Long Time Finale User

One thing about Tantacrul’s video that I think completely missed the point was his criticism of not being able to move certain things in Engrave mode. That Write and Engrave modes are so clearly defined and locked means there is no chance of accidentally changing the notation when altering the layout in Engrave mode. He never really got to grips with the fact that where a crescendo starts and ends is a compositional decision; the vertical position of the crescendo is an engraving and layout decision. I hope he didn’t discourage anyone because what he disliked is a really good thing.

One thing Finale does not have is separate frames for music notation, text and graphics. In Finale changing musical notation can sometimes reposition text boxes and graphics, even if the notation changed is many bars before. For contemporary scores Dorico makes the layout secure. For more traditional music though this makes no difference.

Judging from the comments on various sites, several of which were some variety of “I was curious about Dorico, but I’m glad to know it’s so bad,” he did indeed sour some potential users. Irritating. One can only hope they try it for themselves, rather than taking the advice of an “expert.”

To steal a quote from another thread (by another new ex-Sibelius user, Gareth Glyn):

“I feel as if I’d been struggling to use a chainsaw until someone pointed out that I needed to start it up first…”

I don’t think Tantacrul ever got that far :slight_smile: