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The End of Finale

finalemusic.com

171–180 of 183 posts

Re: The End of Finale

#172
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hope people treat you with respect and understanding and don’t attack you for stealing if you ever need to discontinue any of your software products or happen to go out of business. No-one is attacking MakeMusic for discontinuing their product, yet you continue to assert this. People are attacking MakeMusic for removing a way that you can continue to use their product as long as there are no technical limitations…

I understand this distinction. I understand why some users are upset. However, I am getting dogmatic blowback in this thread by some people who admitted never purchasing Finale, and are not interested in discussing the pros and cons of any tradeoffs or alternatives, and don’t even want to consider the possibility that this isn’t fun for MakeMusic either. It sucks if people expected authorization would continue to wor…

This is the kind of software which is going to have a small number of dedicate users who depend on it a lot. The fact that there's a small number of them is outweighed by the disproportionate amount that it affects them, likely professionally.

(Artists get very attached to their tools: this happens with physical objects as well, where e.g. it's very common for an artist to have hoarded up a very large stock of their favourite pen/pencil/brush because it was discontinued. Not an option with software that's had its auth servers turned off)

Re: The End of Finale

#173

For me there are so many basic features that are missing in the competitors. I tried Dorico but it can't even play trills properly.

If you're notating classical music and want to be able to listen to half decent playback, I would suggest buying NotePerformer and working with MuseScore before buying one of the "fancy" notation packages. Dorico's default playback is worse than Finale's Aria player.

MuseScore doesn't work with NotePerformer (yet?).

One of the main advantages I find in Dorico is it seamless use of NotePerformer. I like MuseScore 4.4 that came out a few days ago, but it's lack of NotePerformer support makes it extremely difficult to fiddle with to sound balanced. Even if the UI is easier, the playback is most important to me.

Making playback sound pleasant, even with their excellent new integration with sound libraries like Spitfire's, is not easy without tweaking notation.

I hope that the MuseScore team fixes this soon. They have been improving very fast.

Re: The End of Finale

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And why did you quote “IT people”, who said anything about IT people? I'm not the person you're replying to but I interpreted what they were saying as meaning "tech savvy." The average, non-tech-savvy user doesn't necessarily understand the concept of client/server applications let alone realize that what makes the software that they purchased work is bound to a remote server / someone else's computer that could on…

> I'm not the person you're replying to but I interpreted what they were saying as meaning "tech savvy." I certainly meant "tech savvy" at the last-- if not out right someone who works in IT. The kinds of questions you rhetorically asked re: the activation process are the kinds of questions I'd ask as an IT worker evaluating a product for use in a business. Those kinds of questions are well beyond what the average te…

> I wanted to say something like this

It’s much better you didn’t before, except now you did which sadly undermines the rest of your argument. I wasn’t particularly defending MakeMusic, I was just resisting a pitchfork mob thread that was posting misinformation by people who have absolutely zero actual intent to run Finale next year, and no they’re not paying me :eyeroll:. @gspencley just didn’t understand my position before deciding to troll with multiple mean-spirited low-class and ad-hominem attacks that are wildly against HN guidelines. Unfortunately for him, that demonstrates his argument is weak and that he knows it, since he didn’t feel like he could make his point without stooping to name-calling. Now you know it too.

Re: The End of Finale

#175
post #49

As people are talking about Dorico, a little story about how it happened (and, very nearly, didn't). So Sibelius began as a project by the Finn brothers, then in their early 20s in Cambridge, some time around 1990. Originally it was written for the Acorn Archimedes, a British desktop computer running on ARM RISC processors. (They were decent machines, but having a big platform for native software was THE thing that m…

Thanks for sharing, that's really interesting. So often big acquisitions are such gong shows (I work in that field in diligence actually), but it seems from the sidelines like the Yamaha-Steinberg deal is one of the exceptions. I've been very happy with everything I've ever bought from Yamaha in the music world. And they aren't gougers. (the Yamaha "intermediate" saxophones are pretty much universally seen as the best deal you can get quality-per-dollar on a serious horn).

This all has me thinking quite hard of getting Dorico!

Re: The End of Finale

#176
post #49

As people are talking about Dorico, a little story about how it happened (and, very nearly, didn't). So Sibelius began as a project by the Finn brothers, then in their early 20s in Cambridge, some time around 1990. Originally it was written for the Acorn Archimedes, a British desktop computer running on ARM RISC processors. (They were decent machines, but having a big platform for native software was THE thing that m…

Sorry to respond again, but this is germane to my work in diligence and is a really great warning story to over optimistic "rationalizers". I'm curious if you can share sources on this. thanks

Re: The End of Finale

#177
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand this distinction. I understand why some users are upset. However, I am getting dogmatic blowback in this thread by some people who admitted never purchasing Finale, and are not interested in discussing the pros and cons of any tradeoffs or alternatives, and don’t even want to consider the possibility that this isn’t fun for MakeMusic either. It sucks if people expected authorization would continue to wor…

This is the kind of software which is going to have a small number of dedicate users who depend on it a lot . The fact that there's a small number of them is outweighed by the disproportionate amount that it affects them, likely professionally. (Artists get very attached to their tools: this happens with physical objects as well, where e.g. it's very common for an artist to have hoarded up a very large stock of their…

Yes, you’re totally right. I’m aware of this (what artists do), and they are pulling the rug out from under these people by discontinuing Finale. Leaving new installs working beyond 1 year won’t actually fix that, for even most of the die-hard artists attached to Finale. That’s the part that nobody here is admitting, despite the fact that it’s true. The set of people who aren’t willing to move to Dorico or Sibelius or something else, and also who will be technically able to keep Finale running even if new installations are allowed, that set is near empty or empty. Keep it running with new installs allowed is almost as unrealistic as keeping it running without allowing new installations on new machines. It’s unrealistic to assert that allowing new installations will make anything significant better for a meaningful number of people. Finale is dead. In theory or in principle, abstractly, it does suck they’re disabling new authorizations in a year, but in reality it’s not going to matter. In the mean time, if that move enabled Dorico to feel good about offering a $450 discount, that might really help a lot of people. I’m just guessing, but it could help more people than will still be trying to run Finale next year.

Re: The End of Finale

#178
post #171
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm, I don’t think so…

Tantacrul was mentioned. Otherwise I wouldn't have mentioned Tantacrul.

Ah okay, maybe it looked at the time like my comment was part of the other Tantacrul thread. I never mentioned Tantacrul and you replied to me, but I think the comments were next to each other at first. I’ve done that before. No worries.

Re: The End of Finale

#179
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sheesh, kinda harsh. The reauthorize deadline isn’t until a year from now. And I wouldn’t assume anything, but I hope they’re making a kickback from sales of Dorico. Given the discount price, even if your assumption is true, it can’t be that much money. This isn’t some kind of massive win for MakeMusic, nor is it greed if they get a little money for moving people to another product. They’re shutting down what once wa…

I have CDs from software I bought in the 90s I can install today (probably in a VM). I bought it, I should be able to make it work SOMEHOW for the next 100 years. Just release an update with the phone-home commented out.

I also have a bunch of software from 20, 30, and 40 years ago that still works. And I have a bunch of software that no longer runs. Audio and video software is way less likely to still run than other kinds of software, in my experience. It probably could work with an unknown and maybe large amount of work, money, time, and hardware.

The issue here is more about remote authorization in the first place. It’s funny to have this conversation after the fact. It probably should have come before Finale shut down. People against the idea of disabling new authorizations should, instead of complaining about Finale, proactively work to make remote software authorization illegal in the first place. Remote authorization always comes with the risk that authorization will be disabled. I’m guessing it was supposed to be a copy protection scheme, which is widespread and common, not a way to shutdown use. But here we are.

They chose not to release an update with phone home commented out. It was, therefore, a business decision, not a technical one. I understand the reactions to this decision, but I have serious doubts about the claims of harm or number of users who will want to run Finale in 12 months.

How much of the software you have from the 90s do you actually use? Be honest. I hardly ever use any of the software I have. I was a packrat and collected things I thought I was going to use, but 30 years later, I don’t use it.

Re: The End of Finale

#180
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, Musescore doesn't quite fit though. It doesn't really work like any other DAW. It has a strong focus on composing sheet music, as opposed to recording and producing full tracks.

Well yeah, that's what Finale is and what this thread is about. If you're talking about standard DAWs then your initial comment was a non sequitur

I don't see how wanting a "blender for music" in response to this news is a non sequitur.
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