Finale 2004

Rating:
Summary: Bought It, But No Reason To Load It!
Review: Being a professional music transcriptionist, as well as a composer/arranger, I need to stay open-minded and up-to-date with music software, so I purchased the Finale 2004 upgrade even though it made me nauseous.

I've limited the amount of jobs I will accept that require the use of Finale because it takes more than twice the amount of time to accomplish anything in this program than it does in programs like Sibelius, which are designed to be intuitive and user-friendly.

I am a long-ago Encore cross-over, and I have given ALL programs a fair shot, but unlike all of the Finale "power users," I don't have the time in my life anymore to devote to conquering a program... I just need something that makes sense and gets the job done right, quickly and professionally. When I had trouble just figuring out how to put a NOTE on the page in Finale, some users suggested that I hire someone to teach me the program from the beginning, and that way I'd know how to use it. Why did they suggest this? Because I found out that all of them had to do the same thing in order to learn it themselves! Well, I've used music notation programs quite successfully since I was in high school and I've NEVER had to hire someone to teach me how to use them, so I don't understand why I would have to do that today.

I believe that's why I've settled quite happily with Sibelius as my personal choice for notation -- it made so much sense that after a few days of using it I was already accepting jobs with it. That program teaches YOU how to use it, it's so intuitive. If you don't know how to do something, you just guess, and it works!

I also need a program that is cross-platform... I haven't loaded 2004 for many reasons, the main one being that the few jobs I still accept on Finale come from MAC users who are now stuck in 2003. Since it's not my program of choice, there is no reason for me to have this version, and as time passes I'm realizing that there is no reason for me to even have this program at all. I've been employed consistently as a transcriptionist and have not had to use Finale for several months.

Don't upgrade this wretched program... It's time to look into the future and move on without it.

Rating:
Summary: What can I say? It's Finale!
Review: Finale 2004 is, by far, the best music notation software available. I have been using Finale since version 3.0 and I can easily say that 2004 is the biggest upgrade that I have seen for any notation software. I have tried Sibelius and some other so-called alternatives, but none of them have yet been able to catch up to the technological advancements of Finale.

I have a full-time job making engravings for composers, college professors, orchestras, choirs, independent music teachers, and their students. I also like to work on my personal compositions and arrangements when I have the time. Finale 2004 is the only tool that I currently use. I am surprised how many musicians there are that either: a) don't want to buy Finale and engrave the music themselves, or b) aren't computer literate enough to use Finale.

You need to be somewhat computer savvy to use this program effectively; being passionate about music isn't enough. Everything you could want to do is in there, but it is just a matter of finding it. What I really love about the program is that it is tool-based, yet it works like a word processor. This leaves lots of room for personalizing the look of your music and even loading your own customized set of music fonts. The flexibility is amazing!

I personally think that it is very user-friendly, but I can understand why others might not think so. If you are working at becoming a professional composer or engraver, then Finale is the only way to go. If you don't know much about computers and you are just trying to make something simple for your local community band, then you might want to steer clear of Finale. It also helps if you have worked with other MIDI applications before. Finale is not sympathetic to the ignorant. But everything you would want to know is in the user manual so it is technically possible to begin the program knowing nothing, but it would take some dedication.

Rating:
Summary: What can I say? It's Finale!
Review: Finale 2004 is, by far, the best music notation software available. I have been using Finale since version 3.0 and I can easily say that 2004 is the biggest upgrade that I have seen for any notation software. I have tried Sibelius and some other so-called alternatives, but none of them have yet been able to catch up to the technological advancements of Finale.

I have a full-time job making engravings for composers, college professors, orchestras, choirs, independent music teachers, and their students. I also like to work on my personal compositions and arrangements when I have the time. Finale 2004 is the only tool that I currently use. I am surprised how many musicians there are that either: a) don't want to buy Finale and engrave the music themselves, or b) aren't computer literate enough to use Finale.

You need to be somewhat computer savvy to use this program effectively; being passionate about music isn't enough. Everything you could want to do is in there, but it is just a matter of finding it. What I really love about the program is that it is tool-based, yet it works like a word processor. This leaves lots of room for personalizing the look of your music and even loading your own customized set of music fonts. The flexibility is amazing!

I personally think that it is very user-friendly, but I can understand why others might not think so. If you are working at becoming a professional composer or engraver, then Finale is the only way to go. If you don't know much about computers and you are just trying to make something simple for your local community band, then you might want to steer clear of Finale. It also helps if you have worked with other MIDI applications before. Finale is not sympathetic to the ignorant. But everything you would want to know is in the user manual so it is technically possible to begin the program knowing nothing, but it would take some dedication.

Rating:
Summary: Buggy and Poor Value
Review: Finale 2004, even with the update, is incredibly buggy.
Avoid it. Stay with 2003 or switch to Sibelius.
That it was even brought to market this buggy is outrageous, even for Finale.

Rating:
Summary: Actually Zero Stars
Review: Finale. Grrr. This software is badly designed. It is too hard to learn (I can't be that stupid, I did graduate from Yale). It doesn't make sense. It doesn't conform to straight forward software behavior standards that we expect like with Word, Photoshop, Pro Tools, etc. It looks kind of old and dumpy in the interface. Way too many buttons and toolbars and dialog boxes. Like the program itself, the Help is difficult to navigate and hard to decipher. There is a new version every year - but the usability doesn't ever improve - except for really simple things. (They added a "Start New Score" wizard. Oh boy!)

Rating:
Summary: The finest music software of our time.
Review: I began my odyssey of music composing as a high school choir student last year. We had just received a generous donation of 4 Korg synthesizers, 4 iMacs, and a copy of the new music software, Sibelius 2. Using Sibelius, I composed a 4-part choral arrangement of a national anthem in about 3 weeks, punching out finer details and adding everything necessary to perform it. Our choir performed it that winter. After the show, the school band director approached me and explained to me how he knew that I had composed it on Sibelius. He handed me a box which contained Finale 2003 and I was off like a rocket.

Now, a year later, I am composing with the new Finale 2004. I have been able to expand that national anthem into 8 separate arrangements, for full orchestra, concert choir, jazz band, and others. My current project is composing a show for my high school's marching band, and with the new stuff that wasn't on Finale '03, I anticipate I will get it done a heck of a lot faster. Finale '04 has even better editing and arranging capabilities to already complement the quickness of the Simple Edit feature. Not owning a synthesizer myself, I have found the usually tedious process of entering notes one by one to be much easier now that I can enter them in ont he computer keyboard.

Buy this software. You will compose your magnum opus with it.

Rating:
Summary: I love it!
Review: I'm a novice at using notation software, and I've found Finale to be very easy to use! I just sat down and got started, and within moments was successfully creating music and having fun. I may not be a professional engraver, but my needs were many, somewhat unusual, quite specific, and I'm VERY particular. Even if I didn't immediately find what I needed, it didn't take long once I turned to the thorough on-screen guide. The one time I did seek assistance from Finale support, the guidance I received was fast, thoroughly helpful, and completely professional. I'm VERY pleased with this product!

Rating:
Summary: Still the best
Review: I've tried all the software for writing music that there is. They all seem to compare themselves to Finale because it has been and remains the world standard.

I use it in doing copy work as well as in the high school classroom and I've gotten so I can produce full jazz and band scores in an amazingly short amount of time with all the new arranging features in Finale 2004.

In my humble opinion, Finale is often imitated but never duplicated. Nothing even comes close; especially the new challenger, Sibelius which I tried because it claims to be easier. I've actually found Sibelius to be tougher to learn.

Stick with the proven name.

Rating:
Summary: Design oversights continue to plague this version of Finale
Review: Let me start by saying something nice about this version of Finale, the grand daddy of desktop publishing music notation programs. I finally can use Finale on the OSX operating system. Naturally, I was very excited to give it a test drive when it finally arrived.

PROBLEM: In the new Expression Designer of Finale 2004, one can't globally RESET individual system baseline offsets with a simple commmand. If I manually change these on a per system basis, and then do a SAVE AS for a second homophonic part - now the auto-aligned text is in the wrong place. Naturally, I want to quickly reset the baseline for the entire piece back to zero, so that the settings I've created for positioning with the Expression Designer mean something.

But I can't. This has been an ongoing issue with chord symbols for several versions of Finale, and also with Lyrics. Finale's Lyric tool has a way to reset these on an individual basis, but this isn't possible with the chord symbols, and now, isn't possible with this new text expression addition either.

That said, the new ability to mix fonts and styles in the expressions is very useful.

PROBLEM: There still doesn't seem to be a way to save Smart Lines as a library. Did I miss something? I can share Staff Styles, Text Expressions, Articulations and other customizable elements as a library, why not Smart Lines? Particularly since custom smart lines have been part of Finale now for several versions. I can't believe I'm the only user who has asked for this functionality. Frankly, it is incomprehensible that MakeMusic! hasn't included it without anyone asking, as obvious as it is.

PROBLEM: Finale 2004 still copies EVERYTHING by default using Mass Edit, including double bars, time signatures, key signatures etc etc. Each time I open Finale, I have to go to the mass edit menu and deselect what I don't want to copy, again and again whenever I open the application.

I want my "what to copy" settings to "stick" or have a choice to save this as a user preference when I quit. I have lived with this inconvenience forever. I don't want to copy barlines. ever. I don't want to copy Staff Attached System text (like metronome marks and Tempo text such as Adagio) ever. I don't want to copy key signatures. ever. I don't want to copy time signatures. ever. I have other tools to create these objects in Finale very quickly if I need them. This absolutely needs to be a working preference for the individual user. Just because it's always worked one way, doesn't mean it's the best way.

PROBLEM: I'm sure most Finale users have already heard more than enough about the PDF creation bug in Finale 2004 for OSX, and many of us have already tried the official workaround. I've found it's quicker to reboot under OS9 and use Finale 2002 than use MakeMusic's workaround, which I will continue to do until their maintenance upgrade comes out. Those of you with a computer than doesn't boot under OS9 will just have to jump through the hoops. Sibelius seems to have no trouble producing usable PDF files, although in defense of Finale, Sibelius has been out on the OSX platform long enough that the programmers really know what they are doing on it.

PROBLEM: No EPS Export. Rumored to be resolved very soon in a maintenance upgrade.

PROBLEM: Still no RECENT ITEMS menu for Mac users? It's in the Windows version of Finale, and has been forever. It's in Sibelius, and has been forever (on both Windows and Mac, I might add). And, a recent items list is such a standard feature of just about every professional level application, I'm stunned that the programmers at MakeMusic! haven't figured out how to do this.

PROBLEM: And finally, my Page Setup settings are lost when I open any older Finale document - I have to reset these (the Maestro Font Default page size is reflected in these older docs that are opened, so at least there is a workaround for this).

All in all, I waited a long, long time for an OSX version of this application, and I must say, my impression of Finale 2004 is lukewarm. Finale still has the edge over its competitors in several areas: file management, e.g. naming extracted files coherently, slur and tie handling, and some other esoteric engraver tweaks, but with applications like Sibelius making quantum leaps in quality with every upgrade, MakeMusic! is going to have to do better than this.

Rating:
Summary: Back To Say A Few More Words...
Review: Since I got Sibelius 3, Finale 2004 has been a nice little icon on my desktop.
People say to "spend time with it" but in today's high-stress, fast-paced industry, I don't have that kind of time.
I also don't have time for bugs, etc.
My co-workers and I, in both platforms, used Sibelius 3 the first week of it's release, on two very large musical shows, and we had NO PROBLEMS! NONE!
It seems like those stuck on this program (Finale) have been using it for so long that switching to something new would be ridiculous, and I guess I can understand that because I was an Encore cross-over and it took me a long time to wean myself from that program... but I really had no choice.
I gave several programs a chance, including Finale, but I'm musically savvy and not much of a computer person, so Sibelius was a dream come true.
I think the best notation program is one that allows me to be musical, not technical. Musical = Sibelius. Technical = Finale. Choose the one that's right for you.