For Finale users

PianoMonk I bought Finale and Sibelius back in 2009, no subscriptions, own them outright, to run on Windows XP. I never updated either of them, because they both do what I want them to do - allow me to write out a score.

When you say "own them outright" .... Back in the day when I bought MS Word for my business, I got a CD and when I had to replace my computer, I simply could install the suite again via the CD. At some point I lost the CD and also didn't have proof of ownership and so had to "purchase" it again, but that was by subscription which has to be renewed every year. I've been stuck with that and the "upgrades" making it function less well ever since.

Finale, I didn't get a CD for installing - it was done on-line. I do own it outright as well. When I replaced my computer (because it was failing), I could reinstall it for free - but it was via the site. I hate upgrades because usually they involve bells and whistles of unneeded things, so I don't care about that. The way I understand it, if in some future time I need to replace my computer, I will not be able to reinstall Finale, because the site for reinstalling it (for free) will be gone. In your case, if you got a new computer, could you reinstall (do you have something like my CD for the original MS Word?).

I didn't know we were able to stay with the old Windows XP. I have Win11 which came preinstalled when I had to replace my computer. The same happened with a friend, and I seem to remember that Win11 messed with the older Finale.

PianoMonk My XP machines are strictly off line, and I've gutted most of the Microsoft bloat to make them run better. Although, the XP bloat isn't nearly as bad as newer systems, especially the 64bit stuff. Anyway, when I got the original Finale 2009 and Sibelius 6, I created an ISO file for each and saved them to both CD's and a backup drive. So, even when I've changed a hard drive, or built an entirely different PC, I can re-install them. I got in the habit of making ISO's of almost everything, games, apps, etc., back in my I.T. days. Kind of geeky, I know.

There's the advantage of being knowledgeable and being able to tweak things because you know how. Everything you wrote makes sense. I'm still a dinosaur about IT matters. I hate the way things have been going, with subscriptions, updates that come automatically that add unnecessary bells and whistles - sometimes it impacts my work at an inopportune moment. But that's getting away from the topic at hand.

If I had an extra machine that I could keep off-line and a bunch of other things that would be perfect. I purchased Finale at a time when you got it from the site, and reinstall it from the site. I have a bare working knowledge of Finale, haven't created macros or anything. It makes sense for me to transition, but not for you and others who know it inside out and aren't caught out be anything Internet-wise / new computer-wise in the future.

I appreciate all the insights.

MRC I used Finale for many years. I knew the software very well: I was a beta tester in the 90s through to around 2018. Towards the end of that period, I became more and more frustrated: the program was hampered by all sorts of old problems which seemed harder and harder to solve.

In 2020 I moved to Dorico. It was a bit rough at first, because its approach is quite different, but it was quickly apparent to me that it was superior to Finale. It's as powerful and versatile as Finale, but it's much more consistent and gives pretty good layouts straight out of the box.

There's a thriving official online forum where you usually get very prompt help, sometimes from former Finale users and sometimes from Daniel Spreadbury himself, the product manager for Dorico. If I hadn't already moved to Dorico, I'd jump at the $149 crossgrade offer.

I appreciate the alternative insights, and reading your experience with both sets of software. What you write is in line with a few folks on YT who transitioned. the on-line community is a plus. I did notice that the tutorials seemed easier to follow than the tutorials on Finale.
The person I'm studying with is staying with Finale, and is in a similar place as PianoMonk, but advised me that it might be a very good for me to transition over and give Dorico a try. Given how slow I've been in learning Finale, with a lot of balking because it's just not my cup of tea, with the compatibility I'll have the best of two worlds.

Thank you very much for the insights.

MRC Here's a video from a Finale user who's tried the MusicXML route in MuseScore and Dorico:

That was informative. I only caught up to what XML is a few days ago. I had a vague idea of things being saved as XML or .musx" prior to that. I have a better understanding now from that video.

I've bought Dorico at the special discount price for Finale owners, and tried the first tutorial.

My first meanderings into Dorico.
I do have some basic grasp of Finale, but could not just hop into Dorico and enter notation the same way. For example, stacking two or three notes on top of each other like a chord (or less) - the next note slid over into the next beat and my intended chord was a melody. There is a command for that kind of stacking. If you do want a chord, you click a chord icon.

There is a long introductory writeup saying that the underlying philosophy or premise is different from other notation programs. I think they said it is with the working composer in mind. You start by entering "players" - if in an ensemble or whatever one of the players will play both flute and piccolo, those are the instruments for Player 1. After that you enter the instruments for that player. Then there is the idea of "streams". If I have a piece with three movements, each movement is a "stream" for the same work. Several pieces belonging together in a same suite or group of works, are each "streams". That's way past my needs.

You don't have to specify how many measures - it generates the measures as you go along. You can omit putting in rests: it shows beats above your measure so you can just input the next note where you want it, and it inserts rests for you. I believe it also means that you can replace things anywhere without everything sliding over in a measure. The beats that it shows can be calibrated on the bottom - if you want to show only quarter note lengths, or smaller units.

I found the first tutorials much easier to follow than those of Finale. In Finale, I vaguely remember that you were led through creating music step by step and that was supposed to teach you how things work. Here the first tutorial was on "inputting notes", one element at a time, and in the background there was a "scribble sheet" score for playing around with the ideas. I was able to try out each thing to make sure I understood how it worked. After the 2nd or 3rd tutorial, it seemed to jump things needed. The tutorials found on-line and via the site were handy.

My biggest obstacle with Finale was figuring out how it worked. The tutorial style was not compatible with how I learn (or I was too dense. )