Finale Music Notation Software is Discontinued
On Monday, users of the music notation software Finale experienced an unwelcome surprise: after 35 years, its development was abruptly discontinued.
"Today, Finale is no longer the future of the notation industry — a reality after 35 years," said Greg Dell'Era in a statement. He is president of the Colorado-based MakeMusic, the company that makes Finale. "Instead of releasing new versions of Finale that would offer only marginal value to our users, we’ve made the decision to end its development."
In the short-term, this means that Finale users are now stuck with whatever version of the software that they currently have. As of Monday, there will be no further updates to Finale or to its associated tools (PrintMusic, Notepad, Songwriter), and it is no longer possible to purchase or upgrade the software. Finale will continue to work on devices where it is currently installed - unless there is a change in operating system.
In the long-term, users must find a different solution, because in a year - August 2025 - technical support for Finale will be completely discontinued.
Composer Andrea Clearfield expressed the feelings of many musical colleagues in a Facebook post on Monday: "Like so many of my colleagues who have also been using Finale software for over three decades, my life has been turned upside down," she wrote. "This morning we got the devastating news that Finale software is bidding farewell. Sending solidarity support to my colleagues who are also fretting about, grappling with this unexpected news - with hundreds of scores/thousands of files to now export/convert/re-format/edit/proof, we know what we'll now be doing in our spare time...while also creating our current works and more."
Finale was among the first music notation software programs ever created, making its debut in the late 1980s for Apple Macintosh and then Windows. Early customers bought Finale in a box, uploading it via floppy discs and learning to use it with the help of a huge printed manual.
For a time it became the most widely-used proprietary music notation software, then the arrival of Sibelius in the late '90s created a major rivalry. In recent years, complaints grew louder about Finale's lack of reliability and complicated user interface, though the program still had a large contingent of longtime adherents.
As part of Monday's surprise announcement, Finale pointed its users to Dorico, a music notation program that was was introduced in 2016 by Steinberg Media Technologies, based in Hamburg, Germany. Finale users can move to Dorico a heavily discounted price of $149.
Dorico welcomed deserted Finale users with this message, also offering this video about switching from Finale to Dorico.
Meanwhile composers and arrangers who used Finale face the gargantuan task of converting and transferring files, adapting to a new software, and keeping current projects going while in a state of transition. Wishing all those who are affected by this discontinuation the smoothest ride possible, and I invite you to share your wisdom and helpful links (or just commiserate) in the comments.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Late Tuesday, Finale made some updates to their announcement on their Facebook page, aiming to address feedback they received; in sum:
- Finale authorization is to remain available indefinitely.
- Finale v27 is to be included with Dorico Pro Crossgrades.
You might also like:
- V.com weekend vote: What (software) do you use for music notation?
- Discussion: Composing Software Comparison, Sibelisu vs. Finale (2006)
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Well..I have pretty simple stuff for the most part; fiddle tunes, etc. but I have almost a thousand meticulously edited files. I have no great qualms about learning new programs but it sure would be nice to have some sort of batch system for exporting/importing files. If we have to export, import, edit and proof each file individually it will be a pain.
You have to wonder how many among those complaining are using pirated versions of the software. In days of old, that was commonplace.
I wrote my PhD dissertation using reference-manager software called Papyrus, and a word processor called WordPerfect 5.1, both running under MS-DOS. The year was 1992. I remember that I was in awe at how well they functioned, and I swore I would never need anything else. I also assumed that I would never need to give a scientific presentation using anything other than overhead transparencies or chalk.
Times change. It's not too surprising that the music-notation software industry is undergoing some winnowing and that companies like MakeMusic are merging with DAW powerhouses like Steinberg.
A lot of people paid a hefty price though, Paul, and many are left with a great deal of their work - for some people, a whole career’s worth - to transfer, reformat, etc.
I'm not a Finale user, but YouTube videos on how to convert Finale to MusicXML in large batches have been released in the past 24 hours, such as this one.
I'm content to be stuck with my current version of Printmusic. We can't expect software companies to guarantee technical development and support in perpetuity.
There's always MuseScore, which is free. It's improved since I first encountered over a decade ago. And it handles MusicXML and several other formats.
As a music notation geek that doesn’t even use Finale, this is sad to hear… The out-of-the-blue notification and press release, as well as the arrangement with Dorico are devastating to many, some that have invested thousands of hours over decades of work on files that are, depending on complexity, not that accurately convertible to Dorico, despite MusicXML. Then there’s the learning curve with Dorico, which is rather steep.
If professional results ARE required, Sibelius is considerably more intuitive, and a great alternative to both Finale and Dorico. Sibelius has a free tier, or, for added functionality, a subscription model or perpetuity license to suit your needs. Also regular updates/upgrades, mobile versions for iOS/Android, and decent customer support (a rarity these days, in this space). Sibelius’ large user base includes many reputable, highest-tier publishers and professional music engravers.
If professional results are NOT required, MuseScore (FREE!) has perhaps 80-90% of Sibelius Ultimate’s functionality, and is equally intuitive, as it tries quite successfully to mimic Sibelius in terms of UX and graphics, with some remaining differences. MuseScore is free, open source, quite regular updates/upgrades, good community support from large user base, but no mobile versions.
Personally, I’ve used Sibelius Pro/Ultimate very happily for close to 20 years, and have tried, for kicks and giggles, the likes of Finale, Dorico, and a few others (Encore, Noteflight, Lilypond, etc.). I’ve always come back smiling to Sibelius, which I’ve been using for music for strings (hundreds of titles, from technique and études to sonatas and concertos). There’s nothing that Sibelius cannot do, including rather crazy contemporary notation.
Regardless, this development is a reminder that one needs to future-proof one’s time/money investment, with recent and redundant hardware, storage/transferability of files in addition to hard copies (good ol’ paper!), as software solutions may sunset or disappear with little time to prepare. Such is life…
I'm not a code-writer but it seems Dorico engineers ought to be writing an app where you drag your Finale files into it as a giant folder and it creates copies converted into Dorico. Even better, a 3rd party app that could also convert them from any notation software into any other.
I'm baffled. Can't we all carry on doing what we were doing before with no loss of function? I can see no possible reason to convert my Finale scores to any other format apart from PDF.
I am immune to the problem. I use paper and pencil and a photo-copier, sometimes an old-school italic nib fountain pen.
jq- hopeless technophobe dinosaur.
@Laurie I realize it's a huge problem for folks who have invested a great deal of their careers using Finale. It's a little bit like what happened with Pantone colors.
@Will, the problem is that the native data formats are proprietary. Dorico is recommending export to XML and then importing. As Ella indicates, the user community will probably develop and share its own tools to supplement what is being provided by MakeMusic and Steinberg. Dorico has admitted that their MusicXML technology is less "mature" than Finale's, so they probably will use this debacle as an opportunity to improve it, possibly with Finale's help on the technical side.
When scientific instrumentation started to be interfaced to computers (instead of strip-chart recorders or analog integrators), manufacturers relied on proprietary compressed data formats because memory was expensive. But then if your infrared spectrometer died, and you bought a new one from a different vendor, then you couldn't read any of your old data on the new instrument. The scientific community attempted to develop a readable plain-text standard (which evolved into JCAMP-DX), and it sounds like the music-notation industry did the same, perhaps more successfully, with MusicXML. But there will always be limitations because each software vendor will still have its own proprietary means of importing and exporting the "universal" format. So, a file containing data in the "universal" format will always look just a little different from one software package to another.
For my very limited scoring needs, I use MuseScore. Something I decided long ago is that I'm mainly interested in the accuracy of the notes and other markings but I'm NOT spending time on gratuitous cosmetics because I just didn't want to face the learning curve for that.
so everybody resisted the obvious pun "the finale of Finale"? :-)
Following numerous complaints regarding the discontinuation of Finale support, MakeMusic has released revised objectives for the foreseeable future. It seems that Finale authorization will be available indefinitely (rather than ending in August 2025) and that Finale will be made available to Dorico crossgrade users.
Jean, I thought about it....it was just too good!
Almost everyone I know who uses Finale complains about it. I only know one person who is a strong advocate. I personally use MuseScore. Just to let people know, MuseScore has two versions right now. MS3 is quite stable and usable, and I use it for most of my work. MS4, which is newer, has a much better implementation of midi output, and, potentially, an improved user interface. However it occasionally crashes and hangs. It's pretty good at recovering after a crash with only a few keystrokes lost.
I've just taken my first look at Denemo (or GNU Denemo, to satisfy the pedants) which I've got on my computer but haven't looked at previously. To quote: "You can type music in using the keyboard or play it in using a MIDI contoller or the microphone input."
Which might be useful if I get a sudden musical idea and can play it through the violin but lose track while trying to write it down. I've got some hummable tunes for poems I love - W B Yeats and Gerard Manley Hopkins mostly, though A D Hope does appear every now and then ...
I believe you can enter notes into Musescore using a MIDI controller also. One of these days I might try that, but the only MIDI controller I have is my Nord Stage Piano and it's a little bulky. I need one of those tiny things that only does MIDI such as those made by Arturia or Akai.
I actually bought an early version of Finale, and I hated it. Even though it was WYSIWYG (supposedly), there were always some things that I could not get right, usually things like triplets (or more complex groupings). I tried the trial versions of several other music typesetting programs, none of which I much cared for until I stumbled across LilyPond/Frescobaldi.
What was interesting was that the musicians I knew who used Finale, including the musical director of the community orchestra I was in, hated LilyPond/Frescobaldi. I loved it.
Why the difference? LilyPond is a PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE. In my day job, I write software for a living (and have for nearly 50 years in dozens of different programming languages). The musicians who hated it were not programmers.
LilyPond is actively-developed Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), as is Frescobaldi. Frescobaldi is sort-of like an IDE for writing LilyPond. Both completely free, even for commercial use. If you are willing to learn a new programming language, which admittedly differs from other notation approaches, the result is a reliable and easy-to-use system for music typesetting.
It does have some downsides in terms of importing files in proprietary formats, but I think those obstacles will eventually go away. I am seriously considering working on some utilities for that, since I'm a programmer, and I'd like to contribute to that community.
BTW, I have found a similar divide in CAD software for 3D printers, with many of my non-programming colleagues hating my choice of OpenSCAD (which, like LilyPond, is a programming language), but that's a story for a different time/forum.
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August 27, 2024 at 10:17 PM · Was this a sudden decision? If so that's really crappy