Should I get Finale 26?

[peterqd]

Hi - my first post since 2010!!

I've been using Finale every day since v3.0 in 1992. I stopped upgrading after F2005 when intregrated parts and fancy memory-gobbling sounds were introduced. So I'm still using F2005 today on my old XP machine and it does all I need, but it won't run on Windows 10.

I've been trying to get to grips with F2009 but there are many things I don't like about it. Expressions not being note-attached seems a huge backward step.

Can anyone help with a problem I have of 1 or 2 "phantom" blank pages added to the end of each part when I generate them? With a score of 16 single-page parts, maybe 8 are generated correctly and the others have these added pages. There's no regularity to this, each time I generate the parts the outcome is different. I use "phantom" because the "Remove blank pages" tool doesn't work, but but they are sent to the printer. The only way I can find to get rid of them is to use page resize, and change from portrait to landscape and back again on each part, which is time-consuming.

Is it worth getting Finale v26 or does that have just as many bugs?

[miker]

I think it's time you upgraded. the older versions just won't run on the newest operating systems.

Remember, you can (and should) download the demo and try it out, before you buy.

[zuill]

Actually, Motet has good success running older versions (2005 for sure) on Windows 10. I hope he reports here to give his findings.

There are changes with v26 that would make changes to any files created in earlier versions, especially with the new Articulation paradigm. Also, files, for many versions going back, are now more than twice the size as they were in earlier versions. If you do update, keep the older versions in case you have trouble with getting the results you want in v26. I have all versions from 2011 to v26 installed.

Zuill

[motet]

Yes, I still have version 2005b installed and it seems to work with Windows 10, but I only use it occasionally to make a minor fix here or there so there could be problems I'm not aware of. But it reads and writes files and plays back.

I don't miss note-attached expressions--expressions and notes are both attached to beats, so it seems pretty much as before, though I could be misremembering what the distinction is. The one issue I can think of is that the Cue Notes plug-in makes the cue labels large so they'll scale back to normal when attached to the small notes. Now, they stay large until you do something to make them smaller (I can elaborate what I do if you're interested).

I think the newer versions are much improved. The biggest improvement, i think, is doing away with the Mass Edit tool and combining those functions with the Selection Tool. Less switching of tools.

[ebiggs1]

"... when intregrated parts and fancy memory-gobbling sounds were introduced."

Is it you don't like the "intregrated parts and fancy memory-gobbling sounds" or that you just can't run them on your older XP machine? If it is just because you don't like "fancy memory-gobbling sounds", you don't have to load them at all. The integrated parts is not a choice upon installation but you still do not have to use it in the new Finale versions.

I would certainly recommend upgrading to Finale 26.3. You can try before you buy.

[peterqd]

Thankyou for all the replies.

The problem about the expressions not being note-attached is that if you nudge them they can jump from beat to beat, bar to bar or even staff to staff. After generating the parts I frequently discover odd expressions in the wrong system or even in the wrong part! This didn't happen if they were note-attached.

Playback doesn't need to be too lifelike for my requirements and I always have Human Playback turned off. Most of my work is for British-style brass bands and there are no synth sounds (even sampled ones) that sound anywhere close, so I gave up trying to find a way of replicating the true sound many years ago. I bought the Garritan Marching Band library but was very disappointed with that, for my needs at least. With F2005 on the XP machine I use a Yamaha SW1000XG soundcard but it can't be installed in Windows 10, so I use the Yamaha S-YXG50 VSTi softsynth with F2009. As F26 is 64 bit, it doesn't immediately see the 32-bit VSTi, but I can get over that with a useful little app called JBridger.

I've downloaded the demo of F26.3 as suggested and I'm busy learning it right now. So far I'm relieved to find not a lot has changed that affects me too much (fingers crossed!).

[motet]

The problem about the expressions not being note-attached is that if you nudge them they can jump from beat to beat, bar to bar or even staff to staff. After generating the parts I frequently discover odd expressions in the wrong system or even in the wrong part! This didn't happen if they were note-attached.

Set this preference and that won't happen:

[ebiggs1]

So far I'm relieved to find not a lot has changed that affects me too much (fingers crossed!).

However, my friend, a lot has changed under the hood. IMHO, Finale 26.3 is their best effort yet. Not perfect but better.

I, too, was upset with the quality of my sound output but with some adjustments and suggestions from forum members, thanx , I have what I call really decent sound. I have GOPO and COMB2 form Garritan plus the included Finale Garritan sounds. I also bought Noteperformer 3.
I have two JBL Studio Monitors with a Behringer equalizer. All pretty inexpensive stuff when you consider what a person can or could spend on sound. I am not, and do not, nor intend to be a professional sound studio.

I don't use Noteperformer 3 while I am composing and I make a separate "sound" specific file after I am done.

[ebiggs1]

Most of my work is for British-style brass bands ...

Me too! I don't do a lot but I have done a few charts. And, I play 2nd bone in the local Desoto Brass Band directed by Robert Foster from KU fame.

I am not real solid on the "Repiano cornet" or the Eb Baritone/Tenor horn. I am usually, always, asking the guys and gals what they can and can''t do. Love brass band!

[peterqd]

"... when intregrated parts and fancy memory-gobbling sounds were introduced."

Is it you don't like the "intregrated parts and fancy memory-gobbling sounds" or that you just can't run them on your older XP machine? If it is just because you don't like "fancy memory-gobbling sounds", you don't have to load them at all. The integrated parts is not a choice upon installation but you still do not have to use it in the new Finale versions.

I would certainly recommend upgrading to Finale 26.3. You can try before you buy.

Thanks. I know integrated parts can be very useful for some purposes. In the pieces I'm usually working on there are at least 16 and up to 20 parts, and the page format and scale reduction is quite different from the score, needing different font sizes for each. I haven't found a way doing this all in one file. My normal workflow is to produce and save the score as I want it printed, and then save it again as a "parts" version and work on that to make changes to text sizes and positioning etc. and once complete I can extract the parts without needing to generate them. In fact, generating parts is very buggy in my experience, adding phantom blank pages to some parts as I mentioned earlier. To be blunt, integrated parts adds nothing for me.

[ebiggs1]

You are just not familiar enough with linked parts. You set that stuff here in Manage Parts.

manage parts.png (114.96 KiB) Viewed 5970 times

[motet]

That's too tiny to read.

I've never had a problem with blank pages, etc.

[ebiggs1]

"That's too tiny to read.

"

It was meant to show the OP where to go to set the parameters for his linked parts. It is not a tutorial on what the settings are to be.

[zuill]

I think Motet meant it's too small to even see what window (or windows) you have accessed. Can you make a larger snip of the page? If I save the image and try to blow it up, it's too blurry to read.

Zuill

[peterqd]

I've never had a problem with blank pages, etc.

It's probably a problem with F2009 on this machine. There are several quirky things about it which I can't always reproduce, besides the blank pages. One thing that is permanent is editing expressions, which is horrendously slow. There's a wait of around 8 seconds after every keystroke. I thought this might be the old problem of having too many fonts, but uninstalling many of them made no difference. It's not happening with F26.

I just tried generating parts in F26 on a file created in F2009. In the older program most of the parts have an added blank page which can't be removed in the normal way. In F26 there are no added pages, thank goodness.

I think I'm going to like F26 a lot more. One thing I don't like so far is setting the panning for each stave. I'm used to typing in a number (0-127). These tiny little dials in the F26 Mixer are so fiddly!!

[peterqd]

You are just not familiar enough with linked parts. You set that stuff here in Manage Parts.

There's no setting available in Page Format or Manage parts to use different font sizes in parts and score. In the score, because of the degree of scale reduction, I need to use a larger size for expressions and a larger or smaller size for text blocks than I want in the parts. There is a way to do it using different % reductions for page scale and system scale, but for me it's quicker just to save a "parts" file and edit that. But I accept it may be me being stuck in my ways

So glad to find another Brass Band Finale user! Most people here use Sibelius (or now Musescore) and I feel rather lonely sometimes. I'm part time conductor/arranger/Euph/1st Bari with Watford Band in UK.

[peterqd]

The problem about the expressions not being note-attached is that if you nudge them they can jump from beat to beat, bar to bar or even staff to staff. After generating the parts I frequently discover odd expressions in the wrong system or even in the wrong part! This didn't happen if they were note-attached.

Set this preference and that won't happen:

Excellent! Thankyou. I didn't know this option existed.

[Gareth Green]

So glad to find another Brass Band Finale user! Most people here use Sibelius (or now Musescore) and I feel rather lonely sometimes. I'm part time conductor/arranger/Euph/1st Bari with Watford Band in UK.

Greetings; MD of Egham Band (Surrey, UK) here, and long-time Finale user - latest version, and perfectly comfortable with linked parts, expressions, and other aspects that have changed over the years. Not wanting to sound "preachy", but I suspect the difference is that I have kept up-to-date and upgraded every year, therefore the learning curve with new features has been more gradual. Feel free to ask for help with Brass Band related issues in Finale.

Regards,

Gareth

[ebiggs1]

But I accept it may be me being stuck in my ways ...

Maybe so, I am understanding your point more clearly now. As I think I mentioned I make a seperate Finale file for my sound. I also sometimes make a seperate file for my parts. I, too, have reasons for doing this, mine are mostly educational. Finale, Makemusic, used to be the premier notational software company for education but not so much anymore. I have asked for years to get a real text editor included in Finale but it has fallen on deaf ears. I also would like to be able to print text in colors. I asked for a highlighter tool, too, but alas nada.
These are not groundbreaking features. Pretty easy to do.

Lately since school has started back up I, we, have been busy getting Smart Music loaded with all the charts we play and the kids going on it. I think MM had devoted all their capital in upgrading SM. So, now that it is done perhaps they will come back to upgrading Finale 26.

Sibelius is a pretty nice program especially for beginners but it is limited if you really need to do deep music things. Finale for the most part is a, it will do it if you can figure out how. Sibelius is way too expensive though. Not worth what they think it is worth!

Musescore is still a joke!

I still encourage you to upgrade if your machine runs 26.3 OK. Learn to use to "work arounds" (seperate files) and I think you'll like it more than 2009.

[ebiggs1]

BTW, I meant to mention Perfect Layout. I consider it a must anymore. I have gotten so used to it I don't know how I got along before without it. I have done more new scores since I got it than I ever thought possible before. It puts 98% of everything exactly where it should be. Plus PL is working on it making parts completely done too. I don't know how far along PL is on that.

When you do a score just put everything in and don't really worry about where it is. PL will put it where it should be. It's not 100% yet but man it is close.

PL sure makes u/l to SM a lot easier.

[peterqd]

Hi Gareth, glad to see you here. I don't think I've ever met you but I'm certain we must have some mutual friends.

Well, I've been trying F26 for nearly a week now and so far so good. I'm probably going to stick with it. Most of the things I've had to learn I've been able to find in the manual, but there's one thing (so far) that I can't seem to work out.

In F2009, If I wanted to use 19 or 20 different channels I could allocate the first 16 channels to bank 1 and the extra channels, 17 upwards, to bank 2. The MIDI Setup and the VST setup is basically the same in F26, but in Score Manager, when I try to load instruments into the Aria Player, I can only see 16 channels. How can I load the instruments in bank 2?

[zuill]

You can also select the bank there. If you choose VST, then there's a Bank column in the Instrument List. If you don't see one, click Customize View and select the Bank and Channel item.

Zuill

[ebiggs1]

In addition the Aria player is a bit different, It now allows add-in or plug-ins like TAL Reverb-4. TAL Reverb-4 is a free reverb, BTW.

[Gareth Green]

In F2009, If I wanted to use 19 or 20 different channels I could allocate the first 16 channels to bank 1 and the extra channels, 17 upwards, to bank 2. The MIDI Setup and the VST setup is basically the same in F26, but in Score Manager, when I try to load instruments into the Aria Player, I can only see 16 channels. How can I load the instruments in bank 2?

Ah, now unfortunately, you've got me there, I'm afraid. You're better off taking advice from the other guys on here. I never got into MIDI or VST or anything like that; my understanding of playback in Finale is rudimentary at best, and tbh I don't really use it much, except for basic proofing …

On another matter, you mentioned different font sizes for score and parts? I'm not saying this is a "catch-all" solution, but I solve most of my issues with that by using "fixed-size" fonts. Worth experimenting ...

[mmike]

Midi/Audio > VST Banks & Effects
Here you can load separate instances of the ARIA Player (with 16 instruments each) into each of 8 Banks.
In the Score Manager you choose which instruments (or groups of instruments) you want in each bank (choose the bank and then the appropriate channel number for the instruments as they appear in the ARIA player dedicated to that bank). The levels chosen for each instrumnet in the ARIA Mixer will not stick - set your levels in the Score Manager or the Finale Mixer. You can also control the level of each bank (and therein contained instrument groups) separately (this will stick as an over-all level for each bank). You can also add external effects (reverbs) for each bank and/or only at the Master Volume/Effects (if you do that, it's generally best to turn off the Convolution and Ambiance in the ARIA Effects panel).
P.S.: You don't necessarily have to use the ARIA PLayer in each bank. You can use any other VST Instrument you might have, or also the SmartMusic SoftSynth.