MuseScore 4

[blueshift]

Any plug-in that's been in the app for 20 years should have been folded in to the core functionality

Finale may not be Open Source, but it does include a scripting language allowing plug-in developers to build out the facility of Finale. Here is where the standard / pro tier seems to live in Finale. We have standard-tier access to plugins that allow the developers to make a living with pro versions. I'm glad some of Jari Williamson's work is now built into Finale, for which I assume Finale paid a licensing fee - but I have wondered over the years why he wasn't charging for his work the way TGTools and Patterson have been doing.

As to the $300 price drop, that is likely because a new version (28) is going to drop - we've seen this before. Is the inclusion of some JW plugins in 27.3 an indication of where the next version is headed?

My 2c, probably worth half that in these inflationary times.

[dtoub]

Some great points made in this thread, but I'll try to add a few more:

• Totally agree with @buontempi that stuff like PL should be part of Finale as an expected feature. That's pretty clear.

• For the vast majority of what I do (I write minimalist music with few markings), PL is often overkill. But over the holidays I entered a long (95 min) work I wrote in 1983-84 for seven instruments. Lots of dynamics, lots of markings like crescendi, accents and even slurs, none of which I really use nowadays. And with the exception of some minor details, PL did indeed save me time (thanks Jan!). So if you write or notate music that has a lot of stuff, PL can help. Not perfect but what is? The sad thing is that Finale is not as helpful for page layout as it should be

• There are a lot of things for which, even with the less annotated works I compose, I still have to rely on various sets of plugins. Patterson/TGTools/JW. Just consider accidental management: Finale's defaults often screw it up (why would I want a flat and a sharp on the same two-note chord?) so I have to do extra work. Same with cautionary accidentals: the standard Cautionary Accidentals plugin works pretty well, actually, but misses some things that can be solved with the application of JW Accidentals, but that tends to add unnecessary cautionary accidentals throughout a measure, so I then turn to TGT to clear them. That's a lot of extra work. I've communicated with MM on this and am hopeful they might make their Cautionary Accidentals plugin a bit more robust. I even sent them a screenshot from Dorico's site showing how it handles cautionary accidentals and truthfully, it seems better (NB: I've never used Dorico).

• The sense I get very clearly from looking through forums that tend to deal largely with Dorico over other software is that Finale is considered old, dried-up, outdated and rarely updated. Some of that is not fair, since it has been around for several decades and already has the functionality that Dorico then had to add over its recent past. But clearly Dorico keeps improving and I'm just not seeing that for Finale. Some of you might think F27 is the best version of Finale ever. I'm personally of the opinion that F3.5 was very elegant and that is something I would not say for any version of Finale since then, but that's me. Regardless though, whether F27.3 is the "best ever" or not, clearly there is a lot of room for improvement. I don't sense that MM is responsive to many of us users. I don't see them on the main Finale Forum, including the section on feature requests. Just some of us users. In contrast, that one guy from Dorico who used to be at Sibelius is everywhere. It makes their users feel like they have input and are being listened to. Finale needs to do something to make folks like you and me feel listened to. And when I see things like the Graphic Tool (which is a nice trip back to 90's-era MS Office) or the MIDI Tool that need some serious updates, I really wonder whether it's the plugins that are keeping Finale relevant or useful rather than the main application itself.

[ebiggs1]

And with the exception of some minor details, PL did indeed save me time (thanks Jan!). ... PL can help. Not perfect but what is?

I thought and saw the same thing with PL at first. But since I have about a dozen+ concert band scores and some smaller ensembles under PL I have found it is sometimes how you set up PL. Not PL's fault. My last score for Christmas came out "perfect". Plus the linked parts are pretty darn close too. They would be playable as is but there are a few things I prefer in my parts so I did those edits myself and used JW Part Copy.

This score is as is from PL and NP3. I am not smart enough to do much with or editing with sounds so I simply let NP3 do its thing.
https://youtu.be/tgxPlrAWG0Q
Granted it is not a super complicated concert band score but it is what I do and PL has proved indispensable.

Not perfect but what is?

Any program or software that has the capability and versatility as PL is by its very nature going to be complicated and require a learning curve. For instance if you don't leave enough space on your pages PL can not fix that. I always reduce page % a little before I run PL. The default settings in PL do a pretty good job but you should go through them and check them out before you run PL. However you can always run it again if you desire.

[ebiggs1]

The sad thing is that Finale is not as helpful for page layout as it should be

That is a good thing. Musescore 4 is a nightmare to get pages looking the way you want them and not the way Musescore 4 wants them.
Leave the page layout to me but give me the tools to do just that. Muscecore 4 doesn't do that. Few, very few page editing tools.

[dtoub]

That is a good thing. Musescore 4 is a nightmare to get pages looking the way you want them and not the way Musescore 4 wants them.
Leave the page layout to me but give me the tools to do just that. Muscecore 4 doesn't do that. Few, very few page editing tools.

Got it, but I'm not perhaps talking about the same level of page layout as you are. I think it's odd when Finale makes some measures unusually wide but compresses others so that it's harder to read, necessitating either a plug-in like PL (which is actually why I bought it in the first place; I was frustrated by what it often took me to get Finale's page layout to not be very odd) or a lot of forcing measures onto the next system, ad nauseam. When you have some long works (some of my stuff is 90min->4 hours), that adds up.

But yes, better for the user to control such things in general.

[dtoub]

This score is as is from PL and NP3. I am not smart enough to do much with or editing with sounds so I simply let NP3 do its thing.
https://youtu.be/tgxPlrAWG0Q
Granted it is not a super complicated concert band score but it is what I do and PL has proved indispensable.

BTW, nice score. Agree that PL most have been helpful.

Here's that 95-min score I just did for which PL was really useful.

And if anyone is interested or likes old minimalist stuff, here is the audio file (entirely done with NP3).

[Zoots]

This Finale vs.... always ends up preaching to the converted which isn't surprising. I'd like to see a test between a strong Finale user and a strong rather "than I'm giving it a try" user of the other platform for a fair comparison.
From reading this forum over the years it is plain that many have very strict requirements or at least ideas of what the final output should look like and that is certainly just fine and may well be an absolute necessity. OTOH, there may be a large number whose tolerances are a more lax and other products can fill the void with less expense or a reduced learning curve.
Personally, I don't think MuseScore is up to Finale's ability but at least its development including known bug fixes isn't on the back burner either.

[dtoub]

This Finale vs.... always ends up preaching to the converted which isn't surprising. I'd like to see a test between a strong Finale user and a strong rather "than I'm giving it a try" user of the other platform for a fair comparison.
From reading this forum over the years it is plain that many have very strict requirements or at least ideas of what the final output should look like and that is certainly just fine and may well be an absolute necessity. OTOH, there may be a large number whose tolerances are a more lax and other products can fill the void with less expense or a reduced learning curve.
Personally, I don't think MuseScore is up to Finale's ability but at least its development including known bug fixes isn't on the back burner either.

I totally agree. My needs are not that much about whether Finale's output looks better than Dorico's etc. I self-publish and don't really care about standards but it does have to be functional for those occasional brave folks who set forth to play my music and also has to look "good" for my taste. That's it. The Dorico folks have their objections to MS, Finale and Sibelius and that would certainly make for a better, more objective test.

Let's also consider that Finale et al cost hundreds of dollars while MS is free. And MS is being actively developed. Finale is as well but not as robustly, at least to all appearances. And I'm still unhappy by how passive MM is towards functional improvements and new features. So many things could use enhancements and some new features could be added. Nothing should be added just to say there is something "new," but we all can come up with reasonable suggestions for new features that Finale currently lacks. Why isn't there more involvement from MM towards the user community? I don't get it; it makes me feel as if they're satisfied with the current state of Finale and don't need much or any input from composers like me, or people who have publishing needs, etc.

[ebiggs1]

I'm still unhappy by how passive MM is towards functional improvements and new features.

David,
Only one of or both reason, not enough money or they don't know how.

... "my music and also has to look "good" for my taste."

That's my biggest objection to all the other notation softwares. They either don't let you or won't let you do what you want or at the very least they make it difficult.

[ebiggs1]

Holy mackerel David, Canonical Ensembles is impressive. I have not and probably could not do that. It looks great, too.

[ebiggs1]

I self-publish and don't really care about standards ...

Perfect Layout does try to make the score to accepted publisher standards. However it is customizable with simple and numerous settings. I almost always just use the default settings along with a few settings in Finale itself.

... a strong Finale user and a strong rather "than I'm giving it a try" user of the other platform for a fair comparison.

A great point. I consider myself a "strong" Finale user and that is probably why other notation programs seem so difficult to me. A query on the Musescore 4 forum got a quick answer albeit short and not very helpful. I don't know if it was from a Musescore 4 support person or just a guy.

[dtoub]

Wow; thanks for the kind words!

[ebiggs1]

Impressive to say the least. I am going to try and listen to it later when I have some time.