MakeMusic lowers the price of Finale

[motet]

https://www.finalemusic.com/blog/specia ... e-pricing/

[John Ruggero]

Hopefully this is not a going-out-of-business sale.

[BuonTempi]

Hopefully this is not a going-out-of-business sale.

From what I can glean on the internet, MM has 99 employees and a turnover of c. $15m. (Possibly a bit higher.) There's also some investor 'funding' on top. (Which also means 'debt'.)

Assuming no other source of revenue, they would need over 150,000 updates or education seats @ $99 every year. As this forum shows, there are plenty of people using very old versions, and lower prices will entice some to update more frequently, and get more revenue in.

But the 'game-changer' in the market is MuseScore: the forthcoming version 4 has a huge number of improvements to the quality of its engraving; and so any commercial software is going to have to justify its price with unique features, not just 'the ability to produce decent engraving', which is finally the minimum standard in software.

Finale seems to be positioning itself as a tool for education, what with the Sharing and SmartMusic and all. There are c. 130,000 schools in the US; of which c. 25,000 are secondary/high schools. If you can get 20 seats in a third of the high schools, you're on target.

[ebiggs1]

Hopefully this is not a going-out-of-business sale.

If they do, I hope all our licences are authorized indefinitely.

[ebiggs1]

... the forthcoming version 4 has a huge number of improvements ...

It will have to if it is to be taken on by serious composers because it ain't there ...yet.

Actually I don't know why folks don't upgrade Finale, at least more often then they do, when the opportunity presents itself. Mostly all the so-called updates" (using the term loosely) are improvements as far as I can tell. Finale 27.3 promises to be a significant upgrade. I guess it is a free upgrade?

But everybody's situation is different and I am sure they have reasons.

[BuonTempi]

Mostly all the so-called updates" (using the term loosely) are improvements as far as I can tell. Finale 27.3 promises to be a significant upgrade. I guess it is a free upgrade?

Mmmm. From 2012 to 25.5 saw very few usable improvements, with the focus on 'under-the-hood' changes, like 64-bit code. The artic/slur features in 26 were the first significant productivity improvement since ...

Yes, .3 will be free. Bringing 'essential' third-party plug-ins in-house is welcome, but it really just preserves the status quo as far as the user is concerned. There will hopefully be more benefits and improvements as a result of the SMuFL implementation.

[Zoots]

... the forthcoming version 4 has a huge number of improvements ...

It will have to if it is to be taken on by serious composers because it ain't there ...yet.
...

I haven't done anything with MuseScore since version 1 but there is no denying that each subsequent version has made significant improvements. What's more, what I see when I follow their forum is that the developers pay attention to fixing bugs when they are identified.
As far as schools go, the zero cost is very large incentive for many and the students are not at the writing complex compositions stage anyway. As many students are very likely to find it meets their needs even after graduation it does reduce the potential customer pool.

I and a friend offered to pretty up some handwritten concert band parts for another friend. I used Finale and he used MuseScore (probably V2) and I don't recall that he had any problems handling the task for the ones he did. Granted they weren't overly complex and the job was done.

[motet]

I've resisted upgrading not because of price but because for the orchestral work I do there have been no new features that would benefit me. I actually bought version 26 but never installed it. If they were fixing bugs and making the program more stable I would absolutely keep up to date, but instead each update brings with it new problems which I read about here all the time, while the bug fixes have been very few. I rarely stack articulations, don't experience slowness with the 32-bit version, and don't have a use for whatever new characters the SMuFL fonts provide.

99 employees sounds high to me.

[ebiggs1]

99 employees sounds high to me.

Me too! I was surprised.

[ebiggs1]

But everybody's situation is different and I am sure they have reasons.

... each update brings with it new problems which I read about here all the time, ...

My personal situation all the upgrades have been better in some way or another. The only really bad one was the broken print box that MS claimed MM caused and MM claimed MS caused it. Who knows? Finale 27.2, for me, is by far the best Finale ever.

... while the bug fixes have been very few.

Perhaps few is correct, I wouldn't argue but there have been some or even many. Maybe MM needs to get a few more of those 99 employees working on them!

[ebiggs1]

If Finale 27.3 gives me my favorite JW plug-ins that fully work and Jan Angermüller gives me Perfect Layout v3 and Note Performer 4 lives up to expectations, I will be very happy indeed.

[motet]

The list of JW plug-ins that they've taken over has been published somewhere. There are about 8, I think.

[motet]

I'm not ready to believe the 99 employee figure. What was the date on that statistic? I'm guessing there are a handful of developers, a handful of technical-support people, a handful of managers, and a handful of marketing and sales people. What that, 20 or 30? If there were more than a few developers, we'd be seeing more improvements, I think.

[ebiggs1]

I would be surprised if MM has any programmers on staff. Perhaps one as I suspect they hire that out as needed.
I also think the 20 number more probable. Who knows?

[miker]

[BuonTempi]

The 99 employee figure was quoted on several webpages when I searched for MM's turnover. It does seem a bit high -- their salary costs would be a fair few million at least.

There's a photo of the dev team somewhere, which was around 14..?? if I remember correctly. So, a smaller number does seem likely. I don't know if they also work on Smart Music and XML, and whatever else the company does.

Don't forget all the Customer Success Executives!

I dare say my back-of-cigarette-packet accounting is somewhere in the ballpark, and certainly achievable numbers, so I don't think we need fear their imminent collapse.

[John Ruggero]

I think they need to lower the price a little more.

Dorico 579
Finale + Perfect Layout 632

[ebiggs1]

Finale + Perfect Layout 632

Hmm, Finale new price is $299 and PL for standard users is $99. That's $398. Even for the huge score option is it $488.90.

Not many of us are publish house users. Do you think Dorico's output is publisher quality?

[BuonTempi]

Do you think Dorico's output is publisher quality?

Major Publishers like Schott, Boosey, Chester and Ricordi are regularly using Dorico. Most of its engraving defaults follow recommendations in Elaine Gould's Behind Bars book, which is the only standard work on the subject since the 60s.

I've been able to mimic the beams and slurs of a work produced by Henle, almost entirely using document options, rather than manual edits.

[ebiggs1]

Major Publishers like Schott, Boosey, Chester and Ricordi are regularly using Dorico.

And major publishers use Finale and Sibelius. Now I am not a Dorico user but from what I can glean from the sidelines is, neither Dorico nor Sibelius can reach the output of Finale and Perfect Layout. At least with the simplicity and how easy and quickly it is to do.

At my age and life point I am not likely to ever switch from Finale (and Perfect Layout) but that doesn't mean I am not curious or not interested in the ability of Musescore, Dorico and Sibelius. One would, should, expect newer softwares to be better and more efficient than older ones. Perhaps even easier to use!

To me the addition of PL to Finale is what Finale should do all on it own. Right from the box.

[BuonTempi]

Now I am not a Dorico user but from what I can glean from the sidelines is, neither Dorico nor Sibelius can reach the output of Finale and Perfect Layout. At least with the simplicity and how easy and quick it is to do.

Well, quality will always be subjective; but I'd argue that for any piece of standard repertoire, you can achieve the same quality in any of the major software products, if you know what you're doing. Baerenreiter has published editions done in MuseScore.

I've never used Sibelius, but I know that with Finale, having to execute plug-ins to get standard results is an extra step compared to other products. It's possible to produce 'publisher quality' works without any manual work in Dorico, for instance.

It is of course great there are different tools that appeal to different people.

[motet]

Baerenreiter has published editions done in MuseScore.

Baerenreiter editions are butt-ugly, in my opinion.

You can adjust anything in Finale to make it look like whatever Dorico's doing. The point is that Dorico does a lot automatically that Finale should do. I don't know if Dorico is as flexible as Finale, though.

[John Ruggero]

Finale + Perfect Layout 632

Hmm, Finale new price is $299 and PL for standard users is $99. That's $398. Even for the huge score option is it $488.90.

Not many of us are publish house users. Do you think Dorico's output is publisher quality?

I don't use Perfect Layout, but on the site it seems to imply that only the Gold Edition contains all the options, so that is the price I used to be comparable to Dorico. In the right hands, Dorico can produce beautiful output that is certainly publisher quality and at least the equal of Finale. But by design it is not as flexible as Finale and this makes it harder to use by those who have special requirements.

[dtoub]

Personally, as a composer, I really don't care if one notation program produces higher-quality publishing output than another. What I have always cared about is the fact that Finale enables me to actually notate what I want to, and more or less how I want to. Yeah, I've standardized on a particular layout with a combination of SMuFL fonts (mostly not those included with Finale), but at the end of the day, being able to notate my scores (which for many years have been much much less complicated than my earlier stuff) with a minimum of fuss is what I need from a notation program. And yes, the various plugins do help. I do use Perfect Layout and with the exception of my earlier scores that were more complex, had a lot of markings, etc, it really doesn't do much for me. It might help me with score layout, but if you were to look at my more recent works, PL isn't really needed (when I gave Jan one of my recent works for him to use PL to tinker with, when I was on the fence about purchasing it, he noted that it made perhaps 1-2 very minor tweaks, none of which were at all critical).

Now, other composers will have more complicated needs. But my point is that for me as a minimalist composer, Finale with the addition of several plugins (particularly JW and Patterson; I'm still feeling like TGTools was a waste of money for my use case) does what I need it to do. So some composers may not really need to invest in PL.

NotePerformer, on the other hand, has been worth its weight in gold for me (which was much less than the price of PL). There are certainly some sounds I wish it would handle better, and the issues with glissandi in Finale remain a problem they might not be able to solve (although I'm hoping). But just the string harmonics alone are well worth it.

[ebiggs1]

I'm still feeling like TGTools was a waste of money for my use case) does what I need it to do. So some composers may not really need to invest in PL.

I agree TG Tools has become less useful as I might turn that around. If you have PL you don't need to invest in the full TG Tools.