New Finale musx -> MusicXML online converter without Finale

Here the full article on Scoring Notes

I’ve seen recent posts elsewhere from people who still haven’t converted all their files to XML, and are still running old versions (even pre-musx).

Procrastination is a wide-spread disease :wink:

I gave it a try yesterday, taking .musx → Denigma → Dorico and .musx → Finale → Dorico as a comparison. Interestingly, the Denigma files actually did better with a few text elements, but did way worse with chord symbols. I had always used custom chord symbols in Finale, but the Finale XML imported much more accurately. The Denigma files were missing many chord symbols to the point that I really wouldn’t recommend it if chord symbols are part of your workflow. All notes imported identically though.

Batch exporting XML from Finale is not hard. I did all 14k+ Finale files I have back in September 2024. It is nice to know you’re not totally SOL though if you haven’t done so and Finale won’t install on a future OS, or when MM kills off the registration server. (And they are going to do that in a few years. “Indefinitely” most certainly does not mean forever. Plan accordingly.)

Keep in mind, of course, that Denigma is a work in progress.

Someone else has made a similar tool, which I tried a while ago. The results were a mixed bag, but much better than having to type it from scratch.

Robert Patterson will know more about the Finale internals than many people, from his plug-in work. (The format is proprietary and undocumented.)

The ability to provide “future conversions” is a really nice touch.

Astoundingly, there are still people using very old versions of Finale who haven’t converted all their files.

I guess the differences between the original Finale files and the converted ones would be the Denigma Variations.

I’ll show myself out now…

Maybe, someday, someone will find a cure! :rofl:

I’ll get around to it, I promise.

I found another tool for the conversion of musx files: musx2mxl.

Usage on Mac

Install via Terminal:

bash

python3 -m pip install musx2mxl

Convert a single file:

bash

musx2mxl "My File.musx"

Batch-convert a whole folder:

bash

musx2mxl --recursive "/path/to/your/Finale/folder"

By default, this produces a compressed .mxl file. With --keep, the uncompressed .musicxml file and the decoded intermediate data are preserved as well:

bash

musx2mxl --keep "My File.musx"

I initially got:

zsh: command not found: musx2mxl

The tool wasn’t installed or wasn’t in my PATH. This worked for me:

bash

python3 -m venv "$HOME/venvs/musx2mxl"
source "$HOME/venvs/musx2mxl/bin/activate"
python -m pip install --upgrade pip
python -m pip install musx2mxl

Check the installation:

bash

which musx2mxl
musx2mxl --help

Convert a single file:

bash

musx2mxl --keep "/path/to/your/file.musx"

Convert all .musx files in a folder recursively:

bash

musx2mxl --recursive --keep "/path/to/your/folder"

The --keep option preserves the uncompressed .musicxml file and intermediate decoded data alongside the compressed .mxl output.

If you still get “command not found”, make sure the venv is activated, or call the binary directly:

bash

source "$HOME/venvs/musx2mxl/bin/activate"
python -m pip show musx2mxl
"$HOME/venvs/musx2mxl/bin/musx2mxl" --recursive --keep "/path/to/your/folder"

Note: musx2mxl only handles Finale’s newer .musx format. It does not convert the older binary .mus format — for those, you’ll need Finale itself (or someone who has it) to export to MusicXML.

Another Note: Even if it might seem so, I am no expert in this technical sphere. I was guided by Perplexity AI. If you have questions, it might be better to ask there or someone else who can give a real answer. All I can say is, that it worked very quickly and effective.

FWIW, musx2xml has not had updates in the last year, while Denigma is under active development.

The annual procrastination banquet has once again been put off until next year.

:grinning_face:
Welcome to the forum @jmprickett01

Jesper

From the forum guide:

Please note: This is a community forum and not a marketplace.

No PUN-ishment is too severe for that one.