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The End of Finale

finalemusic.com

151–160 of 183 posts

Re: The End of Finale

#151

I may be the only person who loves LilyPond but I really do love it. The LaTeX of music notation.

I do "professional" engraving as a side gig, mostly turning scratch people's make on lined paper into actual sheet music, and I exclusively use lilypond

Re: The End of Finale

#152
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…

> but I don’t think leaving the auth servers on is going to benefit more than a very tiny handful of people at most, and thus probably isn’t worth the effort. You say this, but of the composers who haven't moved to Dorico by now, they're probably very set in their ways. So I'm not sure "very tiny handful" is accurate. I don't actually think they should be required to maintain auth servers, hence the patch. > And agai…

> but of the composers who haven't moved to Dorico by now, they're probably very set in their ways. So I'm not sure "very tiny handful" is accurate.

Fair point, maybe more people will be caught than I think. I do know a composer that hasn’t moved yet, and he is pretty set in his ways.

On the other hand, it’s also possible that the whole reason Finale is shutting down is because the user base is already too small. And, even people set in their ways are now being notified that Finale is going away, which is news, so a lot of the people still left will certainly move before the year is out, right? We’re both speculating on how many will be left and whether we can subjectively call that many or few, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to estimate those still left in a year from now will not be the majority of the user base they had last week.

I agree with you that suggesting people can continue to run Finale is a weak argument. If you look, you might notice I’ve actually argued that it’s pretty unrealistic for most people and probably not going to work for long. I only corrected people who’ve incorrectly claimed or implied they would lose any and all access, and I only did that because that’s what the Finale FAQ says and I assume people are getting angry before reading and understanding the entire situation. People have a year to install Finale on a new computer, and if it’s really super important they can setup a machine that won’t get upgrades or other applications on it, and Finale might continue to work for longer than a year. That’s still unrealistic and I neither expect nor encourage it, but it is an option, should someone sufficiently motivated want to take it. Seems better to me to take the Dorico discount or explore MuseScore or Sibelius or something else and not waste time wishing Finale would continue to run.

Re: The End of Finale

#153
post #2

> It will not be possible to authorize Finale on any new devices, or reauthorize Finale Well that seems like a dick move. > MakeMusic has partnered with Steinberg to offer an exclusive discount on Dorico Pro. So can we assume MakeMusic is getting a kickback for every sale of Dorico? If that's the case, of course they're going to stop you from reinstalling Finale.

Some new information (from MakeMusic in a follow-up email, https://www.finalemusic.com/blog/end-of-finale-new-journey-d...)

----------------------------------------------------

Updates

8/27/2024 @ 5:30 PM ET:

Clarifications on the initial announcement

Finale authorization will remain available indefinitely: Please note that future OS changes can still impact your ability to use Finale on new devices.

Finale v27 to be included with Dorico Pro Crossgrades: We are currently working on a solution for all customers who have purchased or intend to purchase a Dorico Pro crossgrade to be able to download Finale v27. This will ensure that you can export your Finale files using MusicXML 4.0, the most robust version of MusicXML available. Thank you for your patience, we will provide more information soon.

Updates

8/27/2024 @ 9:00 AM ET:

Clarifications on the initial announcement

Finale development has ended, but the Finale installer for any previously purchased version can still be downloaded from your eStore account. If your computer crashes or you need to install Finale on a new device, you’re not left without options.

We are committed to keeping the authorization process functional for a year. We’ve heard your concerns and are actively exploring ways to extend flexibility in the weeks ahead.

We understand that learning Dorico will be a steep learning curve, as it is with any complex notation or professional software. Both our team and Steinberg have developed extensive onboarding videos to guide you through the transition.

Re: The End of Finale

#154
My 84-year old father, a retired music professor, has created many fantastic arrangements and transcriptions of orchestra music for wind band. He still uses Sibelius 6, but the publisher that has published some of his work has done complete re-dos using Finale. They have strongly encouraged him to used Finale, calling it the "industry standard." But at his age, the learning curve is so steep he just gets frustrated and goes back to Sibelius.

I wonder what the new "industry standard" will be moving forward. I understand that Dorico was created by the people who originally made Sibelius. I wonder if it's worth trying to get him to experiment with it.

Re: The End of Finale

#155
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They just announced that they're stealing back the product they sold to their erstwhile customers. "It could be way worse" is a hell of a response to that. "We just stopped support for your Silverado. You can drive it for one more year, then we're coming to take it out of your garage. We have a deal with Ford for you to get an F-150 with a discount." "It could be way worse, at least I get to use it for another year,…

What’s with the outrage? Do you own a Finale license? I’m sorry if you do, this does suck for people who still want to use Finale, but “stealing back” seems like hyperbole. The product (along with their income stream related to it) is shutting down permanently. It died, and no amount of commentary is going to bring it back. Assuming you have a vested interest in the outcome here, what do you actually want to have hap…

"what do you actually want to have happen to Finale"

I want the existing licenses to keep working.

Re: The End of Finale

#156
post #48

Gosh - that's a blast from the past! I remember back in the 90's when studying for my Music A-Level you essentially had two choices for notation - Finale if you were on a PC, and Sibelius if you had an Acorn. For that reason, the music department at my school had Acorn Archimedes and then Acorn RiscPC machines. Sibelius was the all around better piece of software - but I "only" had a windows PC at home, so it was Fin…

A bit later on in the mid 2000s when I 100% wasn't cheating my way through GCSE Music, Sibelius on Windows PC was the standard.

Yep - I believe they released the first Windows version in 1998 ... and by that time I was about to start my first year of uni ... not studying music, but instead AI + Comp Sci!

Re: The End of Finale

#157
post #2

> It will not be possible to authorize Finale on any new devices, or reauthorize Finale Well that seems like a dick move. > MakeMusic has partnered with Steinberg to offer an exclusive discount on Dorico Pro. So can we assume MakeMusic is getting a kickback for every sale of Dorico? If that's the case, of course they're going to stop you from reinstalling Finale.

Ez to bypass that. =p

Re: The End of Finale

#159
So this is a rather niche industry concern but it's been wildly disruptive to anyone dealing with sheet music in practically any capacity. I run the Music Engraving Tips group on Facebook and I wrote a little essay given the situation, maybe some can get value from it.

Full disclosure, I'm the Senior Product Designer for Sibelius, so I'm uniquely embedded in this stuff this week.

--------------

RIP Finale

This is a very sad week for our industry, a titan has fallen. The only other parallel I can think of is when the Sibelius London office closed in 2012. But this feels so much more tangible given the short timescale of the shutoff. Finale will no longer activate within one year, effectively locking people out of their scores.

To all the thousands of users out there who's entire catalogs of scores have now been put in jeopardy, I greatly empathize. I felt similarly back in 2012 when Sibelius looked like it was going away. Back then, Finale was the only viable alternative, though I didn't jump ship at the time. Fortunately, today there's a wealth of options and competition in our industry is strong.

Since this is such a monumental event in the music notation space, the mods and I are going to relax our restrictions on notation software how-to posts (Rule 2) so folks can discuss how to deal with their files, via MusicXML or otherwise. Please keep the conversations civil, I know tensions are high. We will monitor things closely and won't tolerate any animosity toward one platform or another, nor gloating or other unprofessional behavior. (Rule 3)

Back when I was literally 5 years old, I did my first arrangement in Finale. It opened up a new world to me, the world of the written note. Music notation has been my passion forever as a result. No matter which platform you use, remember the joy that music can bring and how these tools enable it. They are essential, and to lose one means a great deal.

Re: The End of Finale

#160
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They just announced that they're stealing back the product they sold to their erstwhile customers. "It could be way worse" is a hell of a response to that. "We just stopped support for your Silverado. You can drive it for one more year, then we're coming to take it out of your garage. We have a deal with Ford for you to get an F-150 with a discount." "It could be way worse, at least I get to use it for another year,…

What’s with the outrage? Do you own a Finale license? I’m sorry if you do, this does suck for people who still want to use Finale, but “stealing back” seems like hyperbole. The product (along with their income stream related to it) is shutting down permanently. It died, and no amount of commentary is going to bring it back. Assuming you have a vested interest in the outcome here, what do you actually want to have hap…

You may not understand the scale here. There are about a hundred thousand users, a lot of whom had thousands of scores in this format. Some tens of thousands. It's not a straightforward proposition to simply jump to another platform, especially since there's no perfect conversion between any notation software given the proprietary algorithms involved, and the sheer complexity of music notation itself. It's a bad day for a lot of people.
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