New Lower Price for Finale

[DianeB]

If you have been contemplating taking the plunge into full-featured notation software, good news: Finale is now priced at $299, a full 50% drop from its previous list price of $599. The learning curve is a bit steep (think Photoshop) but the help system is voluminous and there are many online tutorials to get the beginner up and running. Finale has been a huge boost to my music education. The ability to write music and hear it played back is priceless. The principal competitors to Finale are probably Avid's Sibelius and the open source, free MuseScore. I believe Steve uses Finale. Their capabilities are essentially equivalent; in my case the choice was a matter of compatibility with my theory instructor. Here's a sample of mine from a couple of years ago, created six weeks from the starting line.

[DianeB]

Finale is now on sale through August 25 for only $99. That's a lot of notation horsepower for the dollar.

[Eracer_Team-DougH]

That their “Final” offer 🫣😂

 

[DianeB]

The writing was on the wall — or, on the score. Finale has been sunsetted as of yesterday, August 26, 2024. It is no longer for sale and will not be updated. It was a mature product, built upon 35 years of code, with very little that could be added without placing it in a rather different niche, for example, mixing.

It is still more than adequate for my occasional needs. I have little desire to climb another steep learning curve. Its closest counterpart is probably Avid's Sibelius (Sibelius First is free but can not import files; other options are $99 and $199/yr). I downloaded Dorico (free trial; $149) and MuseScore (free; open source) to see what would happen to an imported Finale file (which must be exported as .mxl).

The imported file played back satisfactorily in both Dorico and MuseScore, but Dorico made a hopeless mess of my text annotations and the document format. It uses a different architecture, and the result reminded me of the file format agonies of the 80s. MuseScore's import was much better, although some annotations were altered or misplaced. It's my recommendation for the occasional user; pros will likely stay with Finale until OS changes break it, or go with Sibelius.

[Fretless]

Back in 1993 when I started using a computer for music I chose C-Lab Notator which changed to be Notator Logic before Apple bought it and it is now known as Logic Pro. I bought that software as it combined a DAW with score-writing. Most of my scores are simple lead sheets, like the attached example. Friends and acquaintances have used other score writing software, most seem to use MuseScore because it is free. Sibelius has always been too expensive for me, Finale I nearly bought but, as DianeB implies through her comments, each program is different enough that they do not easily import from another program. I guess that is like a guitar being different enough from a banjo and a mandolin, that while they are all stringed and fretted instruments, moving from one to the other is not as simple as one might hope.

I wonder what others of us are using and would you recommend it to others? I have found Logic Pro's score-writing to be really impressive, albeit a bit quirky to use and not perfect. I would say that unless you want to be able to align your scores with the audio, Sibelius is probably the most capable and MuseScore the cheapest, albeit hard to use for someone with over 30 years' experience of using a different program.

Aj keby nekvitol fík (m001) (noty).pdf

[Gary Nelson]

I wanted to document a couple of small arrangements for my own benefit, and my wife's piano teacher recommended MuseScore.    I think this is what she used in her  local university music program.   It is freeware, and there are versions for both Mac and PC. (I am running it on an iMac).   I am sure it is not as fully featured as the higher end software such as Finale, but I have found it more than adequate for my fledgling purposes.

[Eracer_Team-DougH]

Can’t keep using the old software?

[DianeB]

@Eracer_Team-DougH Yes, Finale will continue to work unless operating system changes break it. I'm glad I kept the installer, and multiple backups, in case something goes south. That's a practice I learned a long time ago.

[DianeB]

David Das offers his professional take on the demise of Finale, with a succinct comparison of the options: