Customer Reviews

Finale 2006 [OLD VERSION]

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

 

 

While you can get it to do what you want most of the time it still has some bugs (GPO playback) that will irritate you. For example after scoring a piano piece and playing it back two of the notes played for an oddly short duration as though staccato. Another time in a six measure repeat the first two violin notes played back about half volume during the repeat. If I adjusted the volume up using accents or note articulations then the two notes played loudly the first time through. While these types of bugs happen relatively infrequently, when they do happen, I find the only solution is to rescore from scratch and hope they don't show up again, or to score once for print and a second time for playback.
I have 2 Gigs of RAM, twice the requirement, and a 3GHz proc so hardware is not the issue.

The sound quality with this is incredible! I took songs I wrote on finale 2005 (I upgraded to 2006 for $100) and put them into 2006; it sounds SO MUCH BETTER. If you listen to it through headphones, you might as well be at a live performance! It's easy to notate and print (and it looks great)! It's well worth the money. Costumer support is nice and fixed many of my simple problems (that only had to do with my ignorance).

For the longest time it was very difficult to get natural sounding accels and rits in your music. Finale used to have a cryptic way of doing it. Now, you literally conduct the tempo! Very easy to use. The way they have added the feature needs a little refinement but they are certainly on the right track. Finally, I can hear my music played back with a very musical rubato feel. Just getting "Tempo Tap" was worth the price of the upgrade! The only problem with Tempo Tap is that you cannot edit your tempo change graphically. You can view it as a graph but you can't edit it as a graph. (like most popular sequencers)

Some other cool things are..

Studio View. Page View is your print shop for layout like Studio View is your sound stage for playback. Use this new view to audition Finale's MIDI performance, "conduct" a tempo, adjust playback settings, and record HyperScribe transcriptions.

Speedier Playback Processing. Without the need to prescan your music, a click on the Play button initiates playback with almost no hesitation.

Export a measure region as a MIDI or Audio File with a new command in the Playback Settings dialog box.

More MIDI Channels. SmartMusic SoftSynth playback has been expanded from 16 to 128 channels. Now choose up to eight different MIDI Out devices.

Assign Each Staff a Unique Channel automatically while setting up your score. For example, you have a score with three trumpets. You want the lead trumpet on a different midi channel than the 2nd and 3rd trumpet so you can raise the volume independently and pan it differently.

Spacebar-click Scrolling Playback. Finale now supports scrolling when you use the spacebar-click method to start playback. This was a big reason I upgraded. This is sooo much more convenient!

Copy and Paste Measure and Entry Items Simultaneously using Finale's new Items to Copy dialog box. You can now also choose any combination of items to clear.

Embed Graphics in your Document. Graphics can now be embedded into Finale
documents. You no longer need to move graphic files independently when sharing Finale files across computers.

Composite Libraries. Save a collection of elements in the same library file for transfer to other documents.

Key Signature Contextual Menu. While using the Key Signature Tool, simply right-click a measure to choose from a list of several common key signatures. Another time saver.

Mass Edit Contextual Menu. While using the Mass Edit Tool, simply right-click a measure to choose from a list of Mass Edit Commands.

Resize Noteheads of Specific Voices within Chords using the Resize Noteheads Plug-in. Very cool for optional notes.

I have been using Finale for almost 16 years. It has come a long way. Gone are the days of it being difficult to learn. It comes with many flash tutorials files and the Makemusic forum always has helpful Finale gurus answering any question, no matter how simple or complex it is! Most of the time people can get a response in minutes! Very helpful when you get stuck.

After you learn the basics of Finale you will love the program. I use it almost everyday and I still enjoy composing with it!

Dave Morehead
trumpet/composer/arranger
[...].

Yeah, this thing is junk. I was scoring "Freebird" as a banjo piece with cello accents highlighted in the background and the banjo sound reproduction was terrible, the dotted half notes were in sequence with the 3/8ths and 5/16ths....and don't get me started on how the treble cleff was out of allignment causing my measures (and eventually verses) to slide in to one another. I gave this program 1 star because it didn't give me the option of putting a barfing face for a rating. Yeah, this thing is junk.

This is the absolute best music notation software out there--don't let the price scare you, it's worth every penny. It make beautiful and professional(this is what BIG music companies use--Hal Lenoard, Warner Bros. to name a couple)sheet music. Every musician, whether you're a teacher, student, or even a musician for a church or religious organization can use this! You can do your own arrangements of music to FIT YOUR GROUP! It uses a user-friendly graphic interface--it looks just like a blank score--you add the rest through it's powerful entry methods.