote: OK, just looked at the Finale Insert measure dialogue, (as per page 14/6 in the F2K manual) and it's really no different from the Sibelius CreateBarOther (or Single multiple times) which allows you to insert any number of measures of the time signature or in a different one. Am I missing something? Meant to say Fin 2k2... ken ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius - Dynamic Parts
On 06 Jul 2005, at 12:54 AM, Tyler Turner wrote: Are you sure this is in there? I've been playing with the demo and can't find a way to insert. If you're talking about that cursor, I think that's for playback only. Guys, guys guys, I'm talking about the INSERTION POINT. During Step-Time MIDI entry. You know, the blue vertical line that tells you whether when you press a key on the MIDI keyboard, you will *replace* the currently highlighted note, or create a new note *following* the currently highlighted note. Now, taking a look at the Sib3 demo, I see this is actually not a new feature -- it was included in Sib3, so that may have been where the confusion came in. However, I learned on Sib 1.4, and in that version there was no insertion point. I found that to be insanely frustrating. - Darcy - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brooklyn, NY ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius version 4 has dynamic score/parts linking!
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Tyler, We did. A while back, many of the people on this list came up with a reasonably detailed plan for implementing a feature that looks very much like Sibelius's Dynamic Parts. Between us, we decided exactly how it ought to work, and how it COULD work using an existing Finale mechanism (Special Part Extraction). I passed the results of that discussion on to Coda -- I'm sure some of the other people involved did the same. That's a good example. And believe it or not, it nearly got implemented a few years ago because of engraver requests. I can't even remember for sure which release it was, but that feature was very nearly implemented at the expense of developing little else. I don't recall what exactly was involved with the decision to not do it. At this point, I think it would be good to make suggestions to MakeMusic for which parts of that feature you actually need most. What would be the minimum implementation for the feature that would give you most of the usefulness? Sibelius' method is pretty flashy, complete with instantaneous update. If something like that isn't necessary, it would be good to mention that. I'm pretty sure that MakeMusic will at least be looking at this feature again now that Sibelius has included it. They have a lot of other stuff on their plate though, so the less work they'd have to spend on it, the better chance they'd be able to do it. __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius - Dynamic Parts
--- Ken Durling [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: OK, just looked at the Finale Insert measure dialogue, (as per page 14/6 in the F2K manual) and it's really no different from the Sibelius CreateBarOther (or Single multiple times) which allows you to insert any number of measures of the time signature or in a different one. Am I missing something? ken No, I don't think you're missing anything. I was just mistaken - Sibelius can insert measures. What I believe it can't do is insert notes within a measure. Tyler __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
