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Articles, Reviews

Finale 2014

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There are two BIG players in the music notation field. Sibelius and Finale. The future of Sibelius is sort of up in the air as they sacked their great development team due to Avid, the parent company, having issues (they also sold off the M-Audio line of products at the same time). Meanwhile, MakeMusic got bought and the new owners pledged to continue making Finale, but not at it’s regular yearly update cycle.

So we went about 2 years with Finale 2012. It works, but it has issues like all software. Now, they have just released Finale 2014. It is REALLY hard to tell what the new stuff is or why you should update to it. Luckily, Jari Williamsson has an excellent review of what is new. I’ll bullet point what I think are interesting features and list some big reasons NOT to update.

New and Interesting Features:

  • Export To Finale 2012 and new File Format (which shouldn’t change in future versions of Finale)
  • Keyless Scores and Instruments
  • Anchored Hairpins and Measure-attached Smartshapes

Those are basically the new/interesting things in Finale 2014. It’s easy to do a keyless score now, and when you do crescendos and stuff, it will smartly adjust the size of them. Finally. And the stupid program can finally….or Finale…..no no, finally…..save to older versions and future versions of Finale won’t have to convert files to the “new” format every time they are opened.

Yes, there are some other “new” features. Supposedly it’s all Cocoa on the Mac, meaning the UI looks more Mac-like now. Supposedly, didn’t really notice when I was using the demo. New sound engine and playback and more Garritan sounds. Ok……now anyone that uses Finale for playback….really? I mean, it’s NEVER worked well for me, and the playback is Cheezy at best. The Garritan sounds, while very great sounding in 2001, are not really that great sounding now. Plus, Finale isn’t 64bit, so you can’t really load up a huge sample orchestra in Finale and have it play.

Oh, and Notemover is back. What? Don’t remember when Finale had Notemover? They killed it off a few versions ago and replaced it with this “universal selector” thing, which I think was actually the way to go (though it has some issues in how it works). Well, Notemover is back…..

Ok, so, what is the BIG issue with Finale 2014 that will prevent me from upgrading. TGTools does not work with it. What is TGTools? It’s a plugin that allows all sorts of things to be done in Finale, and I find it essential in using Finale. For teaching I use the Add Pitch Names tool ALL THE TIME, and I use various alignment tools, and Custom Chord Styles for doing / chords in Finale (like doing a F7/C chord). I have no clue if the author is going to update it or not, as he never “officially” updated it for any version of Finale past 2010 (2011, 2012 worked with it). MakeMusic also seems to have bought or obtained parts of TGTools and has been including them in Finale for a few versions (2009 or 2008 was the first?). But unless this tool is updated, I will have to stick to Finale 2012.

So, what is the verdict? I still think Finale is better than Sibelius. It has way more flexibility in how it works, and you can get your scores to look however you want. And the company seems to be moving forward and has modernized Finale (on the Apple side). I’m not really sure what “new” notation features can be added that people really would go “oooo, now that is a great idea”. I mean, it is sort of like Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6). They had Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) (or rather Finale 2012). It worked great, had a few issues, but generally worked great. What to do next, lets gut a bunch of it and modernize it. Exactly what Apple did with 10.6. Not a lot of new features, but improvements and forward thinking changes (like a stable file format). It’s not fully 64bit….yet, but it’s moving that direction. It still needs a LOT of improvements in the audio playback department, and MakeMusic needs to start moving it towards more DAW-ish like playback.

So….if you are just getting into the notation game, and have to choose between Sibelius and Finale, it’s really close. It has been for a while. They both basically do the same thing, just Finale gives you 10 ways to do it, and Sibelius gives you 4 ways but really wants you to use what it thinks is best. Until Avid shows some commitment to Sibelius, I would say that it is going to languish. It supposedly has issues on the latest Mac OS X (10.9), as does all of Avid’s stuff. Avid has NEVER been known to be fast/timely/quick/responsive to updating their products. As a former ProTools user who waited 8 months for Avid to “certify” ProTools on a new Mac OS (which came with the Mac, and I had no choice but to use), I know Avid. That being said, I’d run away from Sibelius. What if you get a new Windows 8.1 or MacBook Pro, and Sibelius just stops working? And Avid says “it isn’t certified yet”. End of story until it is “certified”. I’ve never had issues with MakeMusic software not working. Every OS it just runs, even Finale 2008 still runs on my Mac. Amazing.

I’d go Finale. It seems to be moving forward, and it pretty much has all the features you could ever want in a notation package.

Articles

How Much Longer Will ProTools Be Around?

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From Wall Street PR:

Avid Technology is a company specializing in video and audio production technology, specifically digital non-linear editing (NLE) systems, management and distribution services. While Emmy and Oscar winners and nominees almost invariably use the company’s systems, sales seem to be a problem that Avid can’t cut out of the picture.

Avid now envisions revenue of $125 million to $127 million, and a GAAP loss of $17 million to $19 million. Previous Street consensus was for revenue of $145.2 million and a profit of 14 cents a share. This announcement shocked investors in early trading hours, as this Q3 revenue range included $4 million of revenue from divested businesses, while ongoing businesses had revenue of $121 million to $123 million versus $143 million a year ago.

Basically, Avid, you screwed yourself by continuing to sell ProTools for too much. And, you waited way to long to allow ProTools to work on NON Avid hardware. Thus, you pretty much shut yourself out of the prosumer/consumer market. People can by Reason, Logic, Ableton, Sonar, Reaper, Digital Performer, and a host of other programs for a fraction of what you want for ProTools. And existing users……you want $499 for me to upgrade? Forgetaboutit!

Articles

Avid Sells Off Most Of Its Product Lines/MakeMusic in the Tank as well.

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So, this was making the rounds a couple of weeks ago.

Avid has agreed to sell its consumer audio and video product lines. The company’s consumer audio products are being sold to inMusic, the parent company of Akai Professional, Alesis and Numark, among others.

Basically, Avid is in trouble. It hasn’t made any headway in the consumer or prosumer markets. Why? Look at the ridiculous prices it charges for upgrades or for a first time ProTools. $699 for a first time purchase, $299 for users of ProTools 9, and previous versions of ProTools it’s $399. Logic 9 is $199. Does what ProTools does. M-Audio hardware also, for years, suffered stupid limitations. For years they had a Pro-Tools M-Powered that would only run on M-Audio hardware, but the LE version would run on Digidesign hardware, but if you had both hardware, you had to have two versions of ProTools to use them, and you couldn’t use them together. Companies like MOTU didn’t have this problem, you could use many of their interfaces together in Digital Performer. No problem. MOTU still makes interfaces that consistently win awards. M-Audio or Avid? No so much.

Avid should have dropped the price for ProTools to $299 for new purchases of ProTools 10. Sure, make the HD version a little more expensive, but not much more. But $699? Digital Performer is $499. Maybe that would be a better comparison for entry price. Avid made some steps forward by NOT requiring ProTools to have to use certain hardware, but the price seems to be the barrier right now. I know more guys using Logic 9 now than ProTools simply because you can get it for $199 in the App Store and it just works. Simple, cheap, and produces stuff that sounds great.

Avid is also supposedly gutting the whole Sibelius team as well. I hear rumors that the London offices are being closed. Sibelius is a property that Avid is keeping, not selling. Not sure what this means for the future of Sibelius. They used to be a company that was just up the street in Walnut Creek California. Now…..who knows.

AND……now MakeMusic (makers of Finale and SmartMusic) is having issues. Someone wants to buy them out. There is a good article about possible reasons and stuff here.

For me, I think MakeMusic needs to do two things right now. It needs an iPad version of SmartMusic. And it needs to allow printing of music from SmartMusic. The first point is self explanatory. Let me elaborate on the second.

Printing music from SmartMusic. It is something that they haven’t allowed at all. They used to allow printing of public domain or the stuff people generated from SmartMusic. But the last few versions I believe they removed that. SmartMusic is not only a great practice tool, but also a publishing tool. What other thing on the net would allow you to hear, and SEE every part of a piece you wanted to buy for your band? There isn’t. SmartMusic could be enabled to allow the purchase of music and the subsequent printing of the music. So, if the band director wanted his band to play “Childrens March” and have them work on it with SmartMusic, the process would be simple. Band teacher loads up SmartMusic, finds the version of the song he likes, buys it, prints it, done. The printing I think should be UNLIMITED but they should have some sort of tag or code on the page to know who’s printed version this is. Something like a school code or director id or something on every page. Most online printing services, like MusicNotes.com, allow TWO prints per purchase. That is stupid. For a band teacher, you’d need unlimited prints. Kids lose stuff, damage stuff, etc. Plus, SmartMusic could now be a digital LOCKER for the music. Teachers wouldn’t have to store scores anymore.

Heck, you could go even so far as say the director has 20 songs that are in SmartMusic. But they don’t want to repurchase all of them. What should they do? MakeMusic would have a program for say $10 per piece you could send the score and parts BACK to MakeMusic, they would verify you own the piece, then they would give you access to the piece on SmartMusic. And then they would either recycle the paper or send it back. Or maybe they could verify it via purchase orders. I dunno. Something.

The additional angle on this is that somewhere in the future, classrooms are going to be paperless. Or mostly paperless. MakeMusic could tout that they are future proofing music programs. I think this would make a lot of sense, and is do-able in the next year…..depending on the publishers.

Interesting times. I don’t know what the future holds, but MakeMusic and Avid have a lot of work to do to remain viable products.

Articles, Reviews

Ditching Pro Tools For Logic

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For various reasons, I decided NOT to upgrade my ProTools to the new version. I won a system in 2007 that included a copy of ProTools M-Powered version 7. I upgraded to 8 as well, and mixed a big band album with the gear. I thought about moving to 9, but the upgrade costs were huge. Plus, I had also, in 2007, bought Logic 8 when Steve Jobs issued $200 credits to the first buyers of iPhones (love you Steve!).

Anyhow, when Mac OS X 10.7 Lion came out, the fate of ProTools for me was sealed. Version 8 didn’t run on it. But Logic ran on it. And for $199 I could buy Logic 9 from the App Store. And I did. And I haven’t looked back.

Is there something I miss about ProTools? I think the flow of working with audio is a little better, and the tools are incredibly cool. That is not to say that Logic doesn’t have these tools, but like to put in a Fade in ProTools vs Logic, it seems to be more precise in ProTools. I do miss my McDSP plugins though. I had bought them when they were RTAS, and I do miss them. Especially some of the compressors. Oh well. Oh, and Altiverb 6 sorta works in Logic in 64bit mode but shows up as unsupported. Strange.

I DO however, love the Exporting out of Logic. You don’t have to play the whole thing back. You bounce it, and boom. It is done in mere seconds. Logic also has a wealth of built in plugins.

If you use a Mac, and are sick of ProTools reaming you for upgrades, get Logic.

Articles, News

Music Education Alliance

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This was announced today:

Leaders in their respective fields, Garritan, MakeMusic, Steinberg and Yamaha have formed a partnership that will provide integrated solutions to the music education market in the United States.

Announced at Winter NAMM 2008, the Music Education Software and Hardware (MESH) initiative brings together hardware, software, sound content and curriculum to provide compelling and complete turn-key solutions for today’s music educators, who are often faced with an array of products that can be difficult to navigate and integrate. In addition to aggregating four major components of music education technology into a seamless bundle, the alliance will also provide training to teachers based in the U. S., enabling them to fully utilize the power of computer music technology solutions.

Honestly, why? It sounds to me like a way for school teachers to waste money. Again. Spending thousands of dollars or more on some “solution” to make kids learn better. Money like that could be spent on lowering the student/teacher ratio. Very strange bedfellows as well. Leaders in their fields? Marketing speak at it’s finest!
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