Finale going the way of the dodo was (regrettably) a long time coming. I feel like they were complacent with being the “industry leader” for so long, they didn’t see any need to keep up with the developments of their competitors. And before long, better alternatives came around.
I haven’t used Finale in well over 12 years, but I do admit to a pang of sadness at this news. Finale was my first notation program. I started out on Finale Notepad in 2005, and once it became apparent that this was something I was genuinely interested in, my trumpet teacher gifted me a copy of PrintMusic a couple years later. I bought an upgrade to the full version of Finale shortly after that and used it religiously until I entered college in 2012 and switched to Sibelius for my university courses.
I can’t imagine a custom finale importer would be at the top of the development list when MusicXML is available. It would require significant resources from both sides.
It would be better to tweak the MusicXML exporter in Finale and importer in Dorico if issues were found.
I don’t know which other Software in MakeMusic‘s palette could support that cloud service, but the press release is clearly NOT a merger, which is what would probably be necessary in order for dorico to take over these services.
I hope Sibelius continues as competition for Dorico. I say that even though I felt Avid’s behaviour in sacking the Sibelius team was such an act of corporate greed and stupidity that I refused to buy any more upgrades to Sibelius from that point on.
In any case there is enough competition with MuseScore. I think this announcement is a huge blow for Sibelius., with MakeMusic clearly stating WHO the future of music notation is. Thats a huge blow to Sibelius‘ public credibility, coming from the elders.
I suspect there are things that would be capturable in a direct .musx to .dorico conversion that would be hard to include in .musicxml. Converting from Sibelius via .musicxml, a few years ago, created hidden duplicate clefs in Dorico, that had to be manually deleted. I don’t know if that’s been solved, but little things like that add up over a large batch conversion. A conversion tool wouldn’t have to perfectly translate every single element to be extremely useful.
It might be possible to create with few enough work hours, justified by enticing folks away from switching to Sibelius. I don’t know why people are actually considering the other dinosaur a smart option, but on some Facebook groups, I do see people considering that because they already know Sibelius to some degree.
Another interesting question here though is: will publishers follow the endorsement? Or are they stock-piling Windows 7 machines to keep good ol‘ Finale 25 running forever? (Obvious hyperbole)
They too have a load of legacy code, layers deep by now, and they are hamstrung I suspect by not having a fully logical model representing the data in a score, and a modern application architecture. I think that must make adding big new areas of functionality extremely difficult.
Twopence-worth of shock from here, too. Not entirely surprised, given how rickety the operation seems to have been in recent years. Glad they endorsed Dorico rather than Sibeleus.
I think I got on board with the first Windows version back in the 1990s.
I agree. I think a conversion tool would be very unlikely.
There may be some mileage in looking at a range of Finale XML files, seeing if there are any consistent problems when the files are opened up in Dorico and prioritising those issues for attention. That said, I’m sure the Dorico team will do all they can to make the trip across from Finale to Dorico a success.
On a different note - I remember reading some time ago (I think it was here) that Finale files were an industry standard for different businesses. IIRC publishing was mentioned.
I wonder how that’s all going to play out.
MakeMusic still owns MusicXML and that was conspicuously absent from the press release.
I might know a thing or two more about this subject but that would be telling tales out of school. There are others who know this far better than I if they wish to weigh in.
In the contemporary classical universe there are still many scenarios that Dorico cannot (yet) handle and where MusicXML is futile… exciting times for publishers…
That’s pretty cool – potentially more job opportunities for me working in Dorico doing orchestration and even tutoring for ex-Finale users
I love that they officially endorsed Dorico which means Dorico’s base will inevitiably expand – I wonder if that implies a financial agreement or partnership of sorts between the companies? Or did MakeMusic just look at the market and figure endorsing Sibelius would be like endorsing a skeleton? The crossgrade offer to Dorico 5 Pro at $149 is a steal – I look forward to all the new Dorico users and ushering an era of Dorico overtaking the market
I didn’t have Finale back then (I was just in elementary school!) but gosh, I remember installing software on our family PC and it would take ages. I actually recall having Photoshop 2 or 3 and it was something like 40 disks and took all day. Worth it, though, to draw a circle and add a drop shadow lol.
And god forbid you lose ONE SINGLE DISK. Screwed.
Kids these days have no idea how easy they have it
Yes, indeed that was horrible. I remember installing an office suite called Ami Pro that came in a heavy box with about 50 discs.
Finale 3.7, my first version, also came in a heavy box but it only contained two 3.5’’ disks plus five manuals printed on thick glossy paper. Because it was my first music notation software, I haven’t had the heart to throw them away yet.
