Composers cry foul as their notation software is stopped
NewsThe Finale technology has made this announcement:
– There will be no further updates to Finale, or any of its associated tools (PrintMusic, Notepad, Songwriter)
– It is no longer possible to purchase or upgrade Finale in the MakeMusic eStore
– Finale will continue to work on devices where it is currently installed (barring OS changes)
– After one year, beginning August 2025, these changes will go into effect:
– It will not be possible to authorize Finale on any new devices, or reauthorize Finale
– Support for Finale v27 or any other version of Finale will no longer be available.
For a limited time, users of any version of Finale or PrintMusic can purchase Dorico Pro for just $149 (retail price $579).
Composer responses on social media range from outrage to despair. ‘A bummer for many of us,’ is one of the milder comments.
Hard to believe this is happening. I’ve been a loyal Finale user for 30 years. For the way I write it is by far the best tool out there; maybe not the easiest to learn, but very, very powerful. Wonder what happened? Too much competition? Sibelius has had it’s ups and downs, too. Not enough users to continue? Now we just have to hope that future updates of Windows and the Mac OS will support the final Finale.
The last sentence pretty much sums up the problem.
That’s the finale of Finale
Start a movement to have it open-sourced if they are going out of business. It’s been done many times before for similar niche products. I’d be surprised if this avenue isn’t being pursued.
They are not going out of business. They have essentially decided to partner with the competition, Steinberg’s Dorico. I doubt that an open source campaign would work since it would result in competition for their “new” product.
Presumably their deal to send users to Dorico precludes continuing Finale open source.
Thank goodness there’s still three other popular, professional softwares to chose from and that very few people in Britain use(d) Finale. Incidentally, the main thinkers behind Sibelius, Dorico, and Musescore are all from the geographical British Isles.
Musescore was developed by a Belgian, Frenchman and a German.
Did they once all walk into a bar together?
This isn’t as big of a deal as it may seem. There’s a general consensus over the last ~5 years that Dorico is superior to Finale. Finale is old and bloated. It’s not that hard to convert files to xml and reopen in Dorico. MuseScore (open source) is an excellent option for those who don’t need all the capabilities of Dorico
I wish it were that simple. An XML file from Finale loses all formatting and other essentials when opened in Dorico. The only useful items left are the notes. I did the XML conversion yesterday going from Finale 27 to Dorico 3.5. There’s an opportunity for some hotshot programmer to convert Finale to Dorico Pro with virtually no loss of information.
Even a hotshot programmer would need access to Finale’s proprietary code to make a direct conversion tool. Unlikely to be granted.
Not really. Any file format can be reverse-engineered without the original source. Where there is demand, a supply will emerge.
Without access to both codebases it is impossible to map one proprietary format (Finale) to another (Dorico) and get a useful result. That’s why there exists open intermediary formats like Music XML, which satisfies that demand as best as possible.
When the fillings of my pencil have run-out, I can always send my PA to buy a new package without dependency on technology apart from a short tram drive to the shop. There is much to say for the traditional method of pencil / pen and paper. (The only problem emerges when she doesn’t come back and hangs-out with one of her lady friends she met on the way, and then I’m stuck in a fermata.)
I’m sure performers love reading from your handwritten scribblings.
Compose your draft however you want, but when it comes to preparing finished parts and score computer engraving has been a huge step forward for all involved.
My scores are delegated to my publisher and all the type setting problems and parts production are henceforth their responsibility. This keeps my mind free of superfluous technology.
And there’s a good chance they used Finale to do that for you. So there might be Finale files of your music with your publisher that are about to become inaccessible, making future edits or corrections impossible should you ever need them.
If you write in the right way, you don’t need to make corrections.
Very smug, aren’t you. There are plenty of errata in first editions of major composers like Brahms, Chopin, Prokofiev, etc. Guess they didn’t write in the right way.
I do so love and respect a dedicated Luddite, JB
Some additional information in the “Finale Sunset FAQ” from the MakeMusic website:
“What about all my files?”
While Dorico cannot directly import Finale .mus or .musx files, it can import MusicXML files exported from Finale. Finale can convert both individual files and batches of files to MusicXML. Choose File > Export from Finale’s top menu to see the available export options. For more details, please review the following support resources from MakeMusic and Steinberg:
Exporting MusicXML Files from Finale (Article)
Import MusicXML into Dorico (Video)
It was never my favourite to compared with Sibelius. But Muse, which is free, and very good, is rocking the market.
I don’ think so, unless you are a real amateur.
Thanks for the insult.
Now please quit all the avant-garde stuff and write something that makes sense, that performers can read and have an inkling how the notation translates to sound.
Wait…. if I bought it, I’m not allowed to re-install it on any different machines going forward?
Such an idiotic idea.
All things must pass. How about using a pencil and paper?
Yes, orchestra musicians love reading from hand copied parts in pencil on paper!
In my experience, good handwriting is nonetheless a lot better than bad typesetting. I know a few composers who DO still issue handwritten scores and parts that are impeccable in presentation. The main problem is that writing scores and parts by hand to an acceptable standard for performance is extremely time-consuming; good typesetting, whilst it is also fairly time-consuming, has the advantage of being much more readily adjustable (although “Music Med”, in his/her comment further down this thread, underestimates how long it takes to adjust things properly — for instance, if transposing to another key “with a few clicks”, it is important to check whether the accidentals, clefs, and stem directions are still sensible, and whether dynamics and other markings clash with the repositioned notes… and no, so-called “magnetic layout” does not always get it right, and is therefore not a substitute for checking by eye).
The problem with typesetting is that little mistakes can easily slip-in where a clear handwritten score or part, if well-done, is much safer.
It depends upon the handwriting. There are composers writing beautifully and then it’s never a problem with performers.
It’s the snobs among conductors who refuse to even begin to consider a non-typeset score.
Since the sixties of the last century, complex-looking scores are meant to suggest musical content, and later-on typeset scores should reassure performers of high musical quality. This led to inane nonsense to be performed under the illusion that it were very progressive.
if it was good enough for Mozart…
A nostalgic idea, but not a practical one for quickly getting arrangements out to istrumentalist. With a few clicks entire keys can be changed and additional parts added all while enabling one to hear the changes with the ensemble and or soloist. Not to mention being able to send a pdf file of your score with an audio rendition. Lets face it…Any hand written score will eventually have to be typsett anyway!!
There are many situations where paper and pencil are not acceptable. I had to get Finale 25 yrs ago because hand written scores were not accepted in the musical theatre workshop I was in.
Most – probably all – composers still do for the compositional aspect of writing. Finale is a tool used largely after composition is mostly finished. I don’t know anyone who composes directly into Finale.
The superpower of Finale is in part extraction. If you are dealing with scores of many staves, it streamlines the process of creating the individual instrumental parts. Even in its primitive earlier days, Finale save enormous amounts of time with this capability.
Only composers have a problem with that? According to this announcement, if you are an instrument player, a conductor, a music theorist/historian, a publisher, a composer, or anybody who happens to have any files in Finale, you will not be able to use those files as soon as–after August 2025–your computer breaks on which Finale is installed. It can happen after 30 years, or it can happen in 3 hours.
Some interesting background here: https://www.scoringnotes.com/news/alfred-music-joins-peaksware/
“Alfred Music and MakeMusic will continue to operate independently while sharing resources within the Peaksware group to advance innovations, provide additional content, and leverage distribution channels. MakeMusic will remain steadfast in its long-standing commitment to work equally with all publishing partners to provide the highest level of quality content for musicians and educators within SmartMusic.”
— and more at that link
Finally.
The Klick Klack Klang Klan has one software left now; essentially a weapon of sound that chases arts grants with trendy titles.
The best music was written by hand or ear (on the spot). This software commercialized composition so that everyone and their dog can compose music. Atonal music designed on rhythmic ratios in a woke piece called “Parabola of Pee”…no, this doesn’t require any Opus but an Opiss.
Take out your pencils and manuscript paper. Sit under a tree and for goodness sake, write a key signature. Limit your drivel to feelable rhythms.
You do realize Finale could be used for music of any style and era? Or that you could write a manuscript in pencil under a tree and then professionally engrave it in Finale? And that most new editions of published music have been made in programs like a Finale for 30 years?
Your comments are not really making a whole lot of sense today. Are you okay?
Speaking as a player with aging eyes, I usually dread having to play from handwritten parts (as I often do in pit orchestra). The software can produce much more readable parts.
Are you a musician? Because you don’t seem to understand how the real world works and how one creates playable parts as a composer. No, composers use pencil and paper to compose 99% of the time, but then players demand playable parts. It’s progress, and thank goodness. Handwritten parts are a nightmare to read. Anyhow, composing is in the mind of the composer….who care how it’s input to make a legible score?
FInale and Sibelius are notation tools – not serious composition tools. They are used after the fact of composition to produce printable scores with the added frill of proof-hearing the work.
The kilck-klank-klan you refer to usually just cut and paste pre-existing loops in what are essentially multi-track recording apps like GarbageBand
Oh noooo… poor Bach, he can’t compose a single of his 1,128 pieces, without a powerful computer and sophisticated mathematical software, how can he keep track of so many notes, the fugues, the multiple simultaneous melodic lines, the counterpoints, the harmonies, what a lost for the history of music, future generations in the 20th and 21st centuries will be condemned to composing chaotic noise that follows no rules, oh, if only they had powerful computers and sophisticated software to help them
Finale was a publishing tool as much or more than it was a composing tool. Any new performance edition of Bach in the last 30 years was probably engraved in it.
It wasn’t just “1,128 pieces.” About a half of what he wrote was lost by his children and others after he died. If notation software had existed in the 18th century, his works would have had a better chance of survival.
However, if Bach kept his pieces in Finale, and Peaksware Holdings, the owner of Finale and Alfred Music, decided–as it just did–to prevent anyone from using the program on new devices in the future, his files would only last as long as his current computer.
And who composing non-commercial music today has a copyist budget, or like Bach a legion of choir-school boys and 21 kids and a wife to serve as indentured copyists, not to mention players willing to work from blotchy manual scrawlings?
Bach would have given his left nut for a good pro score-writing tool.
Music notation software is highly specialised, and many composers, editors, and typesetters will prefer to remain with the same software, having learned how to get it to cooperate with their wishes (for instance, I still use Sibelius 6, which was released in 2009, since I have learned how to get that particular version of that particular programme to do what I want it to do), even to the point of maintaining a special computer with an “out-of-date” operating system that is compatible with the so-called “abandonware” (software that is no longer updated by the maker/owner).
At the very least, could they not continue to make Finale available for purchase and authorisation in its current version, to enable people and organisations to open and edit files (from an archival perspective, individuals, libraries and publishers have enough trouble preserving digital files without this unhelpful attitude of software companies)? Or, if they are not willing to offer even that level of support, make the software available for free and consider renouncing the copyright (there may be people in the open-source community who would be willing to maintain and even update the software)?
One word of advice to Finale users: export all your files to MusicXML format, which would enable one to import the notation into other programmes in an editable format.
Also export them in PDF format, or they will be lost anyway as the formatting will be largely lost and only the notes left.
it’s unfortunately a routine in the hyper liberal and capitalistic word. I remember about 10 to 15 years ago. After 20 years of using Microsoft Money for home finance. Microsoft decided to terminate the software because it had only 36 million users which is the population or even more than the population of many countries in the world. The well-being of the users don’t count : only the money.
With Finale, I’ve been using it since the beginning so about 40 years
It is a great shame. 
Companies with the little of ethic should not be allowed to behave like this. Even if I have cursed it many times about the bugs. Especially the incomparability between Mac and Windows (in theory it is compatible. in fact, sending files back-and-forth to my copyist who was using windows and Mac, We had almost every time one or two problems that occurred )or the fact that the engineers made fun of changing the shortcuts or many tools locations in the menus so you had to learn again the usual Manuel. It is typical behavior of sects and gurus to do like that to keep their followers by making their life harder and keeping them fanatics. Well of course it is a little exaggerated but you get the idea…
Well, Sibelius it will be. The transition from finale is quite smooth and easy as the enter software by the way
Sorry, I misdirected the following into the thread of the Langshake, when it should have been here:
In 1888, an Edison phonograph was demonstrated to Sir Arthur Sullivan and he was invited to say a few words into it. He said ‘For myself, I can only say that I am astonished and somewhat terrified at the result of this evening’s experiments: astonished at the wonderful power you have developed, and terrified at the thought that so much hideous and bad music may be put on record for ever’.
I suspect that, confronted with a new-fangled computer and all this composing and notating software, he would have said the same thing. He was right the first time and, had this second hypothetical encounter taken place, he would have been right the second time too.
MuseScore killed the Finale star.
Anyone thinking of doing [name a task] on their computer is going to try the free option first.
If it does what they need, they don’t think, “Hey I should spend a chunk of money to try something different!”
For most, it will do what they need, and for those it doesn’t, few are eager enough to venture on another software that pretty much makes the same claims.
That leaves a very small market for a commercial app.
In this case, after perusing the feature list of the mentioned replacement, Dorico, I’d be hard-pressed to find something that MuseScore isn’t doing already except… run on an iPad.
Do you create orchestral or chamber scores of moderate to advanced complexity? How does Musescore perform in that medium? Additionally, piano notation can be extremely complex. How does it do?
‘New complexity’ composer Brian Ferneyhough tried to find a program that could manage his scores, but no single one could survive his mental exercises and all of them imploded after 3 or 4 bars. Writing-out the music by hand also appeared to be cumbersome and time consuming. Eventually he found the solution: he took an entirely black page and painted the white spaces with type-ex.
I think their operating model may have something to do with it.
You buy the software and it’s yours for life. You want to upgrade, you buy it all over again. I bought it about eight years ago and haven’t had to spend a cent on it since.
Surely a licensing model would generate an ongoing income stream and give them a sustainable future.
What about the “sustainable future” of the whole ecosystem that depends on technology remaining durable and reliable, not “here today, gone tomorrow”? When you buy a book, it is “yours for life”, and yet I see there are still plenty of publishers that stay in business, presumably because they are able to “generate an ongoing income stream” without reinventing the alphabet and changing the written vernacular beyond recognition every decade (admittedly, language does change over time, but gradually, and the process is not controlled by a cartel of big publishers). There is absolutely no need to settle for the rapid enforced obsolescence that characterises the computing world; as consumers, we can and should lobby against such practices, and vote with our feet.
Many of us prefer to have the stability of knowing that we will ALWAYS be able to open and edit our files in software that is familiar to us, hence the “yours for life” model. If a software company wants to keep making money, then they need to persuade people that the upgrades are worth buying. Instead, the big players who have cornered the market for operating systems and software have opted to enforce obsolescence — making frontend changes that some/many/most customers do not want and creating operating systems that lack backward compatibility — rather than improve the product enough to induce people to CHOOSE to upgrade. Personally, I still use Sibelius 6, and run it on a dedicated computer on an old operating system so that I do not have to upgrade, because Sibelius 7 has too many radical deteriorations to the user interface (that hideous ribbon) and functionality (loss of some essential advanced typesetting options, such as being able to specify the exact co-ordinates within a beat for where hairpins and lines END) and most of the improvements are totally irrelevant to me (I almost never use the MIDI sound libraries in any music-notation software, since I prefer to use my imagination to audiate how the music sounds).
Agreed. It’s totalitarian thinking and damaging the field.
Finale have just had a change of heart. Finale authorization will not end in August 2025 but will remain available indefinitely.
Thank goodness the software wasn’t written by Fujitsu! If it had been, loads of composers would have been bankrupted, falsely accused of breaching copyright, prosecuted and thrown into prison!
Finale is already looking to extending authorization after OUTCRY. So let’s see how it turns out for those with 30 yrs of scores to contend with!!
There’s also another great music package around besides those already mentioned (Dorico, Sibelius, Muse).
It’s called Mozart [see https://www.mozart.co.uk/%5D. It’s still very much alive and being updated.
Beethoven refused to use Finale or Sibelius, and his shabby notation gave musicologists years of hard work to decipher his music. Mahler tried Sibelius on the advice of his young wife who tried to get him more modern, but after the 8th he gave up and hence the many dissonances in his next symphony, where the three pulverizing climaxes of the 1st mvt have been understood as despair about the recurring blips of the program. Schoenberg tried Finale but was not good at it so the notes always landed on another place than he meant, but in his 12-tone system that no longer was a problem.
Composers be warned.
Sibelius only wanted to use Finale because he could not bear the confusion that would erupt at his publisher’s office and he was afraid that critics might make fun of his music: ‘are we listening to Sibelius or Sibelius?’ For the finales of his symphonies however, he changed to handwriting, again anxious for more confusion than he already had.
Sad to hear of the demise. As a composer I use Mozart notation software (at http://www.mozart.co.uk) which I heartily recommend. I’ve used Mozart for the past 13 years, encompassing all types of instrumental forces.
Mozart never used Mozart. He found it wanting (letter to his father April 1778).
It’s one step again in the direction of AI writing all the new music where there is a need for it: so much already sounds like it, so nobody will hear the difference, and it’s so much cheaper.
Not very pleasant news for Finale users at all. If you are looking for a replacement you should check out Mozart (www.mozart.co.uk for a free trial) a long established, fully featured music notation programme with an active and engaged community, including the developer!. I have been using it for years and would thoroughly recommend folk to try it out.
From Finale today –
“Finale authorization will remain active indefinitely. This means that you will be able to install and authorize Finale on new devices for the foreseeable future. However, please note that future OS changes can still impact your ability to use Finale on new devices.”
I’d like to recommend Lilypond as an alternative. https://lilypond.org/ It is completely free and it is capable of music typesetting complexity that is beyond the likes of Sibelius and Finale. The catch is that it is a ‘markup’ language (like HTML) not a WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) i.e. you input the music using a text editor and then process the text to produce the music. Not for everyone, but if you are prepared to invest the time in learning how it works, I think it may be as efficient as WYSIWYGs like Sibelius and Finale and the results are just as good.
It would have been nice if they fixed the 600 bugs first.
I have spent the past week doing tests for converting my hundreds of Finale files. The conversion to Dorico is an absolute nightmare. It’s not just the formatting that gets lost. You also lose notes (yes, notes can completely disappear in conversion) because a small percentage does not convert properly. It takes a lot of careful proofreading after you do your conversion, followed by a lot of tedious learn-while-you-frantically-convert note editing. In my tests, cadenzas fail 100% of the time in Finale to Dorico conversion.
I say up front that Dorico is a MUCH BETTER tool than Finale is. No bashing of Dorico is intended other than to say its MusicXML import is frequently flawed—and that is feature going to be seriously stress tested over the coming year in a way it has never been tested before. Dorico is going to get a lot of negative comments about this problem during the mad conversion that will be taking place. Finale’s MusicXML import also sucks. Clearly, sharing files among applications we not a high priority item. The MusicXML import for the freeware MuseScore is infinitely better.
You can bet that after 30 years, Finale had become bloatware. It was designed in an era before large memory, large disk, and object oriented program. Because there were no real competition (especially after Avid nerfed Sibelius development), Finale never got the code cleanup and rewrite the such programs need. Plus the company got bought and moved from Minnesota to Colorado so most of the developers apparently quit. The complexity of the program precluded fixing bugs. People have been screaming for decades that grace notes in parts are totally FUed in Finale but they never get fixed (not a problem in Dorico). There is less of a need to upgrade and less revenue. So the new owners just gave up.
If Finale were to go open source, developers would certainly find a mass of spaghetti code that morals cannot untangle.
The process Dorico puts in place is better thought out than that of Finale. Dorico splits music entry and text editing into separate steps, allowing those two aspects of the music to be kept separate internally. I find it easier to use than Finale.
Welcome to a ring of hell everyone.