Dorico’s blog on conversion from Finale tells us to save MIDI versions of Finale projects. Does anyone know the value of MIDI versions and how to use them?
I believe it is in order to preserve as much information from the original Finale files as possible.
MIDI will preserve sound information and can be imported in Dorico, but will not include textual data. PDF will preserve exact layout information, but maybe hard to import into other programs (like Dorico). MusicXML will import layout information, but may not be error-free.
I’m not sure I would suggest every file needs to be exported to MIDI. But if you are concerned about playback in the future and want to import a Finale-based work into a DAW like Reason or Logic or Cubase etc, then MIDI is the way to go. I only export to MIDI from Finale when I want to tweak something in Reason and develop an audio file with a different set of instruments than if I only used Finale for audio (Noteperfomer, GPO5) and don’t need pizz or col legno or harmonics. Easy to use a DAW like Reason to also use VSTs for GPO5 (and also possible to use Reason’s rack as a plugin in Finale). But anyway, the point is to have the MIDI file for later use in a DAW if desired.