On 7/20/2012 3:07 PM, David H. Bailey wrote: > > I know that when I taught a music theory class at a middle school a few > years ago I had the students download and use MuseScore. That was 10 > sales Finale didn't get. > > But because of the ease of use right out of the box, actually, many such > musicians (students and church musicians) are using the inexpensive > product from Sibelius. That's something that Finale still hasn't > conquered -- how to present first-time novice notation-software users > with a totally friendly elegant (to them) looking result with a minimum > of fuss. > > ... > But Finale is still going strong, relatively speaking, and I am hopeful > that the proposed injection of a large amount of money to modernize the > base code of Finale will also bring some user interface changes and note > entry changes that will make it every bit as appealing to new purchasers > as Sibelius is these days. > Thank you for those comments. I'm not sure that MakeMusic and their investors are at a point that they would seek input from the user community, as they have weighty issues on their plate, but I wonder if there are some high-impact items that would change their fortunes. You mentioned the ease of start-up / learning curve for a new user. I definitely agree with that.
I have always found the note entry process to be awkward -- even after 12 years of doing it. I'm not sure I can say a better way to do it, but there must be a better way. I am able to afford an annual upgrade, and am willing to do so. But I have skipped some of them because of the release-to-release incompatibility. MusicXML is not a solution. You lose way too much of the content that way. If three are many others like me who avoid buying each upgrade because of the compatibility hassles, that could add up to some real money they are losing. I like the concept of the VSTs, Garritan, HP and all, but the reality is far from the marketing. I just can't take the time to make my playbacks realistic. It seems like they only really got halfway with that. What they have done has mostly complicated the process without really providing a truly useful result. I'd rather see them get all in or get out with regard to realistic playback. I guess what I'm getting at is if I were a venture capital investor (speaking hypothetically) prepared to spend $10M to move the company forward, what are the features that would make the most difference? _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
