Customer Reviews

Finale PrintMusic 2008

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I upgraded to this product from Finale Songwriter 2005, which I did not use for two years because it had no provision for adjusting within the software the volume of playback to my instrument (a Yamaha Clavinova piano) or the volume of a MIDI recording. Finale product support claimed that there was no need for such a feature since all I had to do was adjust the volume on my MIDI instrument . However, I like to use music editors to play either one part of a duet, or to play the same score in order to help me learn a piece. That is, I want both the editor and myself to play the same instrument at the same time. Unfortunately, the 2005 version of Songwriter played so strongly that I had to turn the piano volume all the way down, in which case I could not hear myself playing. The person I spoke to at Finale product support at that time claimed that none of their products, even their high-end versions costing hundreds of dollars, supported what I wanted. How foolish I thought. So for the last two years I used another editor, called Play Music by Notation Technologies. However, Play Music lacks many of the nice entry features of Finale editors. Also, it tends to crash occasionally. Still, I put up with those shortcomings for the simple reason that Play Music met my requirements for playback.

Just recently I was made to realize that Finale Print Music 2008 supported exactly want I want to do. They do it by including what they call a mixer in the software. The mixer allows for adjustment of the volume of the playback. I am so happy that they did this since in every other way I prefer a Finale editor over Play Music.

I am running the Finale Print Music 2008 software on a Windows XP (Home Edition) and I have not experienced any operational problems. I am very happy with this software.

As a high school band teacher, this is just the product I have been looking for to write easy and quick numbers for my pep band. So simple to set up and print. I love being able to do everything in the concert key, and then it does all the instrument transpositions. I only wish it had a few more options for paper sizing, but what I haven't been able to figure out, I can do with "shrink" function on my copier.

I bought this to digitize alot of songs for my students. It is a good product, but there are certain things that could be improved. For simple note entry everything works great. It is only in the more complex songs or when you use chord symbols that the process becomes time consuming.

I just bought this software a week ago, and have been working with it to try to get it to do what I want. I am a choir director at a small church, and we do not have an accompanist for the choir, so everything we sing has to be with CD or tape accompaniment. This software will scan sheet music and then convert the music into a MIDI file, which can then be copied to CD, and played.
I discovered a few things about the process that are worth mentioning. One, it does not work well to scan more than one page at a time, as the music recognition software does not recognize more than one or two pages, it just dumps the rest and you have to scan it over again, anyway. Two, it does not scan choral music efficiently. It produces scores that are very irregular, with music that appears off the page to the right, with so many recognition errors that you nearly have to rewrite the whole score. So, what I do is to scan the music one page at a time, then use Paint to delete the voice parts, then import the TIFF files into the recognition software. It still produces a few scanning errors, but it's nearly perfect, and much more efficient in terms of time and effort. Three, for some people like me that do not write music, it can be a lot of work to produce music that looks like the original, as there is no function for inserting rests in the middle of the measure, and it will not add a measure into the middle of the music, only at the end. So I have settled on using the copy and paste or cut and paste function to get the music where I want it. Four, once you have scanned and recognized the music, you will find that you cannot add in a title or composer at the top of page 1. But, you can use the new document function to produce a blank score with all the right names on page one, then you can copy and paste the music from the scanned file, into your new document.
Overall, it is well worth the money I spent to purchase the program. You just have to know that its functions for scanning music into the program are limited, so you have to be prepared to spend some time working within its limitations. I decided I did not want to spend the extra two hundred dollars for the upgrade to SmartScore Pro. For what I need, it is a good program, and I would recommend it for others in a similar situation.

PrintMusic is the scaled down version of Finale. Even with its limitations of score size and number staves used, this is an excellent program. I am a music educator and have used Finale in school for many years. PrintMusic is the perfect program for a person who is scoring for solo voice(instrument) or small ensemble. It does not offer the same flexibility as Finale when scoring for percussion but its pluses outweigh its flaws. This new version of PM shows both notes and rests simultaneously. This means that you do not have to open another menu or memorize a shortcut. It also has a usable eraser for deletions. Again this is a plus. My scores and parts have printed very well on my inkjet printer. My main concern would be with some of the editing features and the use of triplets at the end of a line. Everything considered(especially price), this is a very good program.

While I've used other Finale products, Printmusic is NOT fully compatible with Vista. Their technical support staff were not able to resolve the issue I've had - namely that the computer would freeze after using the product for about three minutes. Don't purchase it through a download - they won't issue a refund for that.

This program is a slick way to work with music and to get into some of the finer details. It's the second copy I've bought. One was for the Grandmother that plays piano and flute because she needs a way to convert music to easier keys or write a second part for flute # 2. And, the second copy was for our grandson who has a completely different taste in music but likes to fool with electronics and downloads files that this program can play and print. Both are happy with the use of this software.

I wish I had known that I could download a free demo of this product before I purchased it three years ago. I hate it, and I rarely use it because it is such a pain. Also, the main reason I got it was for the scanning feature, which turns out not to work on a Mac at all, and only works on a PC if you have a particular kind of printer. What a waste of money. I will never buy a finale product again.

I have been using this product for years writing music and arranging music. It is easy to learn and use. It has a good Midi playback and you can enter notes on the staff(s) either manually or with a keyboard. It is perfect for our choir as I can create an arrangement and then print it off so it is easy for the choir to read. Love the easy features such as transposition of keys and cut and paste features.

I love this software! And Amazon shipped it very fast. I'm a satisfied customer.