![]() As a former ProTools user who waited 8 months for Avid to “certify” ProTools on a new Mac OS (which came with the Mac, and I had no choice but to use), I know Avid. Avid has NEVER been known to be fast/timely/quick/responsive to updating their products. It supposedly has issues on the latest Mac OS X (10.9), as does all of Avid’s stuff. Until Avid shows some commitment to Sibelius, I would say that it is going to languish. They both basically do the same thing, just Finale gives you 10 ways to do it, and Sibelius gives you 4 ways but really wants you to use what it thinks is best. So….if you are just getting into the notation game, and have to choose between Sibelius and Finale, it’s really close. It still needs a LOT of improvements in the audio playback department, and MakeMusic needs to start moving it towards more DAW-ish like playback. It’s not fully 64bit….yet, but it’s moving that direction. Not a lot of new features, but improvements and forward thinking changes (like a stable file format). What to do next, lets gut a bunch of it and modernize it. ![]() ![]() It worked great, had a few issues, but generally worked great. They had Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) (or rather Finale 2012). I mean, it is sort of like Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6). I’m not really sure what “new” notation features can be added that people really would go “oooo, now that is a great idea”. ![]() And the company seems to be moving forward and has modernized Finale (on the Apple side). It has way more flexibility in how it works, and you can get your scores to look however you want. So, what is the verdict? I still think Finale is better than Sibelius. But unless this tool is updated, I will have to stick to Finale 2012. MakeMusic also seems to have bought or obtained parts of TGTools and has been including them in Finale for a few versions (2009 or 2008 was the first?). I have no clue if the author is going to update it or not, as he never “officially” updated it for any version of Finale past 2010 (2011, 2012 worked with it). For teaching I use the Add Pitch Names tool ALL THE TIME, and I use various alignment tools, and Custom Chord Styles for doing / chords in Finale (like doing a F7/C chord). What is TGTools? It’s a plugin that allows all sorts of things to be done in Finale, and I find it essential in using Finale. Ok, so, what is the BIG issue with Finale 2014 that will prevent me from upgrading. What? Don’t remember when Finale had Notemover? They killed it off a few versions ago and replaced it with this “universal selector” thing, which I think was actually the way to go (though it has some issues in how it works). Plus, Finale isn’t 64bit, so you can’t really load up a huge sample orchestra in Finale and have it play. The Garritan sounds, while very great sounding in 2001, are not really that great sounding now. Ok……now anyone that uses Finale for playback….really? I mean, it’s NEVER worked well for me, and the playback is Cheezy at best. New sound engine and playback and more Garritan sounds. Supposedly, didn’t really notice when I was using the demo. Supposedly it’s all Cocoa on the Mac, meaning the UI looks more Mac-like now. Yes, there are some other “new” features. And the stupid program can finally….or Finale….no no, finally….save to older versions and future versions of Finale won’t have to convert files to the “new” format every time they are opened. It’s easy to do a keyless score now, and when you do crescendos and stuff, it will smartly adjust the size of them. Those are basically the new/interesting things in Finale 2014. Anchored Hairpins and Measure-attached Smartshapes.Export To Finale 2012 and new File Format (which shouldn’t change in future versions of Finale).I’ll bullet point what I think are interesting features and list some big reasons NOT to update. Luckily, Jari Williamsson has an excellent review of what is new. It is REALLY hard to tell what the new stuff is or why you should update to it. Now, they have just released Finale 2014. It works, but it has issues like all software. So we went about 2 years with Finale 2012. Meanwhile, MakeMusic got bought and the new owners pledged to continue making Finale, but not at it’s regular yearly update cycle. The future of Sibelius is sort of up in the air as they sacked their great development team due to Avid, the parent company, having issues (they also sold off the M-Audio line of products at the same time). There are two BIG players in the music notation field. ![]()
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