Finale 2004 OS X Shipping on Jan 16th

my last classic app.....


death to os9!

:D

Now there are virtually zero software reasons not to make the jump to OS X!

Whee!

Finale is the worst music notation software!!!

Sibelius is far more powerful and 50x easy to use.

http://www.sibelius.com

it's about time -- that took way too long

While I agree that Sibelius is incredibly easy to use, it has no where near the power of finale. As a professional copyist, my company has every version of Finale and Sibelius on hand, but the one we use 99% of the time is Finale (2002, cause 2003 sucked).

Maybe in the next release Sibelius will be up to Finale's power, but as of now it is just not there.

I will agree, though, that for 90% of the people who need a music notation software (students, churches), Sibelius is the better choice because it is so easy.

I am very excited for 2004. Now I can finally get rid of my Dual 867 and get a new powerbook.

Sibelius 3 beats Finale. Maybe not the Original sibelius.

its about damn time. i have been so upset with makemusic/finalemusic/codamusic/lateassmusic for their failure to meet deadlines. i use sibelius for my own projects more and more, but the fact is that most of the music i receive from people is .MUS, which Sibelius doesn't take to very well. even an ETF file from Finale gets all screwed up in Sibelius.

I and many other musicians and composers I know have a love/hate relationship with Finale. We hate how much they charge for upgrades, we hate how they've gone back on so many promises (they promised an OS X version years ago), we hate how the file format is proprietary, we hate how you have to go to convoluted dialog boxes and fiddle with numbers in order to tweak everything to get it to look just right.

But we still love Finale, because it can do anything. If you're just composing a short folk song for piano or guitar, it doesn't matter what music notation software you use; they're all good. But when you are trying to arrange for an orchestra (20+ parts) or jazz big band (16+ parts), all of a sudden none of the other programs, including Sibelius, stack up. Finale might be really confusing and poorly organized, but it simply has hundreds of features that none of the other tools have.

It's kind of like Microsoft Office. Other programs are cheaper, easier to use, and better in other ways, but everyone else already uses Microsoft Office, you already know how to use it, and no single other program can replace all of its features that you use.

I'm quite happy to see Finale on OSX. Though I do agree it took too long. At least I won't have to use os9 anymore. it's certainly a program worth learning to use to its full potential. Particulalrly when you're composing something that requires many different instruments.

There's always another alternative, Encore 4.5.4. Yes, it is STILL around, contrary to a lot of people thinking the company went under.

Been using Encore for 10 years. Can't think of using anything else right now. Find it at www.gvox.com .

It's also Carbonized, so it'll work either OS9 or OSX.