[OT] Today, one year ago Finale has been put into coma

Dorico
1

One year ago today, MakeMusic announced the end of Finale.

As a long-time user I was shocked on the one hand, on the other hand I had been working for some time to switch to another application, because I was annoyed of Finale’s many serious shortcomings. These were never eliminated even after several reports – even by the Finale master Jason Loffredo – at MakeMusic (for example, the terrible alignment of accidentals in chords in different voices/layers). You could do pretty much anything in Finale, but it was associated with a lot of effort. However, my change had never been realized for convenience reasons.

That’s why I gladly accepted the offer of MakeMusic/Steinberg (Sibelius was out of the question due to lack of SMuFL support) and bought Dorico. The first steps were very bumpy, I felt like a beginner, but with the support of the introduction videos, the very helpful forum and practice-practice-practice, I was able to work reasonably smoothly with Dorico after 6 weeks.

Today, after a year, I am very happy to have made the change. As a professional conductor and engraver for larger ensembles, I especially appreciate - in addition to the exact alignment of accidentals in chords :wink: - the “auto layout” engine and the score condensation. These allow you to focus more on the music. Of course there are also workarounds to accomplish things (I’d like to remind ending ties in second repeat endings :smiling_face_with_sunglasses:) but the basic tasks do simply work.

Many thanks to the development team and also to the extraordinarily friendly and helpful members of this forum.

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I second all of that!

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I bought Dorico version 1 (at the ‘normal’ crossgrade price) in 2016, because even while it was very limited: what it could do, it did very well; and I wanted to support the team’s efforts.

I was still using Finale for most things, but the introduction of Flow Headings in version 2.2 in late 2018 was the first in a series of “game-changer” features that have become routine in every major release.

In 2019, I wrote a lengthy article on the notat.io site, suggesting that Finale’s development was dead in all but the doctor’s note. The release of v27 did little to disprove this; and yet I was still shocked when the announcement came.

John Barron remarked something to effect that, had Finale quit the game earlier, Dorico 3 or 4 would not have been sufficiently mature to receive such an influx of users, with their expectations and demands. We are very fortunate indeed that there was such a passing ship.

Dorico is one of the few apps that I actively enjoy using. Call me weird, but when it does a whole bunch of stuff effortlessly, I still get a little frisson of excitement.

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I think I remember when you wrote that. It was right around then that I was having the same feelings about Finale development. I thought it was pretty clear by 2019 that Peaksware (LaunchEquityPartners) really had no interest in developing it further, fixing longstanding bugs, modernizing the interface, etc. They would do just enough to keep it compatible and keep the upgrade revenue stream going, but that’s it.

SmartMusic became pretty popular during the COVID lockdown and it clearly then became their top priority. I had a notat.io post from 2021 right after Fin27 came out where I wrote, “I suspect Finale is drying up as a revenue stream … I wouldn’t be surprised to see Finale completely rolled into the SmartMusic banner in another update or two.” Well, I was definitely wrong about that LOL! It still surprised me when they just killed it off completely.

I had eagerly followed Dorico development, but didn’t jump at D1.0 because it really couldn’t do a lot of what I needed so I didn’t see the point. By D2.2 though, the addition of chord symbols, slashes, 1-bar repeats, jazz articulations, and some drums and percussion stuff got me interested enough to jump in. I haven’t started a job in Finale since.

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Couldn’t have said it better myself! I did buy it as an early adopter though, and used a cross grade from Sibelius, so it was really very affordable… :smiling_face:

B.

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Totally agree. I felt comfortable enough with Dorico 5 after about a month of reading the manual, perusing the forum and videos, to just go all in on a new work. I’ve composed seven works, all fairly long and involved compositions, since starting with Dorico in late August, 2024 (I tried the demo installation first and then shortly afterwards purchased the Finale crossgrade). I’ve worked hard to get my Finale scores fixed up to get rid of minor errors, along with the audio files, and at this point have totally uninstalled Finale and Garritan Personal Orchestra 5. I recently had to uninstall and reinstall Finale and still couldn’t get Expressions and Smart Lines to work properly (I’m on macOS 26 using a development seed) so I’m hoping if I ever do have to go back to Finale to fix an old file, reinstallation will fix some of the issues I was finding. I have zero interest in using Finale after three decades of using it; in recent years it was buggy, with little or no effort to fix most of these issues, and I don’t have to deal with all that nonsense now that I’ve switch to Dorico. Dorico is not perfect, of course, but it works very reliably, and at this point it has more functionality by far, in my opinion, than Finale. The support here is awesome, and I’m looking forward to starting another work shortly now that I’ve fixed what I needed to in some of my older Finale files.

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Totally agree! I used Finale (and now Dorico) not quite as intensively as a lot of people here, but I too was shocked when the announcement came. My dad taught me how to use Finale in my early teens, I think that was Finale 2001 or 2002, and I never used anything else until I bought the Dorico crossgrade last year. Over the last year I’ve had to finish a couple of wind band projects that I started earlier in Finale, but instead of finishing them in Finale I ended up entering them from scratch in Dorico because I like working with it so much (and because it was a good exercise). This forum has been truly amazing and my learning curve would have been a lot steeper without it!

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I was all-in with Dorico at the beginning (before v. 1.0), but when 1.0 was released, I thought that it wasn’t ready. There were too many features still in development. I tried again with v. 3.5 and 4, but I wasn’t able to use it significantly until v.5, when Finale died. I’m still at the point that none of the publishers that I work for use it, so any work that I do with it involves my own compositions, which I can only work on when I don’t have any paying work going. There are some features that I really like, but I still find it very slow when working with large scores. I use condensing extensively, and when I need to go back and forth to galley and pages modes, it takes 10-15 seconds to redraw the screen of a 36 minute symphony on a fast computer. That’s not really acceptable these days, but I’m persevering. The whole flows feature is supposed to lend itself towards multi-movement scores, but I’m finding that short is better. These days, I’m inputting in Sibelius, transferring it to Dorico and doing the final edit there. For some things, playback is better in Sibelius, others in Dorico. My trumpet concerto plays better in Sibelius, my 3rd string quartet in Dorico, 4th symphony in Sibelius. (Using NotePerformer.) Dorico ignores my commas, and doesn’t play wide glissandos well using the playback setup I have. It’s better than Finale, but for me the jury is still out as to whether it is better than Sibelius, except for a few features (like condensing).

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My “Dorico journey” was not about running away so much as running towards. A Finale user as a composer (“classical” and jazz) and theory teacher since 1990, I heard about Dorico in 2021 and began exploring it (v. 3.5, if memory serves).

What attracted me first-off were flows — which I knew would work very nicely for my compositional workflow — and the “mini-DAW” play mode/editor, allowing for audio-only tweaking.

I made the full switch to Dorico in 2023 and have been happy. I do miss the more graphic-oriented design of Finale from time to time when making abstract theory examples, since they don’t just “break the rules” of music notation but often aren’t even in the same ballpark. But for elegance of visual results and the degree to which I can allow Dorico to take care of them in both score and parts for me without much fuss, I am a “happy camper!” (And the new cutaway capabilities are a dream for those theory examples!)

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My “all-in” moment with Dorico came yesterday when I was working on a transcribed score that was loaded with percent signs. In Finale I would have had to enter all the missing notes manually because I can paste only whole measures, but in Dorico I can copy groups of notes and then paste them at the carat to fill in the missing beats. I did in minutes what would have taken far longer in Finale. Many thanks to the Dorico team for your efforts to create a great product.

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Glad you like Dorico. FWIW, one can paste into partial measures in Finale, even just a single note. I used to do it all the time, actually.

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Wanted to post into this thread soon after first reading it, but got distracted…

It has been fantastic seeing this huge boost in membership of the Dorico community over this past year; some joining and having major struggles initially adopting but ultimately winning - some, really giving it a try and finding it’s simply not for them. All of which is absolutely fine and healthy.!

Ok, am being a bit selfish, but a larger, healthy, growing Dorico user-base simply means helping guarantee its (and the team’s) future.

Also notable over the interim, all the brilliant help/guidance/advice/solutions offered by seasoned Dorico users to those folk, along the way, with plenty of encouragement and example files and actually fixing stuff for others.! I’ve loved watching this kindred spirit and willingness to help (from the side-lines as it were) - at how fantastically the community has behaved/responded/given their time freely.

Sadly offering little help directly myself, being such a novice/hobbyist (I’m mainly here supporting the team.!). Cubase still covers my very infrequent notational needs (even turning back to C13 and it’s ‘old’ score editor on occasion).

Anyway, my main point for posting was about moving forward.

The next ‘phase’ of Dorico’s life-journey, should in my estimation focus a good deal of marketing energy/effort into getting it into the hands of a much younger audience.

Presently, coupled with this recent high switch-over from the Finale userbase, I would say (estimate/guess) Dorico’s majority demographic is over the age of 55 (maybe even slightly higher; oh, and male.!). A newer, younger generation needs to be inspired somehow.!

They of course, will be Dorico’s future, though obviously initially drawn to the likes of MuseScore Studio. I understand there are (have been) some ‘in-roads’ for Dorico, into the education market - but that is a terribly competitive one, driven by peer pressure for the most part. To that end, currently, I don’t believe Dorico lives anywhere near in the minds of our youth/student population as much as it should/ought to.

So, lets ask for the next year ahead, what are anyone’s thoughts about this.? How to inspire a ‘younger’ generation to take a look/buy into what Dorico can offer.? What can we as casual users (i.e. me), or otherwise professionals, do to encourage/promote Dorico use/adoption.?

I might be a bit naive here, but I think I can say only Seb Skelly comes to mind as your actual ‘young person’ YouTube influencer who regularly posts and uses Dorico (video production credits lists Dorico Pro 5).

Other Dorico YouTube users I’ve seen certainly seem/appear (apologies.!) over age 40 - others perhaps higher than that…

Anyone here a regular Instagram or TikTok user.? Do you spot other Dorico users there too.? I don’t use either at all really. I ‘follow’ some motorsports - BTCC among others - some football teams and a few bands/friends in bands, on Instagram. I sometimes comment, but I very rarely post on my ‘own’ channel as it were…

Is there a ‘killer feature’ missing perhaps.? (I can think of adding an Audio track/playback facility, for transcription and/or soundFX as being one example that may pull a ton of youngsters over to take a look…)

But I’ve no real answers.

What are your thoughts.? How do we help grow the Dorico userbase in this age of ‘new’ tech creeping inevitably upon us.? Is it a question of features, price, ease of use, simply awareness..? Which of these is the bigger barrier to entry.?

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I think it comes primarily (and almost exclusively) by getting a firm grip in the educational market. While it doesn’t seem like the US has younger kids do music class as much as the UK does, at least getting ahold of them in college.

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I think it’s a little of all of these. Virtually all my undergrad students use MuseScore. From their point of view, why not? It’s free. This is the iOS generation that thinks a $10 app is expensive and Dorico Pro is obviously way, way more than that, even with the educational discount. Dorico’s marketing does not address the MuseScore issue head-on either. There’s no page comparing features, output, playback, ease of use, etc, so why would any student choose Dorico over the free program? For Masters-level students and Composition students it’s a little different, but MuseScore still dominates.

Inertia is a huge factor too. Once anyone has learned any sort of notation software it is a big undertaking to learn a new one. Most people simply don’t care that much. Obviously many of us here like to geek out about notation-related stuff, but most people just want to be able to quickly input lead sheets, basic piano music, some educational handouts, or simple arrangements. That’s it. MuseScore works fine for them so why change?

I’m sure most of us have friends that are Finale dead-enders that are just going to continue with Finale until they absolutely can’t anymore. Even knowing the program is no longer developed and isn’t officially compatible with the current Mac OS (it works fine) isn’t enough to overcome the inertia hurdle. Whether it works on Win12 when it comes out is anyone’s guess, and of course MM wants Finale off their books so there’s no way the authorization server is going to keep going indefinitely. Even that’s not enough to switch.

I would be inclined to address the issue directly. Knowing that it’s almost impossible to get people to switch once they learn a program, give students a reason to use Dorico right off the bat. Work with high schools and colleges to give cheap (or even free) group licenses, knowing the payoff will be years down the line when students purchase their own versions and get into the upgrade cycle. Have sites and videos showing the advantages of Dorico over MuseScore. Pay select music influencers to make Tik Tok or YouTube videos showing that they are using Dorico. Everyone hates subscription software so hammer Sibelius over that, just like Sib attacked Finale constantly for being hard to use 20-25 years ago. (I’m neither a lawyer, nor in marketing, nor have any sense of Dorico financials, so what do I know? LOL) With the exception of the Finale exodus in the past year, once people learn a single notation software it’s almost impossible to get them to switch, so give students a reason to start with Dorico and not MuseScore.

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Agree a lot about students. I’ve taken part in an international music camp during the summer and get acquainted with a bunch of very young composers. When I asked them which app are they using for writing music all answered MuseScore. I told them how great Dorico is, and some of them had a quick try, but as it is quite pricy I doubt any of them will switch. What is a pity, cos Dorico is far more than a useful notation app. It is such a pleasure and fan. And besides has a much nicer outcome.

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I’ve gotten a few. I think the things that have been successful for me personally have been:

  1. With the exception of a few older Finale things I can’t be bothered to convert, all of the scores and handouts I use in class are done in Dorico. Anything I input during class is using Dorico. Eventually a few students realize my stuff looks better than theirs and they inquire about it, especially the serious students.

  2. Extending the input caret. Whenever I demonstrate this in arranging or analysis class it blows their minds.

caret

For someone coming from mouse input in MuseScore that’s a pretty impressive time saver.

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Yeah, for this MuseScore’s not even a (four-way) close second. :slightly_smiling_face:

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I’m afraid the biggest barrier is the declining number of kids learning how to play an instrument. Smaller and less orchestra’s and bands, thus less need (and budget) for sheet music.

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I have heard that it’s planned to make access to Dorico SE easier, i.e. circumventing the registration process.

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Thanks for these extra thoughts folks…

The post from @k_b above gave me an idea - if what he says comes to pass.

Maybe now is the time Steinberg called on a big favour from parent Yamaha for some extra marketing muscle; to the extent of bundling a copy of the free Dorico SE with every single musical instrument they sell.

What about them also launching a scheme alongside for existing owners of Yamaha instruments to get hold of a copy of Dorico SE somehow, as a broader ‘message’ to the market (schools.?) that Dorico is here - (and is here to stay.!)

Anyway, don’t wish to distract peoples attention too much more. :slightly_smiling_face: Some food for thought…