# Still using Finale?



## kitekrazy (Nov 7, 2021)

I have an offer to upgrade for $79

I still have Finale 25. On one machine I have to stop the print spooler for it to open and works fine on another system. I have 2009 which is still solid.

I'm thinking of upgrading just to upgrade. I don't use notation software that much. I don't want to invest in Dorico. 

Who still uses it? I know it leaves a bad taste in this forum.


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## stmain (Nov 7, 2021)

I still do, but only as a legacy, since I've been with Finale way back since 2.0 and have a gazillion older projects in that format. But all projects going forward are in Dorico for me. Just got tired of waiting for Finale to catch up.


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## Jett Hitt (Nov 7, 2021)

I still use it simply because I started using it in 1992. I would never recommend it to anyone starting out. It is still the most powerful notation program on the market imho, but the code is quite antiquated, and the learning curve is steep. I own all the major competitors, but Finale does everything I need. I’m not sure there’s any real reason to upgrade, however. I got some super deal to upgrade when the last update dropped, and I regretted it after I did it. Finale is just a notation program, and I don’t think it will ever be anything more. I don’t personally feel like they have added anything meaningful to it in 15 years.


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## OleJoergensen (Nov 7, 2021)

I still use it, for 22 years. Have not updated to the newest version yet. 
I dont think I need an other notation software. 
To speed up the workflow, I use a video editing mouse with 15 buttons (for the left hand) and Keyboard Maestro+ Streamdeck. 
You can find some very usefull tips: Finale superuser Youtube.


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## JJP (Nov 7, 2021)

I use Finale almost every day on film/TV projects. I know a number of professional copyists in Hollywood for whom it is still the first choice of tool. Some of them switched to Finale after using Sibelius for years.

I also use Keyboard Maestro and a Streamdeck on a Mac.


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## Piano Pete (Nov 7, 2021)

Having used all three for music prep internationally, Finale used to be my main one, I transitioned over to Dorico. 

Even with all of my custom scripts and macros, the amount of time Dorico saves me for certain aspects made it a worthwhile change, and although I was not really expecting it at the stage Dorico 3 was when I switched, the move has drastically decreased the amount of time required to get a chart finished. 

With some of the additions coming down the pipeline, it was worthwhile for me to get into it. I just wish there were some better fonts using SMuFL, but I just may end up having to make some. (Just as I am typing this, I see Finale updated some of their fonts to be complaint, so maybe these now work within Dorico?)

All that aside, if you know Finale well and do not want to learn a completely new way of working, I'd just grab the update. You can still use the older versions if you need it. I still have several old versions of Finale on my rigs due to some of the houses I have worked with, 2009 and 2011 still being on my desktop.


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## Rudianos (Nov 7, 2021)

kitekrazy said:


> I have an offer to upgrade for $79
> 
> I still have Finale 25. On one machine I have to stop the print spooler for it to open and works fine on another system. I have 2009 which is still solid.
> 
> ...


Absolutely - only thing I use. Guess I would not know if anything is better - but no issues getting it to do whatever I want. The last updates seem superficial I will admit. Did notice Dorico competitive crossgrade - I might see what the hype is about.


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## DavidGaines (Nov 27, 2021)

kitekrazy said:


> I have an offer to upgrade for $79
> 
> I still have Finale 25. On one machine I have to stop the print spooler for it to open and works fine on another system. I have 2009 which is still solid.
> 
> ...


I've been using Finale exclusively practically since version 1.0 and have no plans to switch to anything else. The playback, which is primarily what I'm interested now, has improved significantly and version 27.1 makes a big leap forward with SMuFl integration (you can get all the details on that at https://www.finalemusic.com/products/finale/whats-new/). Even if I could afford to get Dorico or Sibelius, Finale works fine for me, particularly with 3rd party plug-ins and add-ons, and I don't have the time or energy to start from scratch with another notation program anyway. Also, Finale's parent company (MakeMusic) now owns Music XML, which is up to version 4.0, so exporting files from Finale to any of its competitors should be virtually seamless once they can handle MusicXML 4.0.


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## kitekrazy (Nov 27, 2021)

I went with it. It will probably be my last version of any notation software.


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## rgames (Nov 27, 2021)

I rarely use Finale any more because I rarely need to print music for full ensembles these days. From a composition standpoint it's easier to just do it all in Cubase.

If you just have a few musicians it's vastly easier to use the (marginal) output from Cubase and have them write in whatever else is necessary. But I'd never use Cubase to prepare a score for an ensemble larger than 10 or so musicians, maybe even 5.

rgames


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## osterdamus (Nov 27, 2021)

Jett Hitt said:


> I would never recommend it to anyone starting out.


What would you recommend for someone starting out?


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## kitekrazy (Nov 27, 2021)

osterdamus said:


> What would you recommend for someone starting out?


Finale Print Music satisfies most needs. Musescore is free and wait till Udemy has a sale and there is a course for it.


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## Jett Hitt (Nov 27, 2021)

osterdamus said:


> What would you recommend for someone starting out?


I don't have a crystal ball, but Dorico seems to be where it is at the moment. It is the only option really.


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## Dewdman42 (Nov 28, 2021)

osterdamus said:


> What would you recommend for someone starting out?


Starting out doing what? What are your goals? Notation programs are a deep rabbit hole honestly. It totally depends on what your reason is for wanting to work with notation.


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## rgames (Nov 28, 2021)

Dewdman42 said:


> Starting out doing what? What are your goals? Notation programs are a deep rabbit hole honestly. It totally depends on what your reason is for wanting to work with notation.


Yeah it really depends on what you're doing.

If you just like to compose using notation then something like Staffpad is a better bet. But I'd never use Staffpad to prepare parts for a full ensemble. Finale is vastly more appropriate for that task.

If you're just adding a few musicians to a production created in a DAW then the score editor in Cubase is perfectly fine. I'm not familiar with the score editors in other DAWs but anything that can do basic notation will suffice.

If you're preparing parts for full orchestra or other large ensemble then something like Finale's "Linked Parts" functionality is a huge help. Having one look for the conductor and another for the musicians is necessary and can't really be done in a DAW score editor (I don't think...).

Another reason to use something like Finale is if you're preparing a score/parts for a publisher. I suspect a publisher will expect a more traditional look to the music that you can't really do in a DAW.

So, yeah. It depends.

rgames


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## Jett Hitt (Nov 28, 2021)

If your needs are not professional (and maybe even if they are), take a hard look at Musescore. It is a little bit old school, but it is completely free.


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## rgames (Nov 28, 2021)

Also - as noted above - I've been using Finale since the 90s and it is the slowest-progressing app I have used regularly over that time period. It is downright archaic in terms of the UI and feature set. And somehow the Garritan thing happened - those sounds are awful. Staffpad sounds *vastly* better. Even beyond the Garritan disaster, Finale spent too much time/effort trying to add DAW features when they should have spent that time improving the workflow/UI with existing features.

I think the reason for the slow development and poor decisions is because it's focused on the education market. That's not to say it's not used by professionals - it is, and it is as good as anything else used by professionals - but the business decisions and development are driven primarily by the education side, not the professional side.

The market for notation software has always confused me. It seems ripe for disruption, and has seemed so for about two decades. And yet here we are, discussing Finale with its 90s vintage offering.

Maybe that's why Steinberg took on Dorico. Staffpad could get there with a few more years of serious development.

rgames


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## LinusW (Nov 28, 2021)

I rarely have to print scores, but when I do then I prefer Finale over Sibelius. Still have a really old version of Finale running on WinXP in a virtual machine. 

The next step for me would probably be StaffPad, not Dorico.


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## Dewdman42 (Nov 28, 2021)

I just bought iPadPro, Staffpad and Berlin sections and I am seriously falling in love with it! I would never use it to print music though... I view it as a composing tool. I really like using the pencil approach a lot!

My quick summary about different notational programs would be


Finale is the closest thing to an industry standard. If you plan to actually publish your work where you work with an outside publisher...or in many cases if you are big enough to have orchestrators and arrangers that take your sketches and produce final form from that, etc.. Its a standard. I never used Finale enough to become proficient at it...and it takes a long time to become proficient at it. I personally do not recommend Finale unless you meet these needs. It is a very good program, but it has always been hard to use and remains so today. The people that use it have become very proficient with it after years of effort and so it continues to be used today and is simply put the closest thing to a standard simply by virtue of what people are used to


Sibelius. There are some using that one too, same league as Finale I guess, but I personally could never get used to it


MuseScore is very free and produces lovely scores, but is very weak on many professional features if you will be cranking things out on a deadline. if you are just wanting to learn about notation though, its free and highly reccomended!


Dorico is interesting, it was like the next generation of Finale/Sibelius....perhaps what they SHOULD have evolved into and never did. it has some very compelling playback features and also some very compelling publication features where they hit on a lot of the things that made Finale/Siblieus time consuming to do certain things. That being said, they must have been brain dead when they decided to create the note-entry methods the way they did. Doesn't work for me at all. But I do plan to use StaffPad to enter music and transfer into Dorico for formatting there. Dorico has a lot of smart intelligence built in for layout. lots of potential here. Some might say the program is still in early to mid development stages as far as where it will end up.


There are numerous other smaller notation programs, most of them considerably cheaper then Finale/Sibelius/Dorico.... They all have some pros and cons, but for the most part would be inadequate for serious publishing. that includes whatever is built into some DAW's. Some have really easy input methods...like Notion for example. I used Overture on a student project years ago to record with 50 piece, and my scores looked better then all the other students that were using Finale and Sibelius...by a wide margin...but I had to do a lot of manual work related to parts and even had one enharmonic accidental mistake that I didn't see until the conductor was about to start...which probably would not have been the case if I were using Finale with it linked parts features, etc. Just one example...but anyway these programs all have various pros and cons and are great for casual notation needs, usually pretty easy to use and produce nice output. they are all worth a try, but MuseScore is free! MuseScore has awful playback features though.


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## JJP (Nov 28, 2021)

Jett Hitt said:


> I don't have a crystal ball, but Dorico seems to be where it is at the moment. It is the only option really.


I work professionally as a copyist and orchestrator, and Dorico is not the only option. Finale and Sibelius are both alive and well in the professional realm.

Any notation that comes out of a DAW is "good enough" for some people but not anything you would want to put in front of a professional musician in a situation where clarity and time are valuable. 

It's amazing how much rehearsal and recording time people waste and how many performances are less than stellar because of poor sheet music.


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## Jett Hitt (Nov 28, 2021)

JJP said:


> I work professionally as a copyist and orchestrator, and Dorico is not the only option. Finale and Sibelius are both alive and well in the professional realm.
> 
> Any notation that comes out of a DAW is "good enough" for some people but not anything you would want to put in front of a professional musician in a situation where clarity and time are valuable.
> 
> It's amazing how much rehearsal and recording time people waste and how many performances are less than stellar because of poor sheet music.


Finale and Sibelius are alive, but I wouldn't say well. Development at Finale stagnated years ago. Those idiots should be king of the world, and instead, they're a dinosaur. Dorico is actively addressing many issues from workflow to playback. 

Personally, I wouldn't use anything for my orchestral parts except Finale, but I'm a dinosaur. I still consider it to be the most powerful of the notation programs, but Dorico has a future. They are actively developing that program. Finale? What are they doing? I just paid for a whole update that just gave me SMuFL fonts. WTH? There is no imagination in that company, no innovation. I use Finale exclusively, but Dorico is the future.


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## Tralen (Nov 28, 2021)

DavidGaines said:


> I've been using Finale exclusively practically since version 1.0 and have no plans to switch to anything else. The playback, which is primarily what I'm interested now, has improved significantly and version 27.1 makes a big leap forward with SMuFl integration (you can get all the details on that at https://www.finalemusic.com/products/finale/whats-new/). Even if I could afford to get Dorico or Sibelius, Finale works fine for me, particularly with 3rd party plug-ins and add-ons, and I don't have the time or energy to start from scratch with another notation program anyway. Also, Finale's parent company (MakeMusic) now owns Music XML, which is up to version 4.0, so exporting files from Finale to any of its competitors should be virtually seamless once they can handle MusicXML 4.0.


MusicXML is an open format and its development was handled from MakeMusic to the W3C in 2015.


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## osterdamus (Nov 28, 2021)

rgames said:


> And somehow the Garritan thing happened - those sounds are awful.


What happened exactly, did they replace the default sound library with something less appealing?


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## osterdamus (Nov 28, 2021)

Dewdman42 said:


> I just bought iPadPro, Staffpad and Berlin sections and I am seriously falling in love with it! I would never use it to print music though... I view it as a composing tool. I really like using the pencil approach a lot!
> 
> My quick summary about different notational programs would be
> 
> ...


Thank you for this overview. As noted above, I asked where to start with notation programs, and your list is very helpful.

To start with, my short term goal would be to tinker and test a workflow outside the DAW. I'm DAW based at the moment (Logic) and I think it would do me good to start getting my eyes adjusted to working more in a score. I know Logic has a score editor as well, but the workflow is a little off for me. Preferably in a program (on my computer, ipad isn't an option right now) where the sounds are tolerable (I've heard some pretty robotic outputs, but don't know which program it was, but it was hard to concentrate on the score it self because of it).


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## Fabrice Music (Dec 4, 2021)

JJP said:


> It's amazing how much rehearsal and recording time people waste and how many performances are less than stellar because of poor sheet music.


Agree. Whatever tool you use, you will need anyway to check and layout each of instrument sheet, just for good page turns, and if you don't have time, you will want to pre-print all the work a concert master/conductor does and that a composer would normally not write like bowings, detailed articulations, breathings and whatever makes the first reading faster.

I have only been using Finale (since 2005) and I did not see improvements that I use if I compare the first version I bought (2009) and the version 26. It even lost the integration with video which was so usefull when scoring films. The main thing I would swich from Finale is the horizontal scrolling which takes forever, the refresh is very bad. Another thing would be a real integration with Cubase: i.e. you add in bar in your notation software and it automatically uodates your daw (knowing that there is still all the automation and articulation to be done in the DAW).
If someone tells me Dorico does that, I may have a look, otherwise I stay with Finale !


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## osterdamus (Dec 5, 2021)

Jett Hitt said:


> If your needs are not professional (and maybe even if they are), take a hard look at Musescore. It is a little bit old school, but it is completely free.


I recently checked out MuseScore and I found the import options limiting. Most articles I found on importing point to opening a midi file and import. Is it correctly understood that there's no support for importing one or more select notes into existing score?


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## Jett Hitt (Dec 5, 2021)

osterdamus said:


> I recently checked out MuseScore and I found the import options limiting. Most articles I found on importing point to opening a midi file and import. Is it correctly understood that there's no support for importing one or more select notes into existing score?


I am not the one to answer this. I don’t use Musescore. I just keep an eye on it because they claim to be implementing the StaffPad playback engine.


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## waveheavy (Dec 7, 2021)

Finale is not best for playback. If you truly want to hear a fair idea of what your orchestral score will sound like with the least amount of tweaking, StaffPad playback right now is still the best choice.

I've had a hate-love affair with Finale. I'm still using Windows 7 and Finale quit supporting W7 a couple of versions ago. The last update of the version I had did something to text input in the score. I couldn't space between words, everything was just jumbled together. So I went back to Finale 2014 just because of the text problem (which the 2014 version I think is 32 bit, so I lost the ability to use more samples for playback.)


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## dtoub (Dec 12, 2021)

I’ve been using Finale since version 3.2 in the early 90’s, and am also a long-time beta tester. That said, it frequently frustrates me, but in the end, it does what I need it to do, and after 30+ years, I’m not interested in switching (yeah, I know all about Dorico, and I’m not interested for a bunch of reasons). I’m less concerned with how perfectly the scores look in the end since it’s not like I am a professional copyist, and the few folks who have really championed my music over the years have managed quite well with the scores that have resulted from Finale, warts and all. I’m more concerned with being able to get what I compose notated in a reasonable form, and Finale has been robust enough to accommodate pretty much anything I’ve thrown at it over the years (including some really gnarly scores from when I was still writing 12-tone music).


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## MauroPantin (Dec 12, 2021)

Have Finale 2010 (I think?) installed but I never open it anymore. Left for Sibelius years ago. And then I left Sib for Dorico because I got tired of AVID's business model. Finale and Sib are more of a legacy thing I have.

I would never start a new job on Finale unless it was a prerequisite by a client. It is usually requested by old school Hollywood or traditional orchestras with very particular score managers/producers/conductors and, more rarely, for worship music. And also, almost always from the US, I don't think I've ever been requested a .mus project file from Europe.

Nowadays even when it actually gets requested I just duke it out in Dorico, then export the XML, then complete the job in Finale, even if it means cleanup at the backend. I just can't work with Finale's note input anymore. Sibelius was fast enough by comparison and Dorico is just trailblazing for me.

I know that folks who use it really know their way around customization, macros, tons of plugins. It's just that it is too frustrating to maintain all of that for me. Sibelius had the same issues, with tens of user written plugins. I hate that. I can understand one or two things the program does not do from scratch. 80+ plugins to get basic time-saving functionalities? Not a fan.

I also have Staffpad along with all of it's sample library add ons. It sounds amazing but it is by no means pro engraving software. MuseScore has been advancing a lot, too. But also not pro engraving software.

Right now Dorico is where it's at, IMO. If I were to start today as a freelancer I would probably get that, unless I was freelancing for a specific music preparation client. Each house has it's own software preference and template and then you just need to bite the bullet with whatever they have going. If you're going independent and just starting out, then just Dorico. It's the fastest one and project files are rarely part of the deliverables, anyway.

I also think all of the big three (Finale, Sibelius, Dorico) price composers and other musicians who are not pro-engravers out. The mid-tier versions are too limiting. In that sense, for that target demographic I think Staffpad is the best route. It's the most intuitive for writing in notation and sounds stellar. If you want to knock out acceptable-looking scores after that then you can clean the Staffpad export in MuseScore. It does most things and it's free.


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## MusicIstheBest (Dec 12, 2021)

rgames said:


> Also - as noted above - I've been using Finale since the 90s and it is the slowest-progressing app I have used regularly over that time period. It is downright archaic in terms of the UI and feature set. And somehow the Garritan thing happened - those sounds are awful. Staffpad sounds *vastly* better. Even beyond the Garritan disaster, Finale spent too much time/effort trying to add DAW features when they should have spent that time improving the workflow/UI with existing features.


yeah, trying to add more daw features but the midi interface is still without update and awful. and then with version 25 they got rid of some very useful features that had been standard and relied upon. lots of bad decisions.


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## chapbot (Dec 12, 2021)

I'm still happily using Finale 2000 and refuse to upgrade. Still works on Windows 10 lol


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## wst3 (Dec 13, 2021)

I am using Finale, I've been using it since 2000, and probably won't change (think inertia, or dinosaurs!). I finally (oops) updated to Finale 26 last December. I don't remember which feature caught my attention, but I was several versions behind so I figured it made sense. And then I have not used it since, except to see if I remember how. Yeah, that smarts a little bit.

I too was a beta tester for them several years ago. I dropped off because they were having problems deciding how to communicate with the Beta team. It was a little frustrating, and beta testing is supposed to be fun.

And I admit I am a little frustrated with the development pace. It is a powerful, and reasonably complete tool set. I am not at all interested in human playback, so that does not deter me. I am very interested in being able to create readable scores and parts for local players of varying experience levels. (And I've tried to read my share of unreadable parts, so I am sympathetic<G>)

Finale does everything I need, and the workflow is comfortable. If I were starting out, and knew what I know now, I'd probably start with Dorico.

It is, I think, amusing that scoring programs are probably the most difficult to learn/use tools we use, which makes switching a most daunting prospect.

I have no idea if any of that helps.


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## noldar12 (Dec 13, 2021)

Do you know if Finale 2005b would work on Windows 10? Because of my visual impairment, I need to use a reverse screen image, and all versions after 2005b have staves hard-coded black. As you can guess, black staves on a black background doesn't work very well. So, I still run an old XP computer for it. Having only 64 MIDI channels sometimes is a limitation, but I can work around that. I am following Dorico a bit, but I've also been using Finale for 30 years. Notion allows for a reverse screen image, but in some ways that program is even more outdated than Finale.

Side note: yes, I can use a grayish background in my most recent version of Finale (26?), but then there isn't really enough contrast.


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## DavidGaines (Dec 21, 2021)

Tralen said:


> MusicXML is an open format and its development was handled from MakeMusic to the W3C in 2015.


Wasn't aware - thank you for the update.


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## Composer 2021 (Feb 15, 2022)

I tried Dorico today and can't get ahold of the mouse input. Musescore is the same way. Finale's mouse note input is simply the best in my view. What you see is what you get.


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## dtoub (Feb 15, 2022)

Composer 2021 said:


> I tried Dorico today and can't get ahold of the mouse input. Musescore is the same way. Finale's mouse note input is simply the best in my view. What you see is what you get.


Well I agree Finale’s input is awesome But be careful; the cult folks here will accuse you of being some sort of plant 😎


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## Composer 2021 (Feb 15, 2022)

I'm no plant, just a dude who has been using Finale since I was 10, lol.


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## Jett Hitt (Feb 15, 2022)

dtoub said:


> Well I agree Finale’s input is awesome But be careful; the cult folks here will accuse you of being some sort of plant 😎


There’s nothing wrong with Finale’s input. I prefer it in some ways.


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## benwiggy (Feb 16, 2022)

Composer 2021 said:


> I tried Dorico today and can't get ahold of the mouse input. Musescore is the same way. Finale's mouse note input is simply the best in my view. What you see is what you get.


I suggest that using the mouse to stick notes onto the staff is going to be the slowest method in any application. Even in Finale, typing the notes in Simple Entry is faster. Obviously, if you have got a MIDI keyboard to play in the pitches, that's even better. Some apps have on-screen piano keys that you can click on, which also helps.


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## ptram (Feb 16, 2022)

Entering a score by mouse-clicking is a little like writing a novel by clicking a list of words in a wordprocessor…

Paolo


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## dcoscina (Feb 16, 2022)

Quite a few of my concert composer friends still use it. They swear by it. I worked with it on a couple copying jobs in 2011 and I swore at it. I was more firmly in the Sibelius camp at that time.


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## Jett Hitt (Feb 16, 2022)

If you are using Finale and not using Speedy Entry, God help you. . . .


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## MauroPantin (Feb 16, 2022)

The people I know who like to mouse-click for note entry argue that it makes you "ponder each note" and it is thus, a pro. I mean, if you are writing your opus with no pressure, by all means. But I can't imagine doing that with a deadline. Or at least not the deadlines that I usually work under. What was the phrase? "We're on day 2 of the production and we're already 3 weeks behind!". Something like that.


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## ptram (Feb 16, 2022)

MauroPantin said:


> The people I know who like to mouse-click for note entry argue that it makes you "ponder each note" and it is thus, a pro.


I'm maybe being a bit too philosophical, here, but composing shouldn't be "pondering each note". It is more a holistic process, where you first get the whole picture (where is your piece going? how is the sound evolving? what's the shape and direction of your melody?).

And then, on a second pass, you check if the actual realization of your picture has all the details in the correct place, or you have to rewrite everything, reshape your melody, move some notes, change a chord, replace an instrument with another.

Not starting from a clear idea of the whole process is one of the most common errors when starting composing. Often, it becomes difficult to reach the end of the bar, and when you reach it it is as if you find a safety hold after having been in the open sea.

This happens in music, but also when writing a story, designing circuits, projecting a home. Early focus on details is a safe bet for failure of the project.

But, then, to deny all the above, I have to admit that there are masterworks written following the I Ching…

Paolo


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## Composer 2021 (Feb 16, 2022)

Mouse-click note entry 4EVR


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## Dewdman42 (Feb 16, 2022)

The point of being able to click on a staff with the mouse is not about "pausing". it is simply about being able to be a musical frame of mind. if you write on staff paper or click the mouse on the staff, its the same mental process. its closer to the music, if you have had much training with actual notes and staves that is. There are visual patterns on staves that actually mean important things when composing. We can hear in our head what we see often times. Sometimes I hear in my head what I want, but I need to click the mouse and drag it while I listen to make sure I had the right note in mind. That would be a pause for sure. But that is not alway the case. Its simply the fact that musical staves have been around hundreds of years and many of us trained to look at it and think about the music visually while thinking in terms of notes on staves. This was impressed upon me starting with my very first piano lessons a thousand years ago. 

So any direct connection to the staves...the most direct possible...will help the musical mind do what it needs to do while creating.

Using a midi keyboard to enter notes onto the stave is not the same thing! Though for some people they may have trained more in front of their keyboard then from using staves in which case they might find that more musically intuitive.

Other methods of entry that involve QWERTY keyboard commands, touchpads, StreamDecks and such are actually more efficient, IF YOU KNOW THE MUSIC AHEAD OF TIME. And also IF YOU HAVE THE KEYBOARD COMMANDS PROGRAMMED INTO MUSCLE MEMORY. If you are transcribing something, or notating something that you already composed or someone else composed and you basically need to just get it into the computer...and if you have already practiced using those keyboard commands sufficiently that you won't have to think about it too much, then that can actually be quite rapid. But otherwise, its just technical mumbo jumbo that breaks the flow, gets in the way of musical intuition that can otherwise occur by the simple act of clicking a mouse on the staff where you want a note.


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## Dewdman42 (Feb 16, 2022)

and yes, despite all the formatting hassles, I find Finale to be more musically intuitive for composing music than some of the others which have abandoned simple mouse entry. Way more. I also find Notion to be not too bad. MuseScore is ok. Dorico is terrible. I don't know Sibelius. StaffPad I'm still getting used to, it might be a little TOO SLOW, even though it is definitely direct. Notion iOS version is actually substantially faster than StaffPad and still pretty musically intuitive. But I still prefer StaffPad's approach over QWERTY keyboard command based input or even midi controller input....its not always about the speed...its about musical intuition and musical thought process.

of course, back to the question about Finale...as everyone knows....Finale formatting can be a royal PITA, so there is always that... Finale playback is really about 20 years behind the curve. I own an up to date Finale license because like it or not, its still a standard. But I like the direction Dorico is going with that and I get nicer looking stuff, easier...with Dorico or even MuseScore, but Finale in the hands of a true Finale Guru can get anything you want done too...so...


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## Composer 2021 (Feb 16, 2022)

Does Notion have similar mouse note entry? It's the only one I haven't tried yet (besides Sibelius, which I will never use because of the mandatory subscription).


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## Dewdman42 (Feb 16, 2022)

yes. choose duration, click the note(s). You can also choose duration and play the midi keyboard like most of the other's also are able to do, or use the visual midi keyboard on the screen. you don't have to switch modes to do that, you can choose duration and either click the note on the staff or play it on the keyboard either way at any time. Notion, however, does NOT have speedy entry modes that are good as some of the others if and when you know the music ahead of time and have practiced the speedy entry method to get a lot of music entered fast. Finale and Dorico both excel at that.


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## Kurosawa (Feb 16, 2022)

I swear by Dorico!


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## ed buller (Feb 16, 2022)

ptram said:


> Entering a score by mouse-clicking is a little like writing a novel by clicking a list of words in a wordprocessor…
> 
> Paolo


not even whole words...just letters

e


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## JJP (Feb 16, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> If you are using Finale and not using Speedy Entry, God help you. . . .


I work with one copyist who uses nothing but Simple Entry and his computer (not MIDI) keyboard. He's lightning fast. It made me think hard about the way I work.


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## Jett Hitt (Feb 16, 2022)

JJP said:


> I work with one copyist who uses nothing but Simple Entry and his computer (not MIDI) keyboard. He's lightning fast. It made me think hard about the way I work.


I think they call this sadomasochism.


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## Composer 2021 (Feb 16, 2022)

It's called a good ole workflow.


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## benwiggy (Feb 17, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> I think they call this sadomasochism.


It took me several years to work out why I could only enter rests with SpeedyEntry (You have to turn off "Use MIDI Device for Input" in Speedy's menu, which is the default even if you don't have a MIDI device.)

By which time, I'd become as fast with SimpleEntry as I am at typing text. Simple Entry is one of the few areas of Finale that I have no complaints about.


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## dtoub (Feb 21, 2022)

Honestly, I've always used Speedy Entry. I tried Simple Entry in the early 90's when starting to use Finale and once I used Speedy Entry, I just couldn't use Simple Entry; Speedy for me was just way better. The only advantage I've ever found for Simple Entry is to enter a 128th-note rest. That's it. But speedy entry works great, even if I'm not hooked up to my synthesizer over MIDI. 

As far as playback, if you upgrade to the paid version of Garritan Personal Orchestra for Finale, it makes a real difference, as does NotePerformer. 

Formatting can largely be addressed with various plugins, some of which are free (and some of which are included with Finale) and some (like Perfect Layout) that are not. Yeah, it should all be built into Finale proper, but it isn't and I've made peace with that.

As a composer, I'm not in any need of having to ponder each note. And if you have ever heard my music, there are times when I just use a single note for several minutes (like the opening of this piece for saxophone quartet, which is an A for about 3.5 minutes), but as I like to say, it's just one note but a really good one. Since I compose mainly by improvisation, I'm usually just starting with stuff that has been input into Reason's sequencer anyway and then transcribing into Finale.


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## Composer 2021 (Feb 22, 2022)

dtoub said:


> As far as playback, if you upgrade to the paid version of Garritan Personal Orchestra for Finale, it makes a real difference, as does NotePerformer.


Really? Do the instruments have a much better dynamic range? My main problem with Garritan Instruments for Finale is the brass - it sounds so lifeless. The strings also sound a little synthetic. The dry sounds relying on reverb does not help much.

Are there any good examples of the full GPO in Finale?


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## dtoub (Feb 22, 2022)

Composer 2021 said:


> Really? Do the instruments have a much better dynamic range? My main problem with Garritan Instruments for Finale is the brass - it sounds so lifeless. The strings also sound a little synthetic. The dry sounds relying on reverb does not help much.
> 
> Are there any good examples of the full GPO in Finale?


Overall, in my opinion, the main advantages of GPO vis GIFF are a wider range of instruments and ensembles, and also some of these have higher quality. That's particularly true of the string patches. There are also more effects although I can't speak to brass in that regard. I think the brass in NotePerformer is better and have re-recorded a few of my works involving brass using NP and it's so much better (also for winds). 

Strings are hard to sample well. Even NotePerformer (which isn't sampling per sé) falls short in many respects when it comes to strings. Overall, except for harmonics (which are awesome in NotePerformer), the strings in the paid version of GPO are better. At least to my ears. 

One of the advantages for me with GPO were some of the string effects like col legno, that are not available in GIFF with Finale. However, it's still pretty limited in GPO.


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## pefra (Nov 1, 2022)

dtoub said:


> ...it's just one note but a really good one...


Love that one.


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