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Finale, the legendary music notation software program, has been discontinued 36 years after its groundbreaking release in 1988 from Coda Music Technologies. MakeMusic, the company that now owns Finale, has partnered with Steinberg to sell its Dorico application at a specially discounted price directly to Finale users. Jason Loffredo joins Philip Rothman and David MacDonald in a comprehensive discussion about the facts, the business analysis, and the way forward for customers.
More on Scoring Notes:
- MakeMusic ends development and availability of Finale; partners with Steinberg to sell Dorico directly [updated]
- Finale version 27 review: SMuFL and MusicXML 4.0 support
- Finale v27 and the SMuFL shuffle
- Finale version 27.1: SMuFL burrows deeper
- Finale version 27.2 adds new jazz template, native Apple silicon support
- Finale version 27.3 adds eight powerful JW tools, fixes some linked part issues
- Finale version 27.4 supports macOS Sonoma, true black printing, other fixes
Mike Philcox
I am curious about the suggestion the Sibelius user base is significantly larger than the Finale user base. Are there studies comparing the user numbers for the two programs? Do the comparative sizes differ significantly between North America and the rest of the world?
Stefan Klieme
Thank you for your enlightening thoughts about the possible future scenarios for Finale users. I’d like to mention that you can batch convert your Finale files to MusicXML with FinaleScript even considering subfolders. Automation to batch print PDFs is more complicated. For the Apple folks it could be accomplished with AppleScript. I wrote some of those scripts to print parts with title pages to PDF. If I can help let me know.
Scott Lawrence Lawson
Good podcast (like usual), but why did you not deeply discuss people moving to MuseScore? You mentioned it at the end along with a bunch of other toys but is it because the schools you teach at have some sort of ban on MS?And how silly is that? I’d like to hear/see an updated comparison between MuseScore, Dorico, and Sibelius as to engraving. You seem to put MuseScore in a bad light in the engraving capability but looking at specifics would be good. Thanks!
Wietse Meinardi
I too would appreciate – as Finale user for 30 years – an comparison between the different programs. I keep noticing that Musescore is hardly discussed, while it can do a lot by now.
The import of XML is remarkably good.
It also surprises me that Make Music does not provide its loyal users with honest information about the other programs, but exclusively advertises Dorico.
By the way, I really need a batch function for PDF, I am on Windows. Thanks!
John Hedderman
Tantacrul is Great Composer who has become Product Manager at MuseScore. MuseScore is a Free Open Source Music Notation Program
When MuseScore acquired Hal Leonard Music Publishing they put a ton of time developing MusicXML Import into MuseScore and now they are going to even put more time into its development as a result of the demise of Finale.
Dorico can also be used to import Finale MusicXML files. However when transferring Finale MusicXML files into Dorico, Notes, Tempo, and Articulations may transfer fairly well however it does a very poor job of rendering Page Layouts and Non-standard Notation.
Sometimes however Dorico does not even correctly import notation, for example rendering a quarter note as an eighth note or vice versa.
Transferring Finale MusicXML files into Dorico will require a significant amount of editing to correct incorrect note input and to correct Page Layout errors.
MuseScore has been adopted into University MIDI Labs ensuring its future use by current Music Conservatory Students.
MuseScore has been significantly upgraded by a team led by Tantacrul.
These two videos on MuseScore provide a very good summary on Muse Score design.
The first video covers many issues with MuseScore 3, and the second video presents the significant improvements made in Muse Score 4, by Tantacrul and his amazing Team.
MuseScore Design:
https://youtu.be/4hZxo96x48A?si=xpzNAba_yNfPyV_P
https://youtu.be/Qct6LKbneKQ?si=MKymeKcA_hFCzo3b
Dorico is a very good program overall especially for creating more complex Scores. I intend to learn and use it moving forward though not for importing Finale MusicXML files.
I also intend to learn and master MuseScore.
The video below presents some of the great features of Dorico but also presents some of the issues with the program. It also confirms that there will be a learning curve involved with mastering Dorico.
Dorico Design:
https://youtu.be/S-3wEC6Fj_8?si=dPtRDmavzzWbYWnA
Finale MusicXML files imported into MuseScore perform significantly better than Dorico imports.
These two Links (which take you to the same YouTube Video), compares the importation of Finale MusicXML files into Dorico and MuseScore
Opening Finale Music XML Files in Dorico and MuseScore 4:
https://youtu.be/6_o8vT9q9q4?si=rsBBr9iQLe4y8qD2
https://youtu.be/6_o8vT9q9q4?si=SUAdM2OjsG-tHb6a
Converting our Finale Files to MusicXML Files:
These two videos below demonstrates how to convert all your Finale Files to MusicXML files with a Single Click:
Convert All Finale Files to MusicXML with One Click:
https://youtu.be/PdpykIdXZBk?si=VdsaAjtJitEqTx9s
https://youtu.be/PdpykIdXZBk?si=4j50jP5SD_r5Qwoo
Obviously, we should also save all our Finale Files as PDF files and as Audio files.
Staff Pad is also a great program for handwriting recognition of note input and has MuseScore interoperability.