There are professional engraving projects being done with Dorico. If you want to see what it is capable of there are many youtube videos addressing various aspects of Dorico, and I would say that it is indeed capable of very elegant professional, publishable output.
Yes, you read that one of the Dorico users exports to Finale for the finished product -- I haven't read on the Dorico forum that there are others who do that. I do know there are lots like me who are continuing to work in our notation software of choice while learning the intricacies of Dorico. I wonder if exporting to Finale simply makes things easier for that person because of a workflow developed over many years of using Finale, while he is learning the more intricate details of the workflow in Dorico to get the same output. I would say that Dorico is as much a truly professional music engraving tool as Sibelius was when it entered the Windows/Mac marketplace. Several publishers, if I remember correctly, began using it at that time instead of Finale, while some other publishers added Sibelius to their toolbox and used both. A lot depends on how one defines "truly professional" -- it's certainly much more professional than either Notion or Forte, two other recent entries into the notation software marketplace, and despite major advances with MuseScore, Dorico is capable of producing much more elegant printed output. And it's capable of producing output as elegant as Finale's output. I don't work in avant-garde notation so I can't speak to either Dorico or Sibelius or Finale regarding the ability to accomplish such projects. I hope I'm wrong about Finale and that your thoughts are more accurate, but to be honest I don't see much advancement in Finale from Finale2014.5 to Finale25. Linked score/parts didn't suddenly become superb and very efficient. I still find Sibelius's linked score/parts to be much more efficient and easier to use. But I know that you and Chuck Israel and many others are producing great output with Finale, and I hope development continues, with some major improvements coming soon. Not only do Finale users need and deserve this sort of thing, but the marketplace does also. Finale used to lead, then Sibelius hit the marketplace and suddenly Finale was playing catch-up with Sibelius. Will it need to play catch-up with Dorico as well as Sibelius now? Or will Finale leap ahead with the next version and force Sibelius and Dorico to catch up to it? Of course what I'm saying about Finale is also true about Sibelius -- I have heard nothing about Sibelius 8 or 8.5 to make me want to upgrade from 7.1.3, and ever since the takeover by Avid I have been worried about future development of Sibelius. And ultimately it all boils down to each of us finding and using the tools which allow us to get the desired result with the minimum of effort for us so that most of our effort can be put into the creative side of things. On 4/21/2018 8:33 AM, Robert Patterson wrote: > > And with the entry of Dorico at the truly professional music > engraving level > > Wait. Is Dorico at the truly professional level? All I've heard is that > it has the potential to be but isn't there yet. I mean, one of the > Dorico users in this thread even said they export to Finale for the > finished product. (Which surprised me.) > > Everything I've heard about the most recent owners of Finale is that > they are quite interested in it. But I haven't heard much about it in > recent months. I hope Michael Johnson's departure was for personal > reasons rather than due to a direction the owners are taking. Meanwhile > the rest of the team (as far as I can tell) seems really engaged and > forward looking. > > > > > On Sat, Apr 21, 2018 at 4:12 AM, David H. Bailey <dhbaile...@comcast.net > <mailto:dhbaile...@comcast.net>> wrote: > > On 4/20/2018 7:13 PM, Craig Parmerlee wrote: > > I take your point that they "could" do some of the abstraction > that is > inherent in the newer programs. I am not seeing anything that > suggests > to me they are at all interested in matching up to Dorico. > Indeed, the > only recent statements I could find were very much oriented to > SmartMusic and not Finale. If they actually are making a > significant > investment in the program (which I question), I suggest it would > be wise > for them to take note of the major advances in the past 2 years > in both > Dorico and Sibelius, and communicate much more openly with the > Finale > user base. > > [snip] > > Back when Coda was the owner and Finale was the major product, they > knew they had to keep communicating with users and work hard to keep > the program growing in order to satisfy their user base and attract > new users. But with virtually no competition in the Windows area at > that time they were the program that any newcomer had to beat. > > With the various owners the product has had along the way, coupled > with the development of a new cash-cow (smartmusic) Finale has been > pushed aside somewhat, seemingly more with each new owner, and > improved mainly so that it could create more and better smartmusic > accompaniments in addition to producing publication-ready engraved > music. To that end, whoever owned the program worked to improve the > program in obvious ways again to keep the user base somewhat > satisfied and also in an attempt to attract new users but mainly to > benefit the SmartMusic marketplace. > > But the current owners are not musicians, they were not involved in > the music field at all before the acquisition of Finale and > SmartMusic. Their athletic-training background sees a good fit for > SmartMusic since it's a training software, just for musicians > instead of athletes. And so Finale tags along because without it > there can't be any new SmartMusic accompaniments created. But > Finale upgrades generate an unpredictable amount of income and then > only when the new version comes out -- once it's out and those who > will upgrade have done so, there's very little cash-flow in the > product. Especially with the less-expensive (free) but very capable > MuseScore attracting ever larger numbers of people who formerly > would have had to purchase either Finale or Sibelius (i.e. music > students and recent graduates of music schools/colleges), Finale's > market share among notation software users is constantly shrinking. > And with the entry of Dorico at the truly professional music > engraving level the potential user base is diluted even further and > the recent entry of Forte and Notion is attracting those potential > users who don't want to spend a lot of money and who formerly would > have purchased the cheaper versions of Finale. > > But SmartMusic remains the only product of its kind and it has major > educational market music publishers sewn up. With the annual > subscription the only business model and schools willing to budget > for it so that teachers have clearly objective ways of measuring > student ability (there's no disputing when SmartMusic records a > student's performance and gives a concrete number of mistakes), it > is a golden cash-cow. > > We have to remember that in the early days of Finale when Coda was > run by musicians who cared about making a product that could serve > them as well as the user base the thrust of the company was to make > a product that filled a need. > > These days when the company is no longer run by musicians but > instead by accountants and entrepreneurs for whom the bottom line is > the most important attribute of a product, the product isn't being > made to fulfill their dream of usefulness, only to fulfill their > dream of larger profits. So as long as SmartMusic remains > profitable and as long as Finale is the only way to create > SmartMusic accompaniments, Finale will remain viable to the company > but not a great income generator in and of itself. If it were a > larger income generator it wouldn't be getting sold every few years. > > > -- > ***** > > David H. Bailey > dhbaile...@comcast.net <mailto:dhbaile...@comcast.net> > http://www.davidbaileymusicstudio.com > <http://www.davidbaileymusicstudio.com> > > -- David H. Bailey dhbai...@davidbaileymusicstudio.com http://www.davidbaileymusicstudio.com _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu https://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale To unsubscribe from finale send a message to: finale-unsubscr...@shsu.edu
