Finale blog: 27.1

[dankreider]

Ouch. I just read all three blog posts, and while I try to be pretty empathetic to the Finale team these days, I have to admit it was pretty difficult to get through. It could have been far shorter without sacrificing any real information.

Dear team, if you’re reading this:

1. Fix the bugs. I mean the long-standing ones that affect users.
2. Add some real and notable new functionality for parts of Finale’s workflow that are painfully awkward.
3. Stop talking about sharing. We don’t care about it. Thanks.

[ebiggs1]

3. Stop talking about sharing. We don’t care about it.

Thanks.

[Michel R E]

I don't know if I'm alone in having interpreted the "blog post" in this way, but it definitely gave me the impression of saying "engraving isn't that important to our customers, so we're going to concentrate on social media type features".

[Zoots]

I don't know if I'm alone in having interpreted the "blog post" in this way, but it definitely gave me the impression of saying "engraving isn't that important to our customers, so we're going to concentrate on social media type features".

It's the way I see it as well. Could be the initiative comes from the marketing department that sees more potential customers with this mindset rather being concerned about a bunch of old users who are entrenched in it. Statements like "I'm too old to change", I have too much work already invested in Finale to change" and "It will (awkwardly) do whatever I need" don't read like reasons to be concerned about current users.

[motet]

It's likely from upper management trying to find a way to increase market share. I suspect they will be disappointed, though.

[heinzfan]

The blog seem like a lot of gabble. The music sharing feature they’re trumpeting seems to me a marketing strategy to sell Finale to music educators; this might be an attempt to proselytize young music students to use Finale. If that’s the case it reminds me of a fellow commuter, many years ago, telling me how smart the American Soccer League was in promoting soccer in schools. Forty years later, how many kids who played soccer in school follow the professional sport as adults?

[ebiggs1]

The music sharing feature they’re trumpeting seems to me a marketing strategy to sell Finale to music educators; ...

If this is truly MM's strategy it is not going to work if my school district is any indication. We have a fantastic music arts department. Several years ago I talked them into tusing SMart Music for middle schoolers homework. On the surface it is a great program. Kids did their homework lines and sent it to the teacher. SM displays the correct notes and shows the incorrect ones in red. It has a tuner. It has a metronome. It has a huge library of music. The problem is the kids and their parents didn't like it. So, it was dropped after a year or two.

Fast forward to COVID and we again tried to use Smart Music and for the COVID period it again worked well. However, as before the kids began to balk about it and again we stopped using it. I think several school districts did use it through COVID but I am not aware of any that still do. Perhaps there is up further in the city.

But I would not bet the bank on SM and or file sharing. Maybe Alfred Music is behind pushing this music sharing and SM stuff.

[SickBoy]

You're awful harsh for someone without an internal perspective on what's going on there. Jon is a fantastic advocate for users and is doing very well given the constraints imposed upon him.

And your source for this is...?

Me. Worked on the inside through August 2020.

[motet]

Interesting. Why don't they fix some serious bugs?

[SickBoy]

Interesting. Why don't they fix some serious bugs?

I am not/wasn't a developer nor was product or engineering management, so I don't particularly care to offer speculation about an answer to a very unspecific question like that.

I will say this much: leveling personal insults at the MakeMusic staff who care to out themselves as being associated with the product will absolutely, positively, 100% lead to them fully rejecting engagement on a platform like this one. Say what you want about the message, cut the messenger some slack.

MM staff does, in fact, pay attention to various user engagement venues on the internet - including this one. I did. We resolved a handful of issues that originated here.

[Michel R E]

So in other words, if some MakeMusic employee writes a "blog post" that is nothing more than corporate jargon marketing gobbeldygook that says nothing and doesn't address a single concern of the company's oldest users, we have to cut them some slack because we might hurt their feelings?

[ebiggs1]

"...doesn't address a single concern of the company's oldest users"

You don't get any older "user" than me. The fact remains and is, most or even all the bugs some of you "oldest" users see, do not hampen most users old or young. Finale has almost run perfectly for what I do and I suspect I am fairly average in the things people want and expect from Finale.

As long as there are a handful of third party plug-ins most (thank heaven for them) Finale users are completely happy. A half dozen unhappy old folks doesn't justify spending the resources.

[miker]

I will say this much: leveling personal insults at the MakeMusic staff who care to out themselves as being associated with the product will absolutely, positively, 100% lead to them fully rejecting engagement on a platform like this one. Say what you want about the message, cut the messenger some slack.

Oh, please. I didn’t see any personal attacks on Jon, only on his message. And if that upsets him, sorry/not sorry.

And we will continue to say what we wish about the message, and the general direction of the program. Let us hear about concrete, well-tested (are you listening, SMuFL implementors?) specific fixes and improvements.

[motet]

I agree with SickBoy that singling out Jon Tschiggfrie is unseemly. I think we can express our unhappiness with Finale without doing that.

I have made my peace with Finale and even find it fun to use, but I can tell you from reading Facebook that Dorico and Sibelius are eating Finale's lunch because Finale has the justifiable reputation of being buggy and hard to use to the point that many people have written it off. I see the question, "Which should I buy, Dorico or Sibelius?" all the time.

Statements like "We’re branching out with the recognition that notation, while essential for many types of music, is just the beginning" seems to me to indicate that they're either unwilling or unable to address Finale's serious flaws. I don't think file sharing and whatever else they mean by branching out is going to save them, but I hope I'm wrong.

[Michel R E]

"...doesn't address a single concern of the company's oldest users"

You don't get any older "user" than me. The fact remains and is, most or even all the bugs some of you "oldest" users see, do not hampen most users old or young. Finale has almost run perfectly for what I do and I suspect I am fairly average in the things people want and expect from Finale.

As long as there are a handful of third party plug-ins most (thank heaven for them) Finale users are completely happy. A half dozen unhappy old folks doesn't justify spending the resources.

if you think that the people who would like Finale to at least catch up to two of its competitors number in the single digits, then you might live in a fantasy world.

I've been using Finale daily since version 3.0. There have been incremental improvements, and effectively, most of the "bugs" haven't affected me very much if at all.

However, seeing other programs come up with automatic layout, easier and more professional-looking divisi staves and ossia, better integration with non-engraving tools (such as DAWs for those that use them), etc... THIS is the sort of thing that people should be demanding from MakeMusic.

You might see this whole situation as "people continue to buy Finale and are satisfied with it", but that is NOT the reality of it.
I consistently read of people abandoning Finale to move to a competitor that offers better tools.

Most of the faculty and students at my university have made the switch to one major competitor. That's not an insignificant number of users, now no longer Finale users.

So you go on thinking that it's just a handful of malcontents on this forum. Live in your little self-satisfied bubble.
But be aware that your experience most definitely does not reflect the reality of the situation.

[ebiggs1]

"But be aware that your experience most definitely does not reflect the reality of the situation."

Thanx for your opinion but that is all it is, your opinion.

[Michel R E]

"But be aware that your experience most definitely does not reflect the reality of the situation."

Thanx for your opinion but that is all it is, your opinion.

It reflects my experience, not my opinion.

If you're happy using Finale then by all means continue to do so.
But I intend on holding MakeMusic's feet to the fire, insisting that they wake up and smell the smoke.

I'm not satisfied with the same old, same old, tedium that Finale has imposed on us.
I want to be able to write and notate the music that I compose without having to jump through hoops to get the desired result.
I want to be able to compose, notate my score, and NOT have to spend weeks on end trying to get parts that are even remotely usable.

My music covers a range from large symphonic through chamber to solo, with vocal and choral music in there as well.
I need to have a work software that can handle all of these things with ease.

And you think I'm WRONG for wanting to be able to compose and notate without the headache of needing expensive extra plugins and work-arounds to get my end results? You think it's wrong to expect a software company to innovate and offer its users more advanced tools to do their work?

I had an old DOS program that had fewer issues with collisions than Finale does. That old program looked like crap admittedly (come to think of it, at that time Finale didn't look all that great either compared to what's available today), but at least collisions weren't an issue. Why can't Finale handle that, then?

[miker]

"But be aware that your experience most definitely does not reflect the reality of the situation."

Thanx for your opinion but that is all it is, your opinion.

As is yours.

[ebiggs1]

"It reflects my experience, not my opinion."

No, Michel I agree with you, mostly. We are on the same side. If you read my posts you will eventually get the idea I want Finale to be the best it can be. I believe MM is heading in the wrong direction or at least their thought that file sharing will save the company. Jury is out on smufl for now.

Where we differ is Finale works for a great number of musicians and composers and myself. The handful of folks that permeate this forum are not representative of the silent majority, IMHO, of course.

We agree it is inexcusable that MM doesn't embrace add-ons like Perfect Layout. A plug-in that does what Finale should do form the box. NotePerformer 3 also proves that there is good, at least better, sound out there. JW Change is so far ahead of the Utilities>Change that comes with Finale, it is laughable. Only we are not laughing!

[Michel R E]

the thing is, I'm not talking about the people on this forum when I talk about my experience.
I'm talking about the students and staff at the university here (I can only speak from experience about 1 out of the 4).
I also speak from experience talking with the composers I know, internationally.

There is a very large segment who are thinking, if they have not already made the change, about moving to Dorico (for example) because it actually does things that Finale, after 30 years, SHOULD have added a long time ago.

[miker]

And that’s very much to the point. If Finale had fixed all the flaws as they developed over the years, rather than letting them fester, then we could be asking them for new features to keep up with the other guys. But they are so far behind the curve, I don’t know if they will be able to catch up.

And I say that as someone whose needs are pretty well fulfilled with Finale in its current state. My work is simple; primarily copywork on choral and barbershop-type scores, and extracting MP3 learning tracks. I don’t need Perfect Layout or NotePerformer. Jari’s plugins fill in most of Finale’s gaps. So I wouldn’t want to see my costs go up as they would if F were to buy PL and NP and incorporate them, as some others seem to be pushing for. Or even spend the time/money to develop them in-house. The products are out there; if you need them, go buy them

[BuonTempi]

Where we differ is Finale works for a great number of musicians and composers and myself.

The problem with Finale is not whether it 'works' or not. It is HOW it works, and all the stuff that it ought to do, which it doesn't.

As you yourself point out: all the stuff in Perfect Layout should be a part of its default operation. MuseScore, Dorico, Sibelius, Lilypond can all space out a page automatically, avoiding collisions.

The interface is a tangled web of appendage upon appendage, bolted on top of its original frame. Discoverability is very poor, and there is needless redundancy.
System Size AND System Scaling?
Repeat endings only show on staves in the Staff List, but only if they've also got the Staff Attribute checkbox ticked?
Page Format dialog, but no way to apply those parameters to a page?
How many different menus for Slur options?

Here's a review of version 2.0.

I believe it is perhaps the most comprehensive music notation program available. It incorporates virtually all standard notation symbols, and I have yet to concieve of any notation need that Finale has been unable to meet.

The bad news is that I found Finale extremely difficult to learn and use... The only problem with the documentation is that every word is necessary.... In fact, Finale is among the least intuitively evident programs I have seen.

That's from 30 years ago: and very little has improved.

Working with other notation apps has been a revelation in showing so many things that the computer ought to do for me, which in Finale remain tedious manual operations. The whole point of computers is to do repetitive tasks for us. If it's not doing that, it's failing.

Perhaps there is 'a great number' of contented Finale users. I'd be interested to know where you see them. All I see on the MakeMusic Zendesk, here and elsewhere is a succession of discontented users; and plenty of Finale exiles showing their new-found contentment for other notation apps.

[Michel R E]

I've always been an ardent defender of Finale. If you've read any of my posts in the past you will know this.

however, I made the "mistake" of trying out a competitor's product that happened to include a significant portion of my "Finale wish list" features.

If MakeMusic assured me that these features will soon appear in Finale then I'd have no difficulty defending Finale again, and waiting patiently for the new features to be implemented.

And yet, every time someone from MM makes some big pronouncement about great "new features", they end up being something that was so far off my radar, they may as well have been part of Photoshop or InDesign.

"Under the hood" changes to bring Finale's legacy-heavy programming up-to-date should NOT be announced with fanfare.
SMUFL is nice and all, but it's not Earth-shatteringly important.
And the list goes on, with items that are "I don't care" for the general users, because they don't directly have an impact on daily work-flow.

When are MakeMusic going to announce something exciting that makes people turn and say "wow! that's something I've always wanted!"

[ebiggs1]

MuseScore, Dorico, Sibelius, Lilypond can all space out a page automatically, avoiding collisions.

The solution seems so simple if MuseScore, Dorico, Sibelius, Lilypond are so much better why not just switch and be done with it. Why, because you all know Finale is still the king of notation software even with its somewhat dubious "bugs". Do you guys really think MuseScore, Dorico, Sibelius, Lilypond don't have specific bugs. You are naive if so.

The addition of the Perfect Layout abilities and J W Change would put Finale on the top for a very long time to come. Although I prefer NotePerformer3, the Garritan sounds are adequate for composing. IMHO, of course.

[miker]

Of course all of the other programs have bugs. We’re smart enough to know that.

The difference is, are they being corrected? I can’t speak to the others, but at least Dorico seems to have an active upgrade and correction schedule. Finale, on the other hand, brings us no fixes and dubious “improvements.”