# Finale 2012 Released



## mducharme (Oct 7, 2011)

Finale 2012 has been released.. new features include improved VST instrument support and management (more integrated with staff layout) and Unicode.

They have a download option now as well, so ordering the media is no longer required.

http://www.finalemusic.com/finale/default.aspx

Unfortunately no sign of anything like magnetic layout yet.


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## rgames (Oct 7, 2011)

I feel like Finale hasn't done any worthwhile improvements in ages - the first version I bought was 2000 then I upgraded to 2007 because that was when they added linked parts. Since 2007, though, I haven't seen anything new that excites me, so I'm still using 2007.

I don't understand why they feel obligated to release an update every year. Finale is one of the slowest-evolving pieces of software I use - given their glacial development process 7-8 years is probably the point where updates make sense. That's ridiculous.

rgames


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## JT (Oct 7, 2011)

I actually find some improvement in every version which speeds up my workflow. Each update is targeted at a different issue, but I wouldn't go back to Fin 2007 for anything. 

To be honest, I was able to write music with Finale for orchestras back in 1992 with Fin vsn. 2.0. Notation doesn't change much, so there really isn't going to be any sexy new features. Fin 2012 does mention audio changes made "under the hood" and I see Sound Maps mentioned. This sounds a lot like Sib's Sound Sets to me. 

And while no notation program will come close to a DAW's output, there are times when all you need is basic playback from your notation program. 

JT


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## Pochflyboy (Oct 7, 2011)

Wow.. Still no magnetic layout type feature. This was truly a life saver in my workflow and saves a TON of time. I can't believe finale is still lacking this .

-Joe


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## mducharme (Oct 7, 2011)

They said they were working on something like magnetic layout.. but the unicode upgrade was so major (they should have done it years ago) that they didn't get much else done in the new version. (they had to modify the code so that all strings are unicode encoded instead of ANSI)


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## nradisch (Oct 12, 2011)

What is this "magnetic layout" feature people keep mentioning? (I'm a Finale user).

--Neil


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## Daryl (Oct 12, 2011)

nradisch @ Wed Oct 12 said:


> What is this "magnetic layout" feature people keep mentioning? (I'm a Finale user).
> 
> --Neil



There should be some information here:

http://www.sibelius.com/products/sibeli ... _edit.html

D


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## nradisch (Oct 13, 2011)

That makes it very tempting to switch to Sibelius. I can't tell you how many times I've cursed Finale when all my articulations and what-not are crushed together and I have to move them around manually (isn't that what computers are for, to do the dumb manual stuff for you?)

Can anyone comment on what layout features Finale has that are missing from Sibelius if I should switch?

--Neil


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## mducharme (Oct 15, 2011)

I cannot directly comment on that, I only did some cursory tests with Sibelius. I found it a bit awkward to use, but it's hard to tell since I'm so used to Finale. Since Finale has said they are developing a magnetic layout type feature for Finale, I'm not going to jump ship just yet..

There are workarounds for many of the issues with things getting crushed together in Finale, which you can try. Locking your systems helps to make sure your measures don't move from one system to another, which in many cases prevents issues with new collisions appearing after you have aligned everything. When it comes to stacking of articulations, that is one thing that Sibelius does nicely with its magnetic layout, but you can work around the issue in Finale by creating your own articulation that merges the two articulation symbols into one, preventing you from needing to manually adjust articulations with respect to each other.

There are some useful hints regarding collision avoidance here:

http://www.rpmseattle.com/of_note/colli ... le-things/

Also, the full blown TGTools plugin allows all sorts of things that can be used to auto align your score. I use it to vertically align my dynamic text with hairpins for instance. Unfortunately it does not seem adjust the horizontal size of hairpins to not collide with dynamic text but it does help a great deal.


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## nradisch (Oct 18, 2011)

I decided to download the free Sibelius trial to check it out for myself. I've entered a few piano and small ensemble pieces. Though I've been using Finale since it's inception, I'm probably going to switch to Sibelius. I didn't have to spend nearly as much time fussing with the layouts and part extractions. It seems to be built more with a musician's mindset than a programmer's. Also, there's something about the Sibelius interface that is very inviting. It seems to say "come here and compose something". While Finale has always had this "I'm a big hostile complicated program...go away" kind of look.

--Neil


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