Re: [Finale] MakeMusic CEO John Paulson resigns
--- On Wed, 11/26/08, dhbailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: While I have no idea what sort of person John Paulson is nor what his role has been as CEO. He invented Finale and SmartMusic and made them both successful. He's an outstanding musician/composer, a strong leader and a great person to know. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] MakeMusic CEO John Paulson resigns
I stand corrected. John invented SmartMusic, but not Finale. He is however, as you suggest, the person perhaps most directly responsible for its success and its movement towards becoming a viable solution for publishers. Tyler --- On Wed, 11/26/08, Eric Fiedler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From: Eric Fiedler [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Finale] MakeMusic CEO John Paulson resigns To: finale@shsu.edu Date: Wednesday, November 26, 2008, 2:06 PM Didn't Phil Farrand invent Finale sometime back in the late Middle Ages? But as far as making it _successful_ you may be right ... ;-) eff Habsburger Verlag Frankfurt (Dr. Fiedler) www.habsburgerverlag.de [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] On 26.11.2008, at 20:12, Tyler Turner wrote: --- On Wed, 11/26/08, dhbailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: While I have no idea what sort of person John Paulson is nor what his role has been as CEO. He invented Finale and SmartMusic and made them both successful. He's an outstanding musician/composer, a strong leader and a great person to know. ___ 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 ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Resize tool for systems inoperative in 2009?
--- On Thu, 7/31/08, Robert Patterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Good luck on using that line. Let's see how bright the phone lines light up on this issue alone. They won't light up at all on this issue. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Some comments re Fin09
--- On Fri, 8/1/08, dhbailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I appreciate that link -- however I still see no reason that a publisher has been crippled by the different numbers of staff lists submission may have. Scott addressed this. In essence, having the more solid convention for when and where staff lists are used makes it more likely that publishers will be able to predict where staff lists are in place and makes it more likely they will be able to apply global or individual changes that do what they want without subtle gotchas. Having 50 different expression categories for dynamics so that they could each have a different staff list would slow those publishers down. Having any staff list at all for dynamics would make them unpredictable when positioning or deleting, and would thus also slow them down. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Some comments re Fin09
--- On Fri, 8/1/08, Robert Patterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: When, oh when will you stop waving this red flag in front of the bull? In case you didn't notice, Robert, I was asked the question specifically. So don't complain about me answering it or how I answer it. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Some comments re Fin09
--- On Wed, 7/30/08, dhbailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't understand how the number of staff lists a person uses would in any way be an inconvenience to a publisher. How would it create more work for a publisher? Scott summarized the issues here: http://forum.makemusic.com/default.aspx?f=6m=230216p=2 ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Some comments re Fin09
--- On Wed, 7/30/08, dhbailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Absent a true programming need, there is no logical reason for such a limitation because any such change in the number of staff lists would have involved programming time which would better have been spent elsewhere. I don't think that would be the case. Given the new design, I think it's a good bet they had to redo a bunch of the staff list functionality anyway, and if anything, it would probably have been extra programming effort to allow for the ability to create staff lists in the new system. Regardless, I don't think that's the reason it's not in there. I think the reason it's not in there is related to publishers complaining about receiving user files that had terribly indiscriminate use of staff lists which translated into more work for them. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Some comments re Fin09
--- On Tue, 7/29/08, Robert Patterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It just sickens me to see one MM employee or ex-employee after another try to justify what is plainly a bull-headed, arbitrary, and user-underestimating decision. I have yet to see a single actual, you know, *user* argue that we only need 4 staff lists. Look on MakeMusic's forum. Drag-apply is a very poor substitute for staff lists. It depends on the use. The problem is that many people were using staff lists for situations where drag-apply really is much smarter. Finally, I would remind Tyler that some of the worst abuses of staff lists were caused not by Finale's users, who may not collectively be so stupid as it seems MM gives them credit for. Rather, many of the worst abuses of staff lists were apparently caused by a bug in Fin08. And I'm going to remind you that having worked with many thousands of Finale users has given me a pretty good perspective on Finale's weaknesses for the majority of its users. Believe me, the same flexibility that has worked in its favor for appealing to power users has very much worked against it in the battle for new users. If you're going to provide 20 ways to do something, you'd better be able to obscure 19 of them so that users always first pick the one that's usually most efficient. There's a huge tendency for people to stick with the first technique they learn for accomplishing something in Finale. When that technique makes them slow and inefficient, it makes it that much easier for Sibelius to appeal to them. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Some comments re Fin09
--- On Mon, 7/28/08, Robert Patterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What augers worst for me in this attitude is the clear Sibeliusation trend. Sibelius always took knocks because it wasn't as flexible as Finale. When the Finn brothers were in charge Sib was willfully inflexible. Now MM seems to want to throw away their competitive edge with both hands and embrace the Finn brothers' ideas about flexibility. Sibelius' lack of flexibility is really the thing that allowed it to survive and make it in this market. Flexibility only works in Finale's favor if the implementation always makes it clear what the BEST method is in a given situation. And that is the single largest problem Finale has faced all along. Finale's flexibility is really only attractive to a fairly small (but important) percentage of its users - for the rest, it has served as a stumbling block that makes the program take longer to learn and slower to use. Inevitably, people end up using less than ideal tools for completing their work in Finale, and that goes for people of all experience levels. I've never seen anyone who truly uses the best tool for the job in Finale 100% of the time. Sibelius isn't perfect that way, but having fewer ways to accomplish most tasks has definitely helped them funnel people into techniques that are often more effective than the ones people stumble upon in Finale. Sibelius' lack of flexibility (especially early on) may have given it a slow start with engravers, but it was exactly the thing that brought it success with college students and other new users that join the market each year. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Some comments re Fin09
--- On Sun, 7/27/08, Bernard Savoie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So if I need to indicate an explanation for, say all the clarinets (4 in this case), I use a staff list to define a view on the 1st clarinet in the score and on each individual parts. Now repeat the same scenario with all the strings, all the violins (I II), all the trumpets, all the trombones, all the horns, all the brass, all the woodwinds, all the flutes... Well, you get the idea. Four staff lists really won't cut it. The only way I will be able to deal with this scenario in 09, it seams, will be to duplicate the file once the score is finished and copy the indications to the pertinent parts for individual parts. This is a giant step backwards. Looks like I'll be evaluating using '09 on a case per case basis. If I think I won't be needing so many staff list, then fine. Otherwise, I'll stick with an earlier version. No, I don't think that would be the fastest way. I would think you'd do this - from the score, drag apply the expression to all staves you want it on in the parts, all at once (using a metatool if you have one). Then drag select the handles of the ones you don't want visible in the score and press ctrl-alt-shift-U and then ctrl-alt-shift-H. That unlinks them and then hides them only in the score. Tyler ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Distinguishing Engraver slurs from adjusted slurs?
--- Robert Patterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't think the crazy slurs are that rare. I see them in just about every piece (MacFin07) I work on. My guess is if people have stopped talking about it at the forums, it is because it is pointless to keep talking about something in a world where no bugs will be fixed. If you spend any time on the forums, you'll quickly learn that's not the case. Forum members are no less willing to repeatedly discuss bugs that bother them than people here. And really, a lot more people pass through the forum than here, even if just for a one time question. I think this is one of those bugs that you see less or more often (or never) depending on how you work with Finale. Tyler Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Distinguishing Engraver slurs from adjusted slurs?
--- David W. Fenton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I would not call it a bug, but an implementation of an imperfect algorithm for representing position onscreen, one that is inconsistent. Like so much with Finale, my bet is that it goes far back into the ancient history of the program. Yes, this one is a bug. The algorithm is causing a completely different shape for the slur at one viewing size than another. To give you some idea, the center of a slur on a normal printout could be more than an inch away from where you see it on screen (relative to nearby objects). It's not a subtle difference on the order of a few pixels. It's as if a 2 year old drew that particular slur by hand - but it looks fine in Finale at some resolutions, so you aren't aware of the problem until printout. It's rare, and I never hear about it on the MakeMusic forum any longer, but the fact it exists does mean you have to watch out for it or do something to prevent it. Tyler Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius and the bugs
--- dhbailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The problem is that there were not the complaints on the Sibelius list that have come up on the Finale list. In other words, while that list contained some serious bugs, they didn't affect users to the same extent that Finale's bugs have affected Finale users. The reality is that Sib5.0 was more ready for prime time than Finale2k8. And Sib5.1 has addressed those bugs. Anybody know anything about Finale2k8A yet? I disagree with you. I found the bugs in Sib 5.0 to be more severe and more in-your-face than those with Finale 2008. Sibelius 5 crashed several times on me within my first 30 minutes of use, each time while doing different actions. And I also disagree that there has been less complaining. You talk about the list, but what about their chat page? People ran into plenty of problems with it, and I'd say that fewer problems (and fewer serious ones) were pointed out on MakeMusic's forum than on Sibelius'. 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] My thoughts on Finale v. Sibelius
--- Aaron Sherber [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I can't speak for any current S~ users, but for my part, finding out that MakeMusic had such an offer like that for S~ users would irritate me mightily. You mean like the $199 crossgrade price MM offers to Sibelius owners? (Incidentally, the normal crossgrade price offered by Sibelius is also $199; the $99 price is a special for October.) The difference I see here is that Sibelius is selling the version 5 update to their loyal Sibelius 4 customers for something like $160 while selling to Finale customers for $100. Personally I can see where some people would find that insulting. __ 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 5.1 adds MusicXML 2.0 import
--- Randolph Peters [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Let me get this straight. Sibelius is offering a free upgrade within a few months of releasing a new version and the upgrade fixes bugs AND extends features? I vaguely remember Finale doing that a long time ago... Not so long ago. In recent history I recall a number of updates, especially in the playback area (which is where Sibelius' additions seem primarily focused as well). Human Playback has received many additions in their updates. The ability to save as audio files from VST was also in the update cycle if I recall. If you look over the set of new features that were released in updates for 2007, they are at the very least comparable in significance to the features shown in this Sibelius update. 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 5.1 adds MusicXML 2.0 import
--- dhbailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sibelius 5.1 is such a significant upgrade for Windows that it requires you to uninstall Sibelius 5.0 before installing 5.1 -- it replaces everything. I don't see how the fact they make you install 5.0 before installing 5.1 tells us anything about the size or significance of the update. Installing over a previous installation is one way for them to verify that a legitimate, unaltered copy of Sibelius is already on the system - no updates for users of pirated copies. Furthermore, while it's common for companies to replace the application in its entirety, they DON'T want to have to force their users to download all of the extra content that gets installed with the CD/DVD installer (such as the sound libraries). Therefore, having us install 5.0 first is a means of allowing them to make the update package smaller, not larger or somehow more significant. This is the sort of upgrade for which Finale charges us $90 each year. AND Sibelius released FREE a soundset editor which will make working with any device (softsynth or hardware module) as transparent as using the built-in soundsets. Look at the features that were added. Those features are extremely small and not nearly as significant as the ones you pay for with either Finale or Sibelius. Sibelius upgrades cost close to twice as much as Finale upgrades. When I compare 2 consecutive releases of Finale to a single upgrade of Sibelius (which takes twice as long to come out), I see fairly comparable additions. 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] My thoughts on Finale v. Sibelius
--- Eric Dannewitz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Don't even know if Finale 2007/2008 is going to work on Mac OS X 10.5...and we won't even suggest that SmartMusic 10.1 is going to work with it..it crashed all the time if you had Safari 3 (which comes with 10.5) installed I'm sure SmartMusic and Finale will be made to work with 10.5 if complications arise. In case you haven't noticed, MakeMusic and Sibelius trade off leadership roles in keeping up with Apple's constant changes. After all, Sibelius was a year behind MakeMusic with their native Intel support. Personally I hate OS changes. I buy an OS for the programs I need to run, not for the features in the OS. To me an OS change just means I'm going to have to replace software, or worse, that some programs I use will never be available to me again. And for programs that do get updated to work on new OS's, that's time and money the company spent on making old features work again. I'd prefer they spend their money working on new features and bug fixes. 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 for Finale users
--- dhbailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sibelius does allow the computer keyboard selection on pitches (in a much easier way than Finale, in my opinion, in that you hit an A and the closest A appears on the staff, B gives the nearest B, etc, rather than having to use A S D F G H J for one octave of A B C D E F G pitch entry) and it is the work of an instant to use ctrl-up or ctrl-down to change octaves for the pitch you just entered and then the next pitch key you press gives you the nearest example of that pitch. This is largely how Simple Entry works in Finale versions 2004 and above, except that you aren't forced to change the octave after entering it incorrectly at first. This is actually just one instance of a fairly fundamental difference between the two entry systems. Sibelius locks you in with one way and one order to enter these objects. So for example, with Sibelius you must select the accidental before entering your note. Here's a basic list of commands and the order you must issue them in: Duration: Select before entering note Augmentation Dot: before Tie: after Accidental: before Articulation: before Grace note: before (and then reselect duration if not eighth note grace note) Tuplet: after With Finale, each of these elements gives you the choice of before or after. You either press a key to affect the last entered entry (which is shown as selected after you enter it), or you press a key to lock that element into the input caret so that every note you enter gets that attribute. This means that you can, for example, either convert a note to a tuplet right after entering it, or you can lock on tuplets and have them entered automatically for each new set of tuplet notes you reach. This isn't possible in Sibelius, since tuplets must be entered after the note. Once you become familiar with the tool, this duality in Simple Entry becomes a valuable asset. For example, if you want to enter a string of grace notes in Finale, you can lock on grace notes with ctrl-g and then enter the notes (which will take whatever duration you last selected). If you want to enter only a single grace note, you can enter the note first as a regular note and then press alt-g to convert it. With Sibelius, entering a grace note is done through the keypad layouts. You switch to the second keypad, choose the grace note, switch back to the first keypad, choose the duration, enter the note, return to the second keypad, turn off the grace note, return to the first keypad. In Finale, if you make a mistake and enter the wrong duration for a note, you can use a single keystroke to fix it (alt-number - so alt-4 converts last note into eighth note). You don't have to arrow back to the note first or arrow forwards after. In Sibelius if you enter the wrong rhythm, you go back to it with the arrow key, press the duration number to fix it, and then press forward again to continue. If you forget to add your augmentation dot in Sibelius, you also have to go back to the note and add it. In Finale you just press the period key, because it lets you add them before or after entering the note. If you instead lock the dot in with the caret in Finale (ctrl-period), you can enter consecutive notes with augmentation dots. It's the same thing with accidentals and ties. If you wanted to, you could set up Finale's Simple Entry to work almost exactly like Sibelius' entry system by using only the commands Sibelius allows. Shortcuts in Simple Entry can be set up however you want them. But you can't really set Sibelius up to act like Finale. Simple Entry just has more functionality for handling situation-specific demands with fewer keypresses. Tyler Boardwalk for $500? In 2007? Ha! Play Monopoly Here and Now (it's updated for today's economy) at Yahoo! Games. http://get.games.yahoo.com/proddesc?gamekey=monopolyherenow ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius for Finale users
--- dhbailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Tyler Turner wrote: [snip] In Finale, if you make a mistake and enter the wrong duration for a note, you can use a single keystroke to fix it (alt-number - so alt-4 converts last note into eighth note). You don't have to arrow back to the note first or arrow forwards after. In Sibelius if you As long as you haven't yet entered the next note, in Sibelius you can simply hit the proper numpad key to change the duration. No need to cursor back. As long as a note is highlighted (as the one that has just been entered remains until either another note is entered or the ESC key is hit), hitting a duration key (without having to remember to do alt-number) will change the duration. I checked again, and this is incorrect. In Sibelius, when the caret is present, pressing the duration key will always set the duration for the next note to be entered and not affect the currently selected (last entered) note. It will not change the duration of the last note you entered. If you want to change the last entered note, you DO have to arrow back to the note, which removes the caret, press the duration key, then arrow forward to get the caret back. In Finale this is not necessary, as you can use a shortcut to change the duration of the last entered note even though the caret is present and you haven't backtracked. Tyler In either program, if you've entered an intervening note you have to cursor back to the one you want to change. In Sibelius once that's highlighted, simply hitting the proper number changes the duration. [snip] -- David H. Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale Tonight's top picks. What will you watch tonight? Preview the hottest shows on Yahoo! TV. http://tv.yahoo.com/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius for Finale users
--- dhbailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yes there is more variety in Sibelius. Whereas Finale only includes the GPO subset and then included the DXi version of the SmartMusic soundfont, Sibelius also got some instruments from the JABB set so there are saxophones included. And it also includes wider choices of percussion instruments along with a GM set. It is a larger set, all of the same quality that is included with Finale. This isn't the case with Finale 2008. Both programs include sounds from JABB and the Concert/Marching Band set as well as a couple of others. Their sets are somewhat different in the quantity and selection of sounds they've taken from any particular set, but they are fairly comparable on the whole. Tyler Moody friends. Drama queens. Your life? Nope! - their life, your story. Play Sims Stories at Yahoo! Games. http://sims.yahoo.com/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Sibelius for Finale users
--- Aaron Sherber [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: David, I don't believe this is true. Yes, Simple Entry has been around forever, but the revamped Simple introduced a few years ago was very specifically an attempt to mimic the functionality of Sibelius note entry. The revamped Simple Entry of 2004 and 2005 was not intended to mimic Sibelius but rather to blatantly borrow the things Sibelius was doing right and then go way past them in coming up with an efficient tool. Sibelius still maintains an advantage in regional selection that helps greatly when entering music. But looking purely at the entry systems (for both notes and other objects), Simple Entry in Finale is much more efficient. Tyler Be a better Heartthrob. Get better relationship answers from someone who knows. Yahoo! Answers - Check it out. http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=listsid=396545433 ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
RE: [Finale] Re: Finale '08
--- Randolph Peters [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Just added - Over 95 band, jazz band, and orchestra titles, Rubank Advanced Volume 1, and The Yamaha Advantage, Book 1 I don't want to minimize this achievement, but a higher order of magnitude is what I think is needed for a critical mass of repertoire. I'm also curious what kind of time-line is needed to have thousands of works available. What are we talking about here? A few years? A decade? I assume you're talking about the new ensemble literature? If you look at all of the content, there are already thousands of pieces of music in SmartMusic. As far as ensemble pieces, MakeMusic is averaging about 70 new titles per month now. The program also contains most of the leading band method books. Check out the hottest 2008 models today at Yahoo! Autos. http://autos.yahoo.com/new_cars.html ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Re: Finale '08
--- dhbailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It seems that some big-wig at MakeMusic has as his pet hobby-horse SmartMusic Accompaniment system and won't allow the resources to be allocated fairly so that Finale's problems can be properly addressed, all the while the accounting shows that the company depends on the income from the notation programs and especially the annual upgrades, which make whichever quarter they come out in a profitable quarter. I believe you're going to be pretty surprised by how all this turns out in the future. Take a look at the news from yesterday regarding the success of SmartMusic. The last 3 month quarter saw subscriptions jump from 61,000 to nearly 76,000. As the company predicted, SmartMusic 10, with large ensemble audio accompaniments and Impact, is catching on rapidly. And this is just the first semester it's been available. Look back a couple of months at the news from Tucson, where the district ordered 3000 SmartMusic subscriptions for its students. SmartMusic has not been a dead weight for Finale to carry along. Resources spent on SmartMusic have been balanced to its earnings. For a long time the SmartMusic team consisted of a single programmer and no real QA department to speak of. It started picking up the pace when the subscription model launched at the end of 2002, and resources were added accordingly. Now SmartMusic's growth greatly outpaces Finale's. SmartMusic has a limited market -- even though students might subscribe while in school, most musicians aren't interested in that sort of program, but many many musicians are interested in notation programs. I estimate that the audience for SmartMusic is around 100 times the audience for Finale. 76,000 is a tiny fraction of their market (which is why it's growing so fast), whereas with most notation programs, 76,000 active users is more than you'll ever have. Notice that Sibelius has been introducing many new educational products over the years. The focus of many of their hires and their news releases is on their education products. The notation market is tapped out for the most part, and both companies are exploring the education market in order to expand. MakeMusic just happens to be dominating in that area. At this point I think it's very possible that both companies survive. They're both making large gains in areas outside professional notation software, and they are moving into areas where they aren't directly competing with each other. -Tyler Catch up on fall's hot new shows on Yahoo! TV. Watch previews, get listings, and more! http://tv.yahoo.com/collections/3658 ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Re: Finale '08
--- Eric Dannewitz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think MakeMusic, if the trend continues, is not going to be the maker of an excellent notation program. They will be known for their SmartMusic stuff, perhaps even changing their name from MakeMusic (like they did from Coda to MakeMusic) to just SmartMusic Inc. It's good and all that SmartMusic is starting to make them money. It has it's pluses and minuses, there are a lot of things I like and dislike about it. But they really shouldn't drop the ball with their flagship product, especially when all they need to do is fix bugs and complete features. The good thing for Finale users is that SmartMusic's success is tied to Finale in several ways. First, SmartMusic incorporates a good portion of Finale technology. Second, SmartMusic is getting the majority of its important repertoire from publishers, and MakeMusic thus has an interest in keeping publishers using Finale. I don't see this link so much with Sibelius' education products, so if Sibelius' primary income also switches over to educational products, there may be less reason for them to go after the professional notation market. Finally, SmartMusic is becoming a legitimate way for publishers to make extra money and advertise their music, meaning there is some extra benefit for them having their music in Finale format. My hope is that as SmartMusic continues to pick up a greater share of the load, it will eventually allow MakeMusic to relax on Finale's schedule and fix many older issues. SmartMusic is really a blessing for Finale, because it requires the company to maintain its interest in serving those who need professional notation. Tyler Catch up on fall's hot new shows on Yahoo! TV. Watch previews, get listings, and more! http://tv.yahoo.com/collections/3658 ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Windows Finale 2007 crashing problem
A crash involving Apply HP is going to be a different issue than the one people have been reporting on the forum. Your problem with Apply HP could be a corrupt ahp.dat file - you could try closing Finale and deleting the HP.dat and AHP.dat files out of the components file folder to see if it fixes the problem (both files will be recreated after restarting). It could also be the result of trying to process an element in the score which breaks AHP. I believe rolls have done this in the recent past, though I don't get a crash with them with 2007b and the latest HP. The crash problem people on the Finale forum are reporting is I'm fairly certain due to a particular .dll file, and I'm verifying some tests right now before I send the info into MakeMusic. Tyler --- Randolph Peters [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've written to MM complaining about this bug. The program crashes consistently when I apply the HP plugin, never mind actually playing the file. I haven't received a response yet. There are other bugs introduced in 2007 that are very annoying, but maybe we're getting so jaded on this list that complaining feels like a waste of time. Or maybe we would prefer talking about, oh I don't know... ...anything except Finale! Not that I'm complaining. Most of the time I enjoy the diversion. -Randolph Peters Food fight? Enjoy some healthy debate in the Yahoo! Answers Food Drink QA. http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=listsid=396545367 ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
RE: [Finale] WinFin 2007 PDF
--- David W. Fenton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That said, the problem is the source application, not what is used to generate the PDF, nor what is used to view it. The 2007 PDF has no such problems, which means that Finale is now producing better output for conversion to PDF. I'm not positive this is fixed yet. I saw the two PDF files that were shown to demonstrate, and the 2007 one certainly looked fine, but my own testing with PDF995 doesn't show this improvement from 2006 to 2007. I'm using an older copy of PDF995 though, so that could be the problem, or perhaps I'm using different settings for PDF995. I just don't want anyone to upgrade solely for this reason only to find out it's no different. Can someone else test this? 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] Linked parts
--- Chuck Israels [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Johannes, I found Create MM Rests in Manage Parts/Parts Creation Preferences, but turning it on and off does nothing. There's no change. I still have an incorrect MM rest at the beginning and no more MM rests later in the piece. This is completely wrong and obstinate behavior. Then I took Christopher's suggestion and re-defined all the measure attributes - the whole piece. Nothing changes, so I am stumped. This is beyond disturbing. Chuck Did you try the suggestion of going into the Document Options Multimeasure rests and turning on the option for automatically updating the rests? When you switch away from and back to the part, it should update them. If you're still having trouble, I'd be happy to take a look at the file for you if you'd like to e-mail it to me. Cheers, 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] Linked parts
In case there's any confusion about this Update Automatically setting for multimeasure rests - The feature is intended to let Finale break multimeasure rests where notes have been added. It is not intended to automatically create them in measures that weren't previously grouped into multimeasure rests (so you should be able to break rests and not have it create them again). The feature is generally run when switching between parts and I think also when switching between page/studio/scroll views. The definition of any existing multimeasure rest will I believe be reset to default if this option is checked. This means that if you are editing multimeasure rests individually, such as for number positioning, you will want this setting unchecked. This is why the setting is turned off by default for existing files. 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] Articulation Selection Problem
--- Dejan Badnjar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am not sure if this issue is isolated with my installation of Finale 2007 or it's a bug. Since I had problems with loading my articulation libraries last night and not being able to see half of the symbols I started creating a new library. But when I make articulations as SHAPES I am not being able to select and keep FLIPPED symbol as a SHAPE. The box stays empty not matter what I do. 2006 libraries load in OK and keep the selection but I can't see some of the symbols in the selection window, they appear as dots. Can you gentlemen try this with your Fin. 2007. Someone reported this a couple of days ago on the Finale forum. I confirmed it and sent it in to customer support. I recommend you send it to them as well since they will be prioritizing these fixes. I suspect this will be considered pretty important. 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] Igor: What's the scoop?
--- Williams, Jim [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Along the same lines, has anyone used TURANDOT? www.turandot.hu , another program that appeared and then stalled in development. It's going to sound strange, but I think anyone who is interested in purchasing Turandot should write to Sibelius and ask if Turandot has done anything illegal or morally questionable in their software design. When Turandot originally came out years ago, I was amazed by how similar it was to Sibelius - right down to dialogs that were so similar that they looked like copies. I sent an e-mail to Sibelius, and they were also alarmed by the similarities and were going to be looking into it. That's the last I've heard about it. And so out of respect for Sibelius, I recommend researching this issue before jumping in. 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] Clefs in linked parts
--- Robert Patterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Tyler Turner wrote: Use a staff style to set the staff in the score to use a chromatic transposition, set to clef. This works in many cases, but there is one where it is dicey, and that's a partial-meas cue where the clef changes in the score. Consider a cello part in bass clef where the next entrance changes to tenor clef. In the part you want to insert a treble-clef vln cue immediately before the change to tenor. The staff style by itself won't work because it must be applied to whole measures. If you apply it to the whole meas, you lose your tenor clef. The only solution I can think of is a score-only expression, and even then you have to hide a spurious clef change at the beginning of the next measure. Yes, this does seem to be an exception. Although, it requires some fairly uncommon circumstances, since not only do you have to have the clef change, but it also has to occur on the first measure of the line (otherwise you could use the No Clef staff style). I also had to use score-only exps to display rests on the correct line in a partial-meas cue situation. So far I've found that these situations can be resolved via staff styles for hiding specific layers (and then using additional layers to get the rests in there). Not ideal, but a solution that feels a little more solid for me. 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] Clefs in linked parts
--- Dejan Badnjar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Robert, you're absolutely right. I am officially giving up on linked parts until next time. Separate files are safest for now. If by separate parts you mean 2 files, a score file and then a copy of the score file that is used for all of the parts, then I very much agree this is the best way to go. But there shouldn't be any need to go to the old system of extracting all of the parts. You gain many advantages by not doing this. 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] Finale 2007 review
--- Johannes Gebauer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Creating the parts when setting up the score would be a serious limitation, and cause a lot of extra work later on. How so? If you needed an additional part, you'd create it. There would be times that you could change the staves that were in a part and preserve the work that had been done to the part from the score. I don't understand how having a linked part from the beginning could possibly slow you down. Worst case scenario, you click Generate Parts to create new parts, as you would have done anyway. Any other scenario, by the time you get to cleaning up your parts, you will have less to do. You understand that I'm not saying you should go to any of these parts and work on them while you're developing your score, right? I'm just saying that having the parts exist allows you to make adjustments to them from the score if you desire. -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] Finale 2007 review
--- Johannes Gebauer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 15.08.2006 Robert Patterson wrote: The Unlink from Parts option is grayed out until there actually are parts present. What we were discussing is setting this up once in a template. Stupid. Really stupid. I'd call it necessary. Where is an object going to show up at if it's not linked when the part is initially created? It sounds to me like we'd have some extremely unpredictable behavior if the creation of a part didn't initially have objects placed in the same way that they are placed in the score (and in the same show/hide state). This is easy to work with - just create your parts initially (which is the default behavior now). __ 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] Installing WinFin2007
--- dhbailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So my question is, what is missing should a person decide to select Custom and then select every option? Given the huge disparity between the two installations (larger than my very first hard drive was!), I backed out and chose Typical so as to be sure not to miss anything. I believe there's a bug in the custom install - it doesn't allow you to install the soundfont. 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] Finale 2007 review
--- Johannes Gebauer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I might be missing something, but what is wrong with having items which can be set to only display in the score, even before parts exist. Ok, an additional benefit might be to include a mechanism which could selectivly link them to certain parts, but as a start I'd be quite happy to have an object category which is permanently not present in the parts. I can see no problems with such objects. It would be extremely useful for footnotes and the likes. For this option to not hurt my work, it would have to have some sort of checker that I could run to hunt for items with this setting. It would be difficult enough for me to remember if I had enabled this setting for an object in one of my own scores several months after dealing with it. But for working on scores made by other people it would be a real problem. If the option was made available, I'd really hope that they'd also give us a command that could help us find each of these objects. It's one thing for a part to have something visible on it that shouldn't be there - this I have a good shot of spotting and correcting. It's another thing if it's something that's missing. Seriously though, there's a great amount of time to be saved by creating the linked parts at the time the score is initially created. We can begin our part editing while we're working on the score. There are many occasions that we can now move an object only once because of this rather than the multiple times we used to. Perhaps something that would benefit you would be to have a unique color for items which are unlinked in some parts but not all parts. 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] Finale 2007 review
--- dhbailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrot From this we can conclude that frequency of requests for a particular feature doesn't always mean diddly-squat in Finale's prioritizing which features get implemented or improved. Just another bit of confidence slowly eroding away. Calling unicode a popular feature request is sort of a relative statement. Is it requested by people? Yes. Is it requested as much as any of the major features implemented in Finale over the past few years? Not by a long shot. Still, the most popular requests aren't always the ones that get implemented. I doubt very much that Linked Parts ranked as the number one request this year, although I'm sure it was requested more after Sibelius implemented it. 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] Finale 2007 review
--- dhbailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: When the head tech-support person calls something a very popular request we can only assume that it is a very popular request and there seems to be nothing particularly relative about that. Unless they rank things by some sort of scale such as Extremely Popular Very Popular Popular Not very popular Sporadic Extremely sporadic. No, I don't have to assume that. I spent over 2 years in customer support, and I have a very good idea about how often this request comes up. Is it important to some people? Yes. Is it important to 1/20th the number of Finale users as playback improvements are? No. As to the linked score/parts, whether it was the number 1 request from users or not, the moment Sibelius' marketing department began touting it as a great feature of Sib4, I'm sure the Finale marketing department began clamoring for it, and it seems that if they request something, they get it. Actually I believe the decision for this feature did not come from marketing. So we only have to convince the Sibelius marketing department to make a bigger splash about how Sib4 supports unicode which is a terrific asset to those who work with vocal music, especially in languages other than English. That way the Finale marketing department will become more aware of it and they would request it so they could tout it in the publicity about Finale. THEN we'd get it. It should serve as a clue that they don't trumpet this feature, despite the fact that it's an advantage of Sibelius. Now I understand that this isn't really a meaningful statistic, but for what it's worth: A Google search of Sibelius unicode font returns 31 results. Finale unicode font returns 43 results. Comparing the activity on the forum from this year to last year, there's not nearly as much interest in linked parts as there was in Finale GPO, despite the fact that there is a higher than normal concentration of engravers there than is typical of the userbase. This is consistent with what I would have expected to see after 2 years of communicating with thousands of users. 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] Finale 2007 review
--- dc [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Tyler Turner écrit: Is it [Unicode support] requested as much as any of the major features implemented in Finale over the past few years? Not by a long shot. Textured paper springs to mind... Dennis I'd put money on more people caring about textured paper, to be honest. Although those who do care about unicode care about it more than the people who care about textured paper care about the paper. But textured paper doesn't qualify as a major feature. I'm talking about things that took the programmers some significant time to develop - not things that they were able to add in a day or two. 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] Finale 2007 review
--- A-NO-NE Music [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That's not the point, tho. All the OSes process data in UTF-8/16 now. Even Win2K/XP processes in Unicode even though their display is still MS propriety code page. Yes, it was the point. We were discussing the popularity of unicode as a feature request. 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] Finale 2007 review
--- A-NO-NE Music [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yes, it was the point. We were discussing the popularity of unicode as a feature request. Huh? I was talking about data passing. You enter utf-8 character in File Info under Finale's File menu, which is corrupted on Page view. I wasn't responding to your e-mail. I was responding to the mention that unicode support was a popular request. Whether it's a fix or a feature request doesn't matter - the question I was addressing was whether the improvement of this issue was actually something that many people want (compared to the number of people that want some of the other features that have gone into Finale). 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Oh, one more question... I don't believe you ever specified, but all along I've been assuming that the computer with the Radeon X600 is outperforming the computer with the Radeon 9000 (in Finale, with the hardware acceleration slider up). Do I have that right? No, it went the other way. The 3.0 GHz machine with the Radeon 9000 was significantly slower than the 3.2GHz machine with the X600 with the acceleration off. After turning on all of the features, the 3.0GHz machine outperforms the 3.2GHz machine. This is the reason I believe that we're seeing the effect of more features being enabled for the X600. It's not a dramatically faster card than the 9000 (especially in terms of memory speed, which that article told us is the critical factor for 2D performance), and the PrintMusic file I tested has a ton of material on the page that would make any extra work being performed on a particular object be performed a great number of times. -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] Using plugins with parts
--- dhbailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wr The fact that the plug-ins are grayed out in parts mode was discussed on this list this past week. Nobody on the list knows whether it's a bug or a feature, but we're hoping that Finale will fix things in the interim release they always bring out (some years sooner than others). It was definitely intentional, and the reasoning was because the ability for plug-ins to add staves to linked parts could cause data corruption. If you add a staff to a linked part, you'll see that the staff doesn't exist in the score. It doesn't even show up in all of the same places as normal staves in the Manage Parts dialog. Originally they intended to disable only the plug-ins that could add staves, but it turned out to not be technically possible for them to do this. I'll be surprised if we don't see more work done in this area in a 2007 update. While obviously not ideal from a user's perspective, blocking plug-ins from being run while in a linked part is a fairly effective means of protecting the majority of users. None of the included Finale plug-ins that would have been likely to catch unsuspecting users are modal. FinaleScript is the only included plug-in that can do this, and I'm guessing the number of users that are using FinaleScript to run an Add Staff command can probably be counted on one hand. And even if a few people figure out that they can sneak a staff in by starting in score view, starting FinaleScript, switching to a part and using an Add Staff script, as far as I can tell it's not going to be a definite disaster for their file (I had experimented with using added staves to create some interesting workarounds). -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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: According to this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Radeon_9000#Mobility, the Radeon 9000 Mobility is based on the R200 core, has a fillrate of just 800 MT/s, its clock speed is 200 MHz and its memory speed is 250 MHz. (I'm assuming you have the 9000 and not the 9000 Pro). Whereas the X600 Pro is based on a more powerful chipset (R300 core), has twice the clock speed and (from what I can tell) 2.4 times the memory speed, and twice the fillrate. No Darcy. It is the 9000 Pro (or at least was advertised as such by the manufacturer), but the X600 is not the Pro version. As I said before, the memory speeds reported are very close between the two cards. Since you said there was no difference in image quality from having the graphics acceleration slider down vs. up, it sure sounds like *something* (badly written driver? Some quirk of SmartMusic?) is causing a massive and unnecessary slowdown on your X600 -- so much so that it's getting spanked by a much slower graphics card. I said that I don't see a difference visually, but considering we're talking about black and white graphics in PrintMusic/Finale (not SmartMusic), it's a little hard to conclude that nothing is different. If the extra work being asked of your X600 is killing performance and not actually improving image quality, to me that sounds like a software problem and not a hardware problem, especially if the slowdown is only in selected applications. Not if certain enhancements are being applied that just aren't terribly obvious. And keep in mind that I said that both cards exhibit a dramatic decrease in speed. It's just a greater decrease in the case of the X600 with all features enabled than with the 9000 Pro with all features enabled. Even with the 9000 Pro the decrease is going from around 10fps down to about 2fps. When I did my own Googling on this, I found lots of references to people who found that backing off one notch on the graphics acceleration slider dramatically increased performance in selected applications. According to these user reports, in some cases, an update to the application fixed the problem; in other cases, an updated driver did. I know you have the latest ATI drivers, but of course that's not to say they are necessarily 100% bug-free. I'm pretty positive that I can try this on just about any PC and find that there will be a decrease in performance. We're clearly adding more work for the GPU. Since my cards are similar in memory speed performance, and since we've read that this is a key factor for 2D performance, it's not far-fetched to guess that any extra work repeated many times over could be enough to switch things around. Making guesses at this point is just silly though. The key test would be to get a hold of a computer that has a video card with memory that runs at 3 to 4 times the speed of these cards (which today's best cards have) and see how it performs with two cards of 2 different memory speeds. 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Oops -- sorry, I definitely misread the memory speed thing (it's given differently at each Wiki page). The X600 does not have 2.4 times the memory speed, it has 1.2 times the memory speed. My bad. It's not even 1.2 times. I don't trust this Wikipedia page. It's not reporting the same speeds as reported by my system, and it's not reporting the same speeds I see listed in other internet articles about the card. 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: Tech support was Re: [Finale] Using plugins with parts
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Contact the techsupport people at makemusic's web-site, but be forewarned that they designed it so as to discourage any but the most irate and determined customers from actually completing the process. Unless they have revamped it recently, that is. Actually they've designed it so that they don't get completely ridiculous amounts of spam. It was getting worse by the day when I left support 3 years ago. I'd easily spend 30 minutes or more in the morning just going through and deleting spam e-mails, e-mails with virus attachments, etc. As I understand it, the problem had become exponentially worse. The new system is nice in that it actually assigns case numbers and gets people to include useful information which results in more productive support. It also ensures that the people who are paying for products are getting first priority - something that was never possible to achieve with the old e-mail system. You spend a little extra time filling out your support request, but you get your answers faster in return. 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Johannes Gebauer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: However, I sort of doubt that vertical collision remover would run faster with a faster graphics board. On the other hand I do not doubt it would run significantly faster on a faster processor. On Windows just as much as on Mac. That's not the debate. The debate is whether a second processor or a faster graphics card would have a better chance of helping. Since Finale doesn't use more than one processor, adding a second processor, at least on Windows, would do extremely little over a single dual core processor. There were two things in this discussion that I was claiming: 1. Modern graphics processors are not identical in 2D performance. Darcy wants to get me to talk specifically about the 7300GT, but that isn't the only modern graphics card out there (nor is it one I'd consider, since I am doing 3D activities that would benefit from a better card). I believe that my one year old computer that was purchased with the best graphics chip available from the manufacturer at the time, is in all fairness using a modern processor. I don't care what's shipping with the Mac. All I'm saying is that there is definitely some variance in 2D performance among modern graphic cards. The fact of the matter is that the video card in my machine is still sold today, and I believe I have shown good cause to believe that a different card would perform 2D tasks more effectively. 2. For Windows software, it currently makes much more sense for me to purchase a computer with a single Core 2 Duo processor and a high quality graphics card than it does to purchase a machine with 2 Core 2 Duo processors and a bottom of the line graphics card or integrated solution. This is because I will see more performance gain from a high quality graphics card than I will from a second dual core processor. 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thanks for that link, Roger. Tyler was extremely insulted when I asked I'm assuming you've installed the latest drivers for both these cards, correct? -- but based on the Adobe article you referenced, the most common cause of Tyler's problem is old/bad drivers. That may not have been a factor in Tyler's specific case, but it wasn't an inappropriate question. Why don't you also point out that the article mentioned that users might see better performance from a video card with at least 128MB of memory? That doesn't sound like universal equality among 2D performance to me. Your comment was insulting because it treated me as if I was an idiot. I think by that point in the conversation I had shown plenty of reason for you to believe that I had at least enough knowledge of Windows and all of this for you to just kindly assume that I know how to keep my Windows computers up to date. How many Windows PC's have you put together and maintained? Fewer than me? Good - just give me credit for some beginner stuff then. 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] Finale 2007 RAM issues
--- James Gilbert [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I still want to know why a notation program has to use SOOO much memory to notate music. (I can understand why playback or GPO or the like might need a lot more, but why can't those be loaded in only if needed instead of bloating the whole software? It seems like bad programming). Oh, my sound and video card are separate from the system RAM. There are many things that eat up memory. The soundfont is loaded into memory. Plug-ins take up memory. The application is going to load things into memory to speed up access to them. There are a lot of graphics being thrown around here, and part of Finale 2006 getting much faster at redrawing probably included making more use of system RAM. Keep in mind that Windows XP is supposed to be given 128MB of memory, and so MakeMusic has to require an amount that takes this into consideration. Looking at Finale in the task manager right now, it's using about 110MB of memory. That doesn't strike me as being extreme. -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] Finale 2007 RAM issues
--- David W. Fenton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: None of that makes any sense. Why would an installer check the RAM available when it's *running* rather than the *installed* RAM? Perhaps you're right, though, if the system RAM grabbed by the onboard devices is showing up as unavailable. I don't know how those kinds of things work, since I'd never buy a system that is so poorly designed as to be using system RAM for those purposes. I believe if you look at the amount of memory reported by Windows as being installed on the system, system memory that has been dedicated to video will not be reported. So a system with 256MB of Ram with integrated video that uses 32MB from this will only report that it has 224MB of memory. If the program isn't installing and is reporting that the computer doesn't have enough memory, this would be my guess as to what's going on. -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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As I've pointed out several times already, the ATI X600 uses the same chipset as the ATI 9600, which was originally released in 2003. It's unfortunate that the manufacturer did not allow you to select a better graphics card at the time, but as you know, when it comes to computers, three years is an eternity. I did my research at the time of the purchase though. The X600's were not slow for notebook graphic solutions. While I'm guessing the mobile 9700's would have been faster (if you could find them), the mobile X800's hadn't been released at the time I purchased my system (they came a couple of weeks later). 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] Finale 2007 RAM issues
--- David W. Fenton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There are many things that eat up memory. The soundfont is loaded into memory. . . . Not if you're not using it. I'll have to check again, but I believe this isn't the case. Essentially, as long as the soundfont file and the aiolib.dll file are in their correct places, these will be loaded upon running Finale. . . . Plug-ins take up memory. . . . Not when you're not running them, and even then, only a very small amount. Again, I'm pretty sure this isn't true. Removing plug-ins from the plug-ins folder decreases the amount of memory Finale takes to run. . . . The application is going to load things into memory to speed up access to them. . . . If Finale 2006 runs just fine on this James's system, then I can't see why Finale 2006 would not. Can anyone with both 2006 and 2007 profile memory usage? Perhaps the code to support linked parts has vastly bloated Finale. This is an installer issue, right? It's basically checking to see how much memory is reported as installed? I think Finale 2007 includes new latin percussion soundfonts as well as new plug-ins that would take some additional memory. This could have been enough to make them decide to up the requirement. . . . There are a lot of graphics being thrown around here, . . . . You of all people should know that this is much less an issue of system RAM than it is of the graphics card installed on the machine. Yes, but the actual Finale data that it's keeping track of? . . . .and part of Finale 2006 getting much faster at redrawing probably included making more use of system RAM. . . . Perhaps. But James says Finale 2006 runs just fine on his system, so that makes this point completely irrelevant. Not if we're talking about small changes that pushed the requirement up to the next level. After all, you make a requirement for the amount of memory that's going to safely run the software - not the bare minimum to keep it working reliably. We typically see packaging reporte requirements for 128 MB or 256MB... how often do we see a requirement for 206.5MB? It's just normal for companies to express requirements in amounts that match typical configurations. . . . Keep in mind that Windows XP is supposed to be given 128MB of memory, and so MakeMusic has to require an amount that takes this into consideration. . . . The WinXP RAM minimum does not mean that WinXP takes over 128MBs of RAM, it is only the basic amount of RAM that is needed to boot the OS and run an application or two. Nevertheless, MakeMusic is going to consider the stated OS requirements when it makes its own requirements. . . . Looking at Finale in the task manager right now, it's using about 110MB of memory. That doesn't strike me as being extreme. Maybe not, but I just loaded up a large file in Finale 2003 and it's taking only 23MBs. The same file loaded into the Finale 2005 demo takes up 57MBs. If each version of Finale is doubling the RAM needs, that would be 120MBs for Finale 2006, and 240MBs for Finale 2007, but it would be ridiculous to assume such a doubling with every version. What version of Finale do you show using 110MBs? I'm looking at Finale 2007. But keep in mind that the memory usage is going to depend on how much RAM you have installed. On computers that have more memory, Windows XP will let Finale use a greater portion of it (assuming it's not being used by another app). After working with the program for a while, the amount of RAM used can vary by hundreds of megabytes, depending on the machine. 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] Finale 2007 RAM issues
--- James Gilbert [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The MakeMusic site says NOTHING about FREE memory, only that your system should have 256meg installed. If you right-click My Computer and choose Properties, what does it state the amount of RAM is? Thanks, 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] Finale 2007 review
--- Richard Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think I was unclear about the Keypad in Sibelius. Most of the time (laptop on the go excluded) I use the 10 key pad on the keyboard. Clicking on the toolbar on the screen is slower. The features I like to have close at hand are almost all on the top tab on the keypad (or in the right click context menu). Others working differently or with different musical requirements might have a different experience. In general, Sibelius works better with more keyboard and less mousing and has extensive keyboard shortcuts. Keyboard shortcuts are a big reason that I prefer Finale to Sibelius. The keypad system in Sibelius is not as efficient as Simple Entry in Finale. There are some elements that Sibelius allows to be entered via keystroke that Finale does not, but these are not the most common elements. For the most common elements, Finale's system is faster. (and actually, for the other elements, I've created my own system for working with Finale that is more efficient than Sibelius). 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] Finale 2007 RAM issues
--- David W. Fenton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And in any event, your last sentence points out the absurdity of interpreting the 256MB requirement as meaning FREE RAM, since the amount of free RAM depends entirely on what's running already. When did I ever suggest in the least that it did? The only thing I've ever stated is that the installer looks at the reported amount of installed memory. My only guesses here are that either the system isn't really reporting 256MB of memory or the installer is really expecting a larger amount of installed memory to be reported. I've never thought this had anything to do with how much memory is currently being used. If I had any other guess, it would be that perhaps the installer is trying to make sure there's enough room for Finale GPO... 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] Finale 2007 review
--- Don Hart [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Richard, I may not totally understand the difficulties your job presented, but layers can easily be reassigned if view active layer only is selected, and all four layers are not in use (doable, but not what I'd describe as easy when all layers are busy). I believe that there is also a plugin to convert voices to layers but I have never used it so I can't really comment on that. Don Hart My first thought, assuming the notes were in a single layer and he wanted to split some of them out to a second layer, was that perhaps explode music or TGTools part extraction could have been used to get them to a second staff. Or perhaps something with the Notemover Tool, moving them to a different staff. But the people on this list are all-too-familiar with these solutions, so if they didn't find the solution, there probably wasn't a good way to do it in Finale. This is an area where Sibelius is ahead. 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] linked parts; many scores?
--- Randolph Peters [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Question: For those who know Finale 2007, do you think it is possible to make the linked parts feature be able to create different versions of the score? I'm thinking of having one version tabloid size for an orchestra conductor and another a study score on letter-sized paper with different page layout and number of bars per system. Yes, you can do this, but it will take a little work. Parts can include as many staves from the score as you want. So one would be your actual score, and the other would be a big part that just looks like a score. Steps would I believe be the following (if anyone sees something I'm missing, please point it out). 1. Manage Parts dialog, new part, add all the staves to it. 2. Edit the page size to be tabloid (or letter if you're going the other way). 3. Edit the system size to be appropriate. 4. Create the staff groups in your new part (groups are not brought over from the real score - this will be the biggest step). 5. Create a staff style set to show part staff names and apply it to the entire part (ordinarily staff names and abbreviated staff names are turned off for parts, so you need to use a staff style to turn them back on for this particular part. You'll most likely want to work primarily from the real score, as you'll have more convenient access to the plug-ins from there. Measures per system and all of that page layout type stuff should be independent. -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] Finale 2007 review
--- Johannes Gebauer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I do like to have Partitur printed on the the cover of my scores, but I do not want it either on the first page, or at the top of every other page, like I do with part names. This is impossible without having to correct it manually after the generation of parts. I'm not sure I understand why it's impossible, unless you're saying that each of your parts also have cover pages. A text block that's only on a blank page at the beginning of the score (attached to a single page) will not show up on parts that don't also have a blank page at the beginning. This is because text blocks have gained some intelligence about their attachment in relation to the first page that contains music. If your parts also have blank pages, then yes, you will have the text block appearing there as well. Is there any chance that a different overall strategy would work better for you? I'm thinking that you might actually modify your templates so that they already have the parts generated in them. This way you could set the formatting up as you see fit, including differing numbers of blank pages between parts and score if necessary, different default text positions, different baseline positionings, etc. -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] Finale 2007 Installation Options
--- Aaron Sherber [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It would be nice to have some kind of confirmation about this. If GPO full and JABB are not yet compatible with Kontakt 2, I'll bet that some people who rely on those libraries will want to hold off on their Finale upgrade. Just so long as it's clear - there's nothing preventing users from using GPO and JABB with Finale 2007 as they did with 2006 - these libraries still come with their older Kontakt Players, and these of course still work with Finale 2007. Finale 2007 isn't limited to using the Kontakt 2 Player, and in fact one of the things you'll notice is that your old files still open up using the old Finale GPO player. The universal binary for Kontakt Player 2 is not yet available, and MakeMusic says this will be provided to Mac users when it does become available. However, as I understand it, both versions of the Kontakt Player do work with Rosetta - someone else should confirm this on the GPO forum. Also, some people have said that there are some differences between the instrument files that are installed with the full GPO and Finale GPO, and the creators of GPO have gone on record as recommending that people with GPO also install Finale GPO. People should look this up on the GPO forum for more information. -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] Finale 2007 review
--- Johannes Gebauer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think I may work it out anyhow, though I haven't tested this yet. Is it possible to unlink a text block from all parts, even before parts are generated, so that it won't appear in any future parts? I must test this, this might work. No, I don't believe it's possible to break a link before a part exists. If the object is showing in the score at the time the part is generated, it will be showing in the part as well. This is because the linking for each part is handled individually. Another possibility here for some people might be to actually add 2 blank pages at the beginning of the score instead of just 1. A text block on on the first of two blank pages in the score would not show in parts with only a single blank page. Of course, I understand this has the potential to screw up printing for the score, depending on the process you use for doing this. -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] Finale 2007 GPO Usage
--- Dean M. Estabrook [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ok, I've sort of been paying attention so, if I were to upgrade to Fin2007, using my one year old Mac G5, there should be no prob accessing both GPO and SoftSynth libraries, and no diff in my FinGPO playback ... right? We're just talking about the newer Intel based Macs having some issues, yes? Correct. You shouldn't notice a difference, other than perhaps improved performance using Finale GPO with Kontakt Player 2 (and if not, you can still use the old player). 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Radeon 9000. Both are mobility versions. Huh? I thought you had desktop computers. Are you saying you have mobility (i.e. laptop) GPU's installed in your desktop machines? No. The two test machines I was comparing are both notebook computers. I'm not using my desktop. I'm asking you what you *see* on your screen. Let me put it this way: if you took a screenshot of a Finale document with the slider all the way up, and another screenshot with the slider all the way down, is there any difference between the two? Not that I can personally see. You're really missing a big point here. The controls in this dialog are tailor made by the video card manufacturer for the specific card. Are you sure? For Macs with retail video cards, the ATI control panels are the same across the entire family of cards. Isn't it possible that the slider for the Radeon 9000 works the same way across that family of Radeons? Yes Darcy. I'm 100% positive. It's a fact. Sure thing. The screens in the dialog tabs are COMPLETELY different from one card to the next (verified on my own systems). And the tabs that appear for one video card don't even all appear for another. It's CUSTOMIZED SPECIFICALLY FOR THE VIDEO CARD. But what features are those? You still haven't said. What if turning the slider all the way up enables some 3D-only feature like, say, anisotropic filtering, that could cause a significant performance hit without actually improving 2D image quality? There is a tab for 3D. The rest have different tab labels. For goodness sake look it up on the internet These features are NOT limited to 3D enhancements. Or -- and this seems more likely with the situation you describe -- what if it enables excessive screen caching, filling up the memory on your video card and forcing the screen caches to be spooled out to RAM, or even virtual memory? All 256MB of video card memory... for a 2D application? There's no hard drive activity going on here. This isn't virtual memory. This is something that sometimes happens on Macs with video cards with insufficient video RAM. (How much VRAM does your Radeon 9000 have, anyway?) 128MB If a video card doesn't support one of these features, the feature wouldn't be in the dialog in the first place. It might if, for instance, nVidia gave you a generic slider for all 7XXX-series cards, or even all 7300-series cards, which (as we've mentioned) have very different features and performance depending on what flavor of 7300 you're using. nVidia and ATI usually release one set of drivers for each family of cards, not each individual card. But the driver software knows the cards they're written for. Also -- I'm assuming you've installed the latest drivers for both these cards, correct? Give me a break. The fact that you need to turn this slider up for maximum performance in some apps and turn it down for maximum performance in others is not something I've ever heard anyone complain about before. Then do a little reading. I found plenty of people discussing this when I looked at the articles in that Google search I gave you. It sure sounds to me like something weird is going on. Again, it would help if you could describe specifically what features are enabled or disabled at various slider positions on your system. I somehow highly doubt it will help. So, if you'll allow me to put aside all of our other disagreements for the moment, I'd like to make a simple, narrow claim: I doubt a more expensive video card would significantly improve the speed of non-3D tasks in that specific computer. Right. And you believe there is consensus out there among experts that 2D performance has been maxed out on video cards for some time now. How about this: Yesterday I sent a letter to Matrox, a company who has established itself as a leader in graphic solutions for 2D productivity applications. I explained that, using my ATI X600 video card with a 2D application, I was experiencing more slow down with the hardware acceleration slider turned up than with it turned down. The response? If you are experiencing slowdowns it is most likely that your card lacks the power to support the features that it is trying to run with hardware acceleration turned all the way up. 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] Finale 2007 review
--- dhbailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Fiskum, Steve wrote: They have removed New Staff position from the old Extract Parts' Page Options dialog box. This is a big problem for some of us who work with consistent styles. Did they remove it or just move it? Different is the best word for it. The Respace Staves command in the Staff menu now can be set to affect the current document only, only the score, all parts, or one or more specific parts. So what you've lost here is the ability to have a sticky setting that's always applied for the staff spacing when parts get created. What you've gained is the ability to alter the staff spacing for all (or some) of the parts after they have been created with a single action, rather than having to go through all of the parts individually or re-extract. The ability to apply settings like this to parts or the score separately (but with one action) has been added for several dialogs. 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] ETF and plugin development
--- Andrew Stiller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If that is the case, then why couldn't plugin developers keep a copy of 2K6, use its ETF capacity to generate files for plugin work, then tweak the resulting plugin to function w. 2K7? Plug-in developers should contact MakeMusic to ask about using the development builds of the software which still have the ETF saving feature (which doesn't save linked parts data). I believe MakeMusic will accommodate plug-in developers. 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] Finale 2007 review
--- Fiskum, Steve [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm glad they made you happy with this feature. I for one am not happy with this decision. There is no reason they could not have incorporated both ways of approaching this issue. The more I thought about it the more I felt I could understand why they couldn't incorporate both methods easily. The possibility is certainly there, but I don't believe it's a simple matter of retaining a feature, but rather redeveloping it. That feature in 2006 was never like a typical document setting. Rather it acted like a one-time respace-staves action that took place during the extraction process. If you added staves to a part after it was extracted, those staves did not take on the spacing indicated in that dialog, but rather used the normal spacing value that always is applied when we add new staves to a score. This implementation would not have worked in the Linked Parts system. When you go and add a staff to a part in the Manage Parts dialog, that linked part is not recreated. All of the settings that were in it beforehand are retained, including the staff spacing of staves that remained in the part. It wouldn't be good if simply adding or removing a staff from a part blew away all of the changes we had made to that part (which is what recreating the part would mean). Trying to fit the command in during actual part extraction wouldn't work well either, since the whole thing was designed to create an extracted part that retained all changes that had been made to the linked part it came from. What we essentially need here is a completely new feature that allows the user to specify an actual document setting for the spacing of newly created/added staves, and ideally this feature would allow separate settings for the score and parts. 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] Finale 2007 review
--- David W. Fenton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: An issue that I think is highly relevant, but that only a few can probably comment on, is how the issue of voice handling in multi-part score systems - parts compares to Sibelius's corresponding solution to the same problem. I believe someone said that Sibelius doesn't do it too well, but can't recall who. People are going to find that the implementation of Linked Parts in Finale and Dynamic Parts in Sibelius are similar but with various strengths in favor of one or the other. Sibelius doesn't actually have a feature for doing this - a staff in the score will always have the same notes as the parts derived from that staff. Users can work around this in a couple of different ways: 1. Extract the part and work with it the old way. 2. Create the score with all of the staves you will need, including, for example, a flute 1 staff and a flute 2 staff in addition to the flute 1,2 staff that you ordinarily would only show in the score. Then make one huge part from that score that includes only the staves you actually want showing in your score (in this case, you'd leave the flute 1 and flute 2 staves out, adding only the flute 1,2 staff). Both of these methods can be used in Finale as well. Finale offers the 3rd option, which is to let it handle the splitting (and then make edits to it by extracting if necessary). As clumsy as method 2 may sound, it's not a horrible way to go. The idea of being able to see both part staves and the original source staff in the score at once is useful, since you can quickly see which notes are going where to make sure everything is accounted for, and you can also put anything you want on those staves. I suspect some people will use this method in Finale as well when the supplied method doesn't cut it. But we'll also see situations where the Finale method is sufficient or close enough to sufficient to save time. -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] Finale 2007 review
--- Robert Patterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] The problem is that it used to be fully automatic: nothing in the score, but a text block in the part. I see your issue now, and agree it is a bad problem. It is really useless for Score to appear in score view anyway. The program should allow control over that text (and allow it to be blank or hidden.) I don't understand why this is a problem. Johannes pointed out that you can change it in the File Info dialog, either to whatever text you want or to nothing at all. Doesn't this cover it? 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: All I'm saying -- and I've been pretty clear about this, I think -- is that, of cards currently on the market, when it comes to 2D performance, there is no significant difference between a $100 graphics card and a $1500 graphics card. And you've never shown any evidence to dispute the fact that on my very own machine I've been able to show that with more graphic card features enabled, performance in Finale slows down. You've made the claim that this is actually the CPU doing this work, but as I've indicated, Microsoft and other companies state that it is all video hardware handling these tasks. The Radeon 9700 Pro is STILL a decent video card by today's standards For 2D applications, perhaps -- it was, after all, a top-of-the-line high-performance card at the time. I'd rather have a Radeon 9700 in this machine than an X600. The graphic features that are most widely used in software these days, such as lighting effects and anti-aliasing, were all well-along in their development by the time the 9700's rolled out. This is just silly though. You're telling me that because I'm simply not able to find many articles addressing 2D performance that it some how indicates the performance has equalized? I've explained to you that I have a real, reproducible situation involving Finale that strongly suggests I am correct. And the articles that I have been able to find back me up. Believe me. If my X600 stumbles badly at this resolution, I have GOOD reason to believe a 7300GT would stumble if I was trying to run 2 displays on it at a much higher resolution. And my needs don't stop with running a single 2D application with changing graphics at one time. And I will soon be required to update to Windows Vista. I have every reason to believe that I'll be better served by spending hundreds of dollars on a video card rather than an extra processor. __ 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 10 Aug 2006, at 3:31 AM, Tyler Turner wrote: And you've never shown any evidence to dispute the fact that on my very own machine I've been able to show that with more graphic card features enabled, performance in Finale slows down. I don't know how I could possibly produce evidence that you don't see what you're seeing on your machine. I'm not doubting your results as reported. But frankly, I'm still unconvinced that the results you are describing are explained by inadequate 2D performance on your graphics card, or that a more expensive card would give you significantly better 2D results. This flies in the face of everything I've ever read about video cards -- and believe it or not, I've read a lot about video cards. Does having a faster processor fly in the face of everything you've heard about performance? Did you read the user accounts I pointed out in which other users reported improvement after switching to video cards with reputations for better 2D graphics? People are saying that performance improved for them. Are you just unwilling to believe them? This is just silly though. You're telling me that because I'm simply not able to find many articles addressing 2D performance that it some how indicates the performance has equalized? Yes, in fact. I'm saying that every authority I trust, backed up by ever 2D benchmark I've ever seen, supports the view that there is effectively no difference in 2D performance between modern video cards. That's why you don't see many 2D benchmarks in video card reviews -- they aren't interesting. Darcy, give me a break. They're not interesting because the audience that's reading these reviews doesn't care about 2D performance. The games they are playing don't require nearly the 2D graphic power that you need from some of these professional applications. And the fact is that it's been increasingly difficult to find 2D reviews for years - ever since 3D graphic cards and 3D games arrived. When you're talking about modern video cards, 2D benchmarks are virtually identically across the board You point these out. I've pointed out the only benchmarks I could find, and they showed a huge variance. Given that my view is the mainstream view, I think it's entirely reasonable of me to say that the burden of proof is on you to provide counterexamples, supported by empirical evidence (i.e., benchmarks). I gave you user accounts. You chose not to believe them. I gave you benchmarks. You said that because they were somewhat older that they clearly didn't apply. And yet somehow the wide variation in 2D benchmarks between cards that existed 3 years ago should just be assumed to be completely absent now. I've shown strong reason to believe that this variance would still exist. The burden of proof is on you, sir, to show why what was true before due to natural progression of video cards would suddenly no longer be true now after further progression. You show me why having a faster overall processing speed has stopped improving performance. I've shown that the video card in my system is a bottle-neck for Finale. Show me why having faster processing capabilities no longer improves the situation. Faster, more efficient processing resulting in better performance definitely qualifies as a mainstream belief. Disprove it. Seriously, I'm more than happy to let the whole thing drop at this point (and I suspect everyone else is too). How much more than happy would that make you? We'll find out! Tyler, I honestly do not want to be unduly confrontational here, but seriously, you are the person who did not know the difference between the 7300 GS and the 7300 GT, and earlier tried to cite GS benchmarks as if they were representative of GT performance. Wrong, Darcy, but nice try. I didn't specify the 7300GT, nor do I even care if Apple is offering the 7300GT or GS. My point was simply that the Radeon 9700 is still keeping up with cards that are sold today. Remember - my beef is that Apple would have me spend money on a second processor rather than putting the money into a video card which would actually let me see a performance gain. Even so, all these reviews agree that the 7300 GT is the most powerful budget graphics card currently on the market. It's certainly a *huge* leap in performance from your Radeon X600, and outperforms every other graphics card in this price range. The actual price for that video card is about $500 higher as far as I'm concerned, because I'm buying a nearly worthless extra Intel processor along with it. So absent some benchmarks to the contrary, I'm afraid I don't actually agree that you have GOOD reason to believe that the 7300 GT would stumble in 2D applications, even when driving two hi-res monitors. Okay, listen. I have two computers here. One runs at 3.2GHz
Re: [Finale] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The only meaningful comparison would be to try the same graphics card in each of your computers, using the same application, the same slider settings and the same resolution. Do some scroll and/or redraw tests with a stopwatch. No Darcy. If computer A outperforms computer B when all of the special graphic card features are turned off, but computer B outperforms computer A when they are all turned on, it strongly indicates that the video cards in the two systems are giving very different performances. I'm not going to even bother responding to your other points, because this is all that should be needed (and all I intend to force you to focus on). If you can't understand why this makes it extremely plausible that video card performance still makes a difference with 2D applications... Switching the graphic cards in these systems is not an option. Calling the test invalid is a lame response, and you know it. You explain WHY this test doesn't isolate the video card performance. 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Tyler, I've already indicated that I don't believe the special graphic card features test proves what you think it proves in terms of 2D performance. And Darcy, I've stated several times that everything I've looked up, including information from Microsoft, indicates that this slider controls only features for the video hardware. You have not once provided any evidence to the contrary. Where is your proof that what all of these companies say is false? 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Also: What visual difference does this slider make in Finale or other 2D apps? Well, one example: Dragging an image around in Irfanview with the slider all the way to the left (off) is choppier. As for links, just do a google search for graphic acceleration slider. One example: http://www.smartcomputing.com/techsupport/detail.aspx?guid=ErrorID=33407 I haven't found a single article or even forum post that suggests that turning up the slider hands an extra task to the CPU - certainly nothing about giving more 2D graphic tasks to the CPU. And even so, if it did, why would the slower processor of computer B suddenly dramatically overtake the faster, same-type processor of computer A? It doesn't add up. 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] Finale 2007 review
--- Robert Patterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is a much bigger advantage than you credit it for. Working from one file allows you to a) switch instantly between part views (much faster than opening/saving/closing separate files). b) work in score view to update several parts at once. For example, if you are changing a 'B' to a 'C', if you have several parts playing the same thing, you can copy/paste much more quickly because it is all within one file. c) make global changes once. This is anything from changing the title of the piece to inserting or deleting measures. My personal favorite advantage is that it allows us to start cleaning up the parts from the moment we start creating the score. When I enter a dynamic now that needs to be positioned differently in the score than the part, I first put the dynamic in the position that it should occupy in the part and then ctrl-drag it to the position I want it in the score. There are many objects that I now only have to handle once which I formerly would have had to handle 2 or more times. 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 10 Aug 2006, at 3:50 PM, Tyler Turner wrote: As for links, just do a google search for graphic acceleration slider. One example: http://www.smartcomputing.com/techsupport/detail.aspx? guid=ErrorID=33407 Okay, I appreciate the link, but that's pretty vague: Use the graphics acceleration slider to adjust the range of features handled by your graphics hardware. What I'm interested in is what *specific* features are enabled on *specific* video cards. Just look at a Windows PC. The tabs in this control panel vary a great deal from one graphics card to the next. Are the two graphic cards in my two machines doing exactly the same tasks with these 2D images? Very likely not. The only thing that's clear is that one of the cards is getting through its processing tasks much faster than the other. With standard, default settings, one of them is able to draw the Finale output much faster than the other. It's not up to me to find a mention of every feature this slider turns on for every graphics card. It's up to you to find mention that turning up that slider also gives new tasks to the CPU, and does so in different ways from one installation of Windows XP to the next. That would be a behavior that isn't specifically described in the dialog box or on any website I've seen. Cleaning the kitchen sink also isn't described in the dialog, and so I leave it to you to find evidence that turning up the slider does indeed cause this to happen. It would seem a bit unlikely that I'll find specific mention on some website that turning it up doesn't affect sink cleaning performance - but I don't believe that's any indication that it does. When you turn down that slider in Windows, tabs disappear from the graphic display control panel (indicating that you have disabled graphic hardware features). These tabs are specific to the particular graphics card you have. Go look in this dialog if you want to see what they are. Or just read the specs for a video card to see what features it offers, especially concerning DirectDraw. 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Just look at a Windows PC. I don't own or have access to a Windows PC. You can see one in a store. Look at some screen shots on the internet. Very likely not. The only thing that's clear is that one of the cards is getting through its processing tasks much faster than the other. With standard, default settings, one of them is able to draw the Finale output much faster than the other. What is the default setting? All the way up? Yes. You mentioned one of the cards you own is an X600 (which is actually the PCIe version of the Radeon 9600). What is the other one? Radeon 9000. Both are mobility versions. I didn't mention it before, but I hooked both computers up to the same monitor and used the same refresh rate as well (which was the default setting for both). I'd settle for some indication of what specific features this slider enables on either of your graphics cards. Are these features that you need/want/use? Do they affect the visual quality of the display in any way? From what I've read, they do. From what I've seen, having the slider turned down decreases performance in some large ways. If it's anything like similar controls in 3D games, then if a graphics feature invoked by this slider isn't specifically supported by the graphics card, it has to be calculated by the CPU, causing a performance hit. You're really missing a big point here. The controls in this dialog are tailor made by the video card manufacturer for the specific card. From one of those google links you'll even find indication that for some cards there is no hardware acceleration slider at all. It's a graphic card setting, and all it does is provide a quick way to turn off sets of specific features for the video card. If a video card doesn't support one of these features, the feature wouldn't be in the dialog in the first place. This isn't a standard Windows dialog. You still haven't said what visual difference this slider makes in Finale (if any). Actually I did, in one of my very first posts. I stated that normal scrolling up and down was slower with the slider disabled, but dragging the screen around via right-click drag (which results in a much more consistent set of redraws of the screen image) is much slower with it turned up. But anyway, it's absolutely unimportant for me to show that I need to have that slider turned up in Finale. I have to have that slider turned up for OTHER applications that I run, including 3D applications, at times concurrently with Finale. And when I upgrade to Windows Vista, turning off advanced video card features would be silly. I hope you're not suggesting that a person should have to change that slider setting for working with various applications. If you can't produce some evidence that adjusting that slider does something more than enable/disable video card features that are implemented by the video hardware, I think we're at a stand still. Are modern video cards significantly more powerful than the ones I'm running? Yes. But are they enough more powerful so that even the cheaper ones can convert the 2 frames per second I'm seeing at 1024X768 32-bit up to 40 or more frames per second at 2048X1536? I'll believe it when I see it. 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Tyler, Then why, when I scroll up and down the screen, does my computer perform better when the graphics acceleration is turned up than when it's turned down? Oh fercrissakes. We aren't comparing a machine with NO video card versus a machine with a video card. I never said that the video card NEVER makes any difference to 2D acceleration under ANY circumstances. That's not what turning down the acceleration on Windows does. It doesn't disable your video card. It disables features, like anti-aliasing, etc. The actual card still processes at its normal speed. I just performed a Finale test that puts more focus on the video card. By dragging the screen around via right-click drag, I find that the screen redraws MUCH more smoothly when I turn the acceleration on my video card all the way down. Why? Because it isn't having to calculate all of the special effects. This is an ATI X600 video card with 256MB of video RAM. Though not as fast as a 7300, the performance here at 1440X900 resolution gives me a pretty good clue that the 7300 will not have maxed out performance in Finale when using default settings. And keep in mind that the requirements for Windows Vista are significantly higher for the video card if users want to run it in with its best settings. What I said was, there is effectively no difference in 2D performance between the GeForce 7300 GT versus the higher-end video cards available on the Mac Pro. The higher-end cards offer improvements in 3D performance only -- the 2D performance is already maxed out. If I want to run Finale at 1600X1200 resolution (or perhaps even higher), a difference will almost certainly be visible between a 7300 and a 7900. Performance on my X600 at a lower resolution is not even remotely close to being maxed out. 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Do you have any evidence to support that assertion? Finale is not a 3D application, and there *really* isn't any significant difference in 2D or video performance between a (relatively) low-end card like the GeForce 7300 GT and a high-end gaming or CAD card. Well, only that I worked in tech support for 2 years and spoke with customers who confirmed that the faster video cards improved performance in Finale. That along with my personal findings that the faster video cards allowed me to have faster drawing at higher resolutions seemed like a good clue! So what you're saying is that you haven't actually looked at any benchmarks. The plural of anecdote is not data. Excuse me? Where do you suggest one should go to find Finale benchmarks? You asked if I had any evidence to back it up. My reply was that I had first hand experience and information from multiple customers. You didn't ASK for benchmarks. Do you have the option to pair video cards? Yes -- you can install up to four video cards, driving eight independent monitors. That's not my question. Do you have the option, as you do now on PC's, to have multiple graphic cards driving a single display? I haven't seen anywhere that Apple offers this option. Surely this is changing now that Intel is pushing the Core Duo line, hard, to PC manufacturers? It certainly doesn't seem to be changing very quickly. There are some games made these days which make use of multiple processors. But by in large Windows applications don't do this. It is new. iMacs have been using single versions of the G5 processor. Uh, we were talking about the pro line, not iMacs. Not if you're responding to my post we're not! My original post was not directly in response to anyone else's. And I talked about Apple's iMacs and Minis from the start. Now they're not using the single version of the top processor. No. The Core Duo is a dual-core processor. The iMacs will no doubt be upgraded to the Core 2 Duo in due time. That's the question. I've seen no mention so far that they intend to update the Mini and the iMacs. If they intend to do that soon, then that's a good thing. But your argument about them being a small company and not having had time just doesn't make sense to me. Companies that are much smaller than Apple and that have a greater number of products have already switched over. To me it appears that Apple intends to make extra money off of the old Core Duos for a while since they didn't announce other plans. They will be using them very soon. Historically, Apple has not updated as often as the PC manufacturers, Unless we're talking about OS's. ;-) If Apple had used Core 2 Duos in the Mac Pros, people would be bitching that they didn't use the most powerful option (Xeon 5100 series). If you absolutely must have a Core 2 Duo machine, wait a few weeks and get an iMac. It remains to be seen whether Apple updates to the Conroes for the iMacs. How easy will it be to get the video card of choice for an iMac? The issue here for me is that Apple isn't even giving the choice of a single core 2 duo xeon or conroe processor with its high, configurable systems. For the programs I want to run, I definitely would rather have a top of the line video card rather than a second core 2 duo processor. What's more, I'd especially like the option of NOT having to pay for the extra processor - just cut $500 (or more) off the price. But still give me a computer with a fast bus and an accessible case with open expansion slots and no built in monitor that I wouldn't use anyway. 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Both Conroe and Merom chips are marketed as Core 2 Duo, even though they have more in common with Woodcrest chips (Xeon 5100's) than Yonah chips (Core Duo). Woodcrest, Conroe, and Merom are all derivatives of the same Core architecture, and according to many sources are all variants of the core 2 duo. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1983842,00.asp http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=569 http://www.pcper.com/article.php?type=expertaid=276 __ 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 08 Aug 2006, at 6:57 PM, Tyler Turner wrote: --- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The benefit of this will not (for most applications) be nearly as great at the same price as going with a single Core 2 Duo processor and a strong video card. Evidence? Benchmarks? Yes, there are. Look them up! No. Show me. You're the one making the positive assertion here. But you're the one who wants to see the benchmarks. If you really want to see them, go look up any processor benchmarks where dual-processors are pitted against single processors in applications that aren't optimized for multiple processors. The boost from the second processor is almost never large in these situations. But you can CERTAINLY see a large boost in performance from a significantly better video card with applications that aren't optimized for multiple processors. Do you really need benchmarks for that to seem plausible to you? 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 2D anti-aliasing is not handled by the graphics card! It's handled by the *CPU*, which calculates everything itself and then tells the graphics card what to draw. Of course disabling anti-aliasing means you can scroll around faster -- if the CPU doesn't have to calculate the anti-aliasing, then it can tell the video card which pixels to draw much more quickly. There is no anti-aliasing in Finale on Windows. I was simply listing that as an example of effects that are disabled when the acceleration is turned down (as opposed to it actually slowing down your graphic card's processor). The font smoothing of Windows XP (which is essentially a system wide anti-aliasing) is not affected by changing this slider. Furthermore, the settings that this slider controls are dependent on your video card drivers. Above the slider is the text, Manually control the level of acceleration and performance supplied by your graphics hardware. Turning down this slider is giving my video card less work to do and improving performance. If you upgrade your processor but keep the same video card, you will get faster Finale redraws. If you upgrade your video card, you will see little to no improvement in your Finale redraws, because Finale redraws, being a 2D task, are CPU-bound. All the graphics card benchmarks bear this out. No they don't. http://www.karpfenteich.net/colorful/bitblt.html Graphic cards make a big difference in 2D performance. I've seen upgrading a video card make a big difference even in normal Windows navigation. 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 09 Aug 2006, at 4:45 AM, Tyler Turner wrote: Excuse me? Where do you suggest one should go to find Finale benchmarks? You can get 2D graphics card benchmarks at any graphics card review site, of which there are many. That was not the question. You asked specifically for evidence about Finale. My answer was applicable. The one you're apparently looking for would not have been. On the other hand, lots of PC manufacturers still haven't gotten around to introducing the (original) Core Duos! Well, as a shopper I avoided them because of performance. They were never as fast as the Athlon 64's or Pentium 4's (mid to higher end). With the exception of the ill-fated Cube, Apple hasn't sold this kind of product in years, and there's probably a reason for that... it's not profitable. A number of PC manufacturers survive on these types of machines. It's their right to make this business decision. But it's my right to not want to purchase a Mac because of it! 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But you can CERTAINLY see a large boost in performance from a significantly better video card with applications that aren't optimized for multiple processors. I have *never* seen any benchmarks anywhere that support this assertion when it comes to non-3D, non-video applications. I have only ever seen benchmarks that prove the opposite. Going beyond the GeForce 7300 GT on the Mac Pro will certainly improve 3D gaming performance, but it will not improve Finale performance one bit. And I didn't limit my statement to being about 2D applications. But as I've shown in other threads, Finale's performance is improved with a good video card. And don't forget, Finale isn't a non-video application any longer. 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Now, notice how little difference there is between the Mobility Radeon 9600, the Club 3D Radeon 9200SE, and the Mobility Radeon 9700? Uh, did you notice that the machines they were being run on were pretty different as well? That 9700 allowed a significantly slower machine to outperform the 9200 by a good margin, even though the 9200 was dealing with a much lower resolution and had a significantly better CPU backing it up. The 9700 and 9600 were on apparently similar computers (same processor speed). But the 9700 beat the 9600, even though it was dealing with 1600X1200 (1.92 million) and the 9600 was dealing with 1280X800 (1.024 million) - the computer with the 9700 was dealing with nearly twice as many pixels. You will notice that many video card reviews on the net focus exclusively on 3D features and don't mention 2D at all. Why do you think that is? Because most games are in 3D, and gamers are the ones most typically interested in these benchmarks. 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 09 Aug 2006, at 5:55 AM, Tyler Turner wrote: A number of PC manufacturers survive on these types of machines. The only PC manufacturers that are doing at all well on their PC business these days are Dell and Apple. That's a pretty bold statement, considering there are hundreds of PC manufacturers. HP has been doing well in the last year. 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Tyler, Check out this recent Ars thread on picking a video card for a Vista text box: I can quote forum users as well! http://www.pcpro.co.uk/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=200695 I have read this sort of thread so many times over the years, and its always the same the testers say 'it matters not any card will do' and those of us who use high screen resolutions, work with images or video know that it does make a difference. The lowest screen res I work with is 1600 x 1200 @ 85 Hz and often much higher and I get told because I don't play games that I don't need a card with any power, but how the screen is rendered and how fast is important to me, in the main I use a canopus cards H/W and Edius, but I don't stretch (or need) that at home but it would be nice for testers to understand that not every one spends all day bashing buttons on their keyboards and that 2D performance can be important. If there was no difference then I could use the onboard that comes with my Nvidia chipset but the render quality and speed is so much slower than even a 9250 radon that I use in my PVR. This is why mag test are a help but in the end you have to do your own testing to really find out the truth. __ 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 09 Aug 2006, at 6:37 AM, Tyler Turner wrote: That's a pretty bold statement, considering there are hundreds of PC manufacturers. Yes, and almost all of them are doing very poorly. HP has been doing well in the last year. HP makes their money selling printers, not PCs. Their PC division is not very profitable. No Darcy. I did look this up just before mentioning HP the first time. Their notebook sales were up over 20% in 2005 from the previous year. Overall their computer sales were one of the biggest reasons they were posting larger than normal profits. 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Did you read the rest of the thread you quoted? This guy is clearly in the minority. Plus, he's a total newbie at that forum (38 posts). The guy was not alone. Others posted saying that they had experienced similar findings. That's the one important thing to me - the people who had actually EXPERIMENTED with it were indicating that there was a difference. And those graphics benchmarks I linked to gave more support to their case than their opposition. Furthermore, my personal findings indicated that it made a difference. Everything I'm looking up about the graphic acceleration slider indicates that it controls the features that the video card handles. This includes information from Microsoft's website. The fact that turning that slider down actually increases my performance when dragging the screen around is a very strong indication that I have not reached a maximum with 2D performance from this 256MB video card. 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Tyler, The overwhelming consensus among knowledgeable users is precisely what the Ars Technica AV moderator said: 2D performance itself these days is a complete non issue. Look -- I'm amenable to evidence, but so far the only benchmarks you've cited are apples-and-oranges comparisons of very old video cards across very different machines. Darcy, I don't care whatsoever what you think the consensus is. The fact is that I'm observing a difference in Finale when giving my video card less work to do. This is solid evidence. And the fact is that other users are reporting the same thing - after upgrading their video cards they are getting better performance in 2D applications. 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I never said the graphics cards do none of the 2D calculations. But in terms of the 2D calculations they do perform, all modern graphics cards perform equally well. The bottleneck for non-video 2D drawing on any modern machine is the CPU, not the GPU. http://www.geek.com/htbc/buy/vidcarby.htm Speed - 3D vs. 2D Nowadays, graphics processors, or GPUs (Graphics Processing Unit) to use the term thought up by NVidia, typically run at 200-350 MHz. Video memory can run at an effective 300-650 MHz by using DDR SDRAM that really runs at 150-325 MHz and doubles its speed to (150-325 MHz)*2 for a faster effective throughput. Typically, the faster the chip and memory are running at, the better 3D performance you'll get. Most computer sellers don't focus on this information at all, but ask about it if you want the details. If you want a big monitor or multiple monitors, for 2D speed, you want a fast RAMDAC (or 2 or more) on your video card and plenty of memory. Most cards don't focus on 2D performance, but if you are moving big images around the screen, you will notice whether you have 2D performance or not. __ 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
Darcy, You've been saying that this has been the case for 10 years. The Radeon 9700 Pro is STILL a decent video card by today's standards (better than the X600 I have installed in my machine that I purchased 1 year ago). And the article did NOT say that the performance was maxed out - it just said that it was the best of the day. The article makes it very clear that what you've been saying here is simply not true. To be perfectly honest I would not be surprised if the Radeon 9700 could still compete effectively with Nvidia's 7300. According to this page, it outperforms it. http://freestone-group.com/video-card-stability-test/benchmark-results.html Tyler --- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Tyler, This article is many years out of date -- from the cards referenced (GeForce4 MX, ATI Radeon 9000 Pro), I'd say it dates from 2002 or 2003. Cheers, - Darcy - [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://secretsociety.typepad.com Brooklyn, NY On 09 Aug 2006, at 7:51 PM, Tyler Turner wrote: --- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I never said the graphics cards do none of the 2D calculations. But in terms of the 2D calculations they do perform, all modern graphics cards perform equally well. The bottleneck for non-video 2D drawing on any modern machine is the CPU, not the GPU. http://www.geek.com/htbc/buy/vidcarby.htm Speed - 3D vs. 2D Nowadays, graphics processors, or GPUs (Graphics Processing Unit) to use the term thought up by NVidia, typically run at 200-350 MHz. Video memory can run at an effective 300-650 MHz by using DDR SDRAM that really runs at 150-325 MHz and doubles its speed to (150-325 MHz)*2 for a faster effective throughput. Typically, the faster the chip and memory are running at, the better 3D performance you'll get. Most computer sellers don't focus on this information at all, but ask about it if you want the details. If you want a big monitor or multiple monitors, for 2D speed, you want a fast RAMDAC (or 2 or more) on your video card and plenty of memory. Most cards don't focus on 2D performance, but if you are moving big images around the screen, you will notice whether you have 2D performance or not. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale __ 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
I have to say that if I was buying an Apple computer today, Apple has just made my choice a great deal simpler. Pairing a good processor with a ton of cache memory (hence the Xeon) which raises the price a great deal and then leaving out reasonable video card options means that I'm better off going with a Windows computer for $1000 less and purchasing a Mac Mini separately. These Intel Core 2 Duo chips are fast - the fastest on the market. The 6600 and 6700 models, which are only a few hundred dollars, are blowing past the fastest Athlon 64's (which were the industry performance leaders a month ago), and they're doing it at half the price. But adding hundreds of dollars worth of cache memory to these chips does not increase their performance nearly as much as putting in a high quality video card. If I'm going to spend $2400 on a computer, I'm not going to waste that money on the Xeon version of the Core Duo - I'm going to put it into something that's going to give me a much bigger performance boost. The other part to this is that Intel is making these new Core 2 Duos at prices that could be used for the Mac Minis or the iMacs - but apparently Apple isn't using them in these. HP has already introduced a model that starts under $1000 with these new processors. There's really no reason to purchase a low or midrange computer now without one of these processors. They're cheap, consume little power, and they're faster than anything else available. And so if I have to purchase a Mac, I'm going to spend as little as I possibly can on it. Their low and midrange computers are severely underpowered compared to PC's in the same price range, and their high end machines seem to be misconfigured for getting the most bang for the buck on the applications a majority of users will be running. -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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Tyler Turner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have to say that if I was buying an Apple computer today, Apple has just made my choice a great deal simpler. Pairing a good processor with a ton of cache memory (hence the Xeon) which raises the price a great deal and then leaving out reasonable video card options means that I'm better off going with a Windows computer for $1000 less and purchasing a Mac Mini separately. After doing a little more research, apparently the xeon processor doesn't add more cache memory. It just works with a slightly faster bus and with a multiple processor configuration. So instead of getting to purchase a high end video card, I'd have to purchase 2 processors, even though essentially every application I'd be using only makes use of one processor at a time. That choice doesn't make financial sense to me. -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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Tyler, are you a gamer, an animator, a 3D artist? What do you need a high-end video card for? Certainly not for Finale. Actually, Finale is one of the applications where I'd definitely prefer a high end video card to a second processor. The video card definitely does make a difference with Finale. Aside from that, I use various graphic and video applications as well as other music software where graphics come into play. The point is that in general a second processor is not going to give me nearly as much boost as having a good video card, particularly since most applications are not designed to benefit from multiple processors. Keep in mind that if I bought a high end Mac I'd be anticipating using it for Windows as well. For my money, I'll get a much better deal with a computer from HP or someone else. Also, if the stock GeForce 7300 GT isn't adequate for your needs, there is a midrange card offered on the Mac Pros -- the Radeon X1900 XT. But I can't dump the unwanted processor that's costing me so much more! Why does Apple have to only offer the Core 2 Duos in sets of 2??? If you put just one of those things in an iMac or Mac Mini you suddenly have a very legitimate low cost machine. Sticking with the old Core Duos, they have a processor which doesn't even keep up with the P4's. I don't know where you got the idea that they are the Xeon version of the Core [2] Duo -- that's not true at all. Yes it is. The new Xeons (Woodcrests) that Apple is using are from the same processor line as the Conroes - they're all Core 2 Duos. -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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 08 Aug 2006, at 4:47 PM, Tyler Turner wrote: So instead of getting to purchase a high end video card, I'd have to purchase 2 processors, 4, actually. even though essentially every application I'd be using only makes use of one processor at a time. You never multitask? And surely you can see the benefits of, say, running Finale on one dual-core and GPO on the other? - Darcy You would get this benefit from a single Core 2 Duo processor. The processor includes two processing cores. You're not getting 4 of these with the new Apple's - you're getting 2. They're just claiming that since each processor has 2 cores, you're getting the effect of 4 processors. The benefit of this will not (for most applications) be nearly as great at the same price as going with a single Core 2 Duo processor and a strong video card. 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 08 Aug 2006, at 5:01 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: and the CPU was a 2.8GHz with an 800MHz frontside bus Was it a Core Duo? You can't compare Core Duo chips to previous Intel offerings using MHz alone (which is, BTW, why it would be useful to be able to search Dell's site by processor). The Core Duos give *far* more bang-per-MHz than Pentium 4's or Pentium M's. - Darcy - But they were never clocked high enough to compete with the top of the line Athlon 64's and Pentium 4's. The Core 2 Duos are the first to actually capture the performance crown. That's why I can't believe Apple isn't including them in their lower and mid-range lines. They don't add a great deal to the cost, but they certainly add a lot to the performance. 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Do you have any evidence to support that assertion? Finale is not a 3D application, and there *really* isn't any significant difference in 2D or video performance between a (relatively) low-end card like the GeForce 7300 GT and a high-end gaming or CAD card. Well, only that I worked in tech support for 2 years and spoke with customers who confirmed that the faster video cards improved performance in Finale. That along with my personal findings that the faster video cards allowed me to have faster drawing at higher resolutions seemed like a good clue! Finale doesn't make use of the fancy features on these video cards, like anti-aliasing (though this will come into play on Mac because of the OS). But certainly having the faster processor in the graphics card makes a difference. Do any of them use 3D so heavily that you'd need something more powerful than the GeForce 7300 GT? Need and benefit from are two different things. Yes, these applications would benefit from a better video card. They wouldn't benefit from an extra processor. That's not a bad card by any means. And as I said, you can always upgrade the Mac to the Radeon X1900 XT, which is a 3D powerhouse. Do you have the option to pair video cards? Regardless, the point is that I don't want to spend the money on the processor when it would be better spent on the graphics card. The point is that in general a second processor is not going to give me nearly as much boost as having a good video card, I'm *extremely* dubious of this statement, especially since most Mac pro audio and video apps (not to mention the OS) have been optimized for multiple processors for years. What is your evidence? I already explained that if I spent $3000 on a Mac, I wouldn't be using it only for or even primarily for Mac applications. I'd run everything I could from Windows. And most applications just don't make use of multiple processors. I don't believe I own any applications that are optimized for dual processor support. But I can't dump the unwanted processor that's costing me so much more! Why does Apple have to only offer the Core 2 Duos in sets of 2??? You mean Xeons, and you're acting like this is something new. It is new. iMacs have been using single versions of the G5 processor. Now they're not using the single version of the top processor. They're using a processor that's slower than a half-way decent Pentium 4. The new Xeons use the same circuitry as the other chips in the Core 2 Duo line (Conroes and Meroms). Intel has moved to essentially one processor for its notebooks, desktops, and servers. The Pro machines have been quad for years -- Apple was not going to replace a quad G5 with a machine with fewer processors. And the quad processors make a massive difference in any application optimized for multiple processors -- which on the Mac program is basically any high- end application. Like Finale? Or Sibelius? If you put just one of those things in an iMac or Mac Mini you suddenly have a very legitimate low cost machine. Sticking with the old Core Duos, they have a processor which doesn't even keep up with the P4's. Uh, no, that's not true. But of course Apple will eventually replace the Core Duos with the next-gen Core 2 Duos, probably starting with the Mac Book Pro. But have some patience -- the first Intel Macs only just came out 6 months ago, and the Core 2 Duos only started shipping, what, a month ago? They're already being used by the top PC manufacturers. The point is that this transition doesn't take much - the iMacs and Mac Minis should be using them now. Yes it is. The new Xeons (Woodcrests) that Apple is using are from the same processor line as the Conroes I'm afraid you are incorrect, although Intel's confusing naming scheme doesn't help matters: No, I've checked myself on several sites. The conroes, meroms and 5100's are at their heart all the same processor. You called the Xeon 5100's the Xeon version of the Core Duo, which is completely wrong -- the Core Duos are 32-bit and the Xeons are 64- bit. Read my paragraph again. The entire paragraph was about the core 2 duo processor. You're right - I left the 2 out accidentally in that sentence... but if you read my paragraph, there should not have been any doubt which processor I was referring to. It's about the equivalent of me figuring out that you meant Mac platform rather than Mac program. 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yes, this is exactly what I'm saying. The stock 256 MB GeForce 7300 GT video that comes with the MacPros is already *way* above the ceiling for typical PC tasks. Going to a higher-end video card is not going to improve 2D or video performance one bit -- the difference between the GeForce 7300 GT and the other high-end cards Apple offers is 100% in 3D performance, which doesn't make even the slightest big of difference when running the OS, or 2D apps like Finale. When scrolling around and drawing a lot of things on the screen at high resolution, it certainly does affect 2D. Redraws are not instantaneous. 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm afraid I can't make any sense of what you're saying. You're claiming that the dual-core Core 2 Duos work as well (or better than, actually) dual processors -- which is true. But then you're saying that if you combine two multi-core processors, they stop working like dual processors? I didn't say anything of the sort. I simply stated that the core 2 duo gives you the benefit of being able to have separate processors work on two applications at once. For that scenario you don't need to have 2 core 2 duo processors. Seriously, Apple has been using multiple processors for *years*. They have spent a long time optimizing everything in the OS to exploit multiple processors. Every high-end Apple app is optimized for multiple processors. For some reason I'm having a difficult time explaining to you that I don't intend to limit myself to or even primarily use OS X or Macintosh applications. If I purchased a high end Apple computer, I'd use it primarily for Windows applications (including Finale). The only Macintosh applications I'd use on it, other than the operating system itself, would not be optimized for multiple processors. The benefit of this will not (for most applications) be nearly as great at the same price as going with a single Core 2 Duo processor and a strong video card. Evidence? Benchmarks? Yes, there are. Look them up! Applications that make a lot of use of graphics and which aren't optimized for multiple processors gain more from a good video card than they do from multiple processors. __ 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- Darcy James Argue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That's why Tyler's complaints are so strange -- Apple has already put in years and years of optimizing for multiple processors, and now he wants them to throw it all away... ? What are you talking about??? I want the OPTION of buying a Mac that has a single core 2 duo chip and a decent video card. You still take advantage of the multiple processor software upgrades. But you get to buy a Mac that doesn't cost extra because of an extra processor you might not really have much use for. Instead, Apple offers only slow processors (the original Core Duos) up to their $2300 mark, and then they jump to an insane 2 Xeon configuration. Give us a $1000 option that includes the new Core 2 Duo processor. It's NOT an expensive processor. 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] OT: Mac Pro unveiled
--- AJ Azure [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: No one is mentioning this but, I can make it much simpler for you all. MACS are better. One reason? The new platform runs OSX AND WinXP. PCs can't do that yet right? If you need dual platform for work and/or you may want software that one or the other does not run. MACS are the only answer. _AJ I have a couple of different answers. Either I could purchase a cheap Mac Mini and a powerful $1500 Core 2 Duo PC, or I could wait for people to work out the kinks with getting OS X to run on PC. I don't need or want to use OS X for very much - just a few specific tasks. 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
