I'd just like to address a few of the general points mentioned. 1. It was suggested that MakeMusic should stop putting time into playback features because their market doesn't need them. I don't have marketing figures to look at, but I'd be extremely surprised if composers and arrangers didn't make up more than half of the market for Finale - more than all of the other markets combined. Good playback was far and away the single most attractive feature to the composers I spoke to and corresponded with.
2. It was mentioned that Finale's playback has now caught up to and in some ways perhaps exceeded that of Sibelius. There's no competition. Finale's playback is far beyond Sibelius', both in terms of automatic playback and in customizability. For what you get included with the program, Sibelius doesn't come close. Sibelius gives you 20 instruments and the ability to load 8 of them. Finale gives you 100 higher quality instruments, and the ability to load 64. Human Playback is far beyond Espressivo, and is optimized to work with GPO. As alluring as linked parts is to the engraving crowd, I guarantee you that the inclusion of Finale GPO will attract more users than anything Sibelius has included in their new version. 3. Sibelius is not focusing on one market. Their three big features are clearly each aimed at a different part of their market. There is the worksheet creator for educators, linked parts for engravers, and video for composers. Both Sibelius and MakeMusic realize that focusing on a single market is not in their best interest. 4. A mixer was a highly requested feature long before Finale included its own sounds, and with good reason. Many people make their files for their own personal use, and the fact that they might play differently on a different person's equipment matters little - they still want to balance them so that they can hear their work. If this wasn't a valued feature, than thousands of people wouldn't have used the MIDI Tool and Expression Tools for this task all these years. And of course, for people that did want to share their recordings, they've always been able to do this via free recording software. Regards, Tyler __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
