Hi all,
When is the deadline to crossgrade to Dorico Pro at the special discount price?
I was under the impression it might be a year, but someone told me that the deadline is today, September 24, 2024.
Thank you all--my Finale friends,
:-)
Vanessa
The crossgrade is purchased from the MakeMusic score and they have promised one year authentication - but there is no deadline published. The best I see officially is:
<quote>
MakeMusic will continue providing technical support for Finale v27.4.1 on supported operating systems through August 25th, 2025. This technical support will not extend to Sequoia.
For the best results, we recommend crossgrading to Dorico Pro. With Dorico, you will receive ongoing development, product updates, and long-term support. Finale users making the switch can purchase Dorico Pro for just $149:
Vanessa, the general consensus had seemed to be that the crossgrade offer would be at least 60 days from its original announcement, since the Dorico trial is 60 days from download and first use. I suspect it will be even a bit longer than that, but certainly at least 60 days from when Finale announced.
“When does the "limited time offer" end? What is the deadline date to cross over to Dorico? Why is this date not more clearly given?? ”
Why should it be? Better from a business perspective to keep it open. The amount of kvetching by us former Finale users is getting old. No one owes us anything (other than MM, who messed up for years by abandoning their once star product). Read my response above. That’s all I could say about it.
My suggestion: get it sooner rather than later and start using it. Learning it by working with it on an actual score has been helpful and I find I do not miss Finale at all. Some things are much better, some things are about the same, a few things are challenging but once learned, are not problematic. Honestly, all the times I was pushing back on Dorico users who were telling me to make a switch, I was engaging in magical thinking by assuming Finale would at least continue to have occasional bug fixes and minor additions. Had I switched, I would not have had anywhere near the level of annoyances I’ve had with Finale over the past 2-3 years. And it would have saved me some significant $ purchases of some plugins that, in a few cases, were not really that helpful in the end.
For what it's worth, I never comment in these community sections, but I wanted to say, Dorico is incredible. It's everything I've wanted to come easily from Finale, but didn't. For anyone on the fence, I highly encourage switching over as the cross grade discount for the Pro version is quite affordable and gets you a lot for your money. I couldn't be happier with it myself.
Nessa,
I have completed my little basic trial of the top notation software programs. I did the cross-platform upgrade for Dorico and Sibelius. Of course, the free MuseScore has been on my computer for a very long time now.
Capella and Lily Pond, ah, no, not even in the same zip code as the above. Plus there are several others that are basically a joke.
First after my consideration I have concluded Finale with Perfect Layout is still the best notation product on the planet. Make Music has done a huge disservice to the music community, IMHO, by discontinuing it. Sell it if nothing else and let someone take it over. Besides what harm would it do to keep it active on the MM website as long until no one ever bought it?
Anyway, my takeaway is Sibelius is the winner and clear choice to move from Finale. It is the most Finale like. However, it also suffers from the final score ready for print out even though it claims” Magnetic Layout”. Perhaps Jan Angermüller can do his magic for Sibelius as he did for Finale.
MuseScore isn’t ready yet, but they claim a lot of Finale like features in MuseScore 5. MuseScore 4 has the best sound by far. We’ll see what’s in 5.
Now Dorico and boy was I disappointed. It is the most convoluted mess I have ever seen or worked with, and I am an advanced Photoshop user. There is nothing logical in it. It makes the simplest of tasks difficult hidden deep in menus or impossible. I spent two of the most frustrating weeks constantly back and forth with Dorico support (they are wonderful) and the web site trying to get a hold of this software. Yeah, I got a score done except for the drum set, OK, but what a mess. I read a review by a publisher, he summed it up saying there are a 100 things that Finale does that Dorico doesn't. One is no full page graphic. Large time sigs is a mess too. Not possible unless it is a group. I still urge you to take advantage of the cross platform upgrade because who knows how this thing turns out
One tutorial and the Quick Reference sheet and I was up and running in Sibelius in about an hour. It has some very nice features that I wish Finale had but alas never will now. Sibelius also has the cross platform offer and I urge you to take advantage of it too.
My plan is still to keep Finale as long as possible and at my age that’s not going to be a huge problem. Sibelius is my choice, but it is owned by a company that isn’t any better or have any better fiduciary responsibility, or integrity, than Make Music has. Plus, a lot of legacy code just like Finale. So here we are, long live Finale without MM.
Dorico no full page graphic. And Dorico support says no plans for adding feature any time soon.
It's hard to see the actual page edge but in Dorico you can't have different margins on different
pages. You can set up what Dorico calls a "flow" but it is more like an additional movement or act in
a play than a score thing.
Lare time sigs are a mess too, if that's important to you.
You see the drum Drum set isn't complete. Dorico is doing a second hour+ long live video to try and explain how to do it. Another thing that was overly difficult. They admit it was basically designed for you to use a midi controller but that you can use a computer keyboard just not as easily or quickly.
All these and most anything else is far easier in Sibelius than Dorico and that is truly odd since the originator of Dorico was one of the fired programmers from Sibelius, Daniel Spreadbury.
You're speaking about a very specific use case you have that allegedly Dorico can't handle. I can't speak to graphics since in all my 30+ years of using Finale, I've never had to do that. But I'm sure if you go onto the Dorico forum, someone may be able to provide you with a workaround.
I'm currently working on my first composition in Dorico and honestly, it's going very well. Some things have been soooo much faster and easier than with the late lamented Finale. I never have to input rests. Hitting R to repeat selected notes is a godsend.
And I use large time signatures routinely (indeed, the biggest issue I have with importing from Finale via MXML is the fact that large time signatures don't apply to every staff so it causes a minor issue when imported. Whereas in Finale I had to mess around with changing numbers and guesstimating how that would affect the location of each number, it's much more straightforward in Dorico. This was easy to do:
But hey, if Sibelius works better for you, then use Sibelius. I could sit around and kvetch about what thing I could do in Finale and can't do as easily in Dorico, but as I've gotten more facile with Dorico, I'm finding there is much more I can do with Dorico than I could have done with Finale, and certainly more simply. All the time wasted with futzing with various plugins, various palettes and subpalettes in Finale is time I can now use to actually compose. Yes there remain some challenges, but every challenge I've had so far was easily dealt with either by reading the manual, watching a video or very importantly, getting a quick response from someone in their community forum. Unlike this forum where few people really post and even fewer provide helpful responses, the Dorico forum is highly trafficked. And highly useful.
Good luck. Stay positive.
Going pretty well here, too. I have my seven biggest pieces moved over, and am working on a suite of brass and organ arrangements. Only minor tweaks to the score required, and the parts, omg the parts, are perfect right out of the box. Last spring I took a course at a nearby college and got a solid introduction to Sibelius there - and Ernest is right, Sibelius feels immediately familiar (including some of Finale's deficiencies); the learning curve was barely uphill. Dorico is another world by comparison but once I got into it, things in Finale that used to eat up the clock are amazingly easy. Dorico 5 is more complex than previous editions because it does things it couldn't before. [edit: For now I will continue to use FInale for compositional sketches, because it is simply easier to write or doodle in. Dorico is much, much better at finishing. I will eventually get to doodling stage there, too, and I might try MuseStudio for that.]
I'm sure, but much of my music also has a lot of complexities, and I'm assuming that since I could do this in Finale, it would be fine in Dorico and likely Sibelius. Just depends on how much effort one wants to make. I like the popovers in Dorico to change time signatures, etc. Much quicker than Finale, TBH.
I am going to repeat my advice to Vanessa, ...
I still urge you to take advantage of the cross platform upgrade because who knows how this thing turns out
Can you make score out of any and all of these, yes, you can. I have done it. Should you take advise from an oblivious Dorico fanboy? I don't know but I will not be choosing Dorico as my primary notation software if Finale goes belly up totally. At this point it will be Sibelius but you won't know if you don't try them all. Perhaps Dorico will work for you, it doesn't for me. The great advancements are probably going to come from MuseScore 5.
The way Dorico is structured it is pretty much backing itself in a corner. It makes things like a full page graphic difficult, impossible. It also makes things like a simple delete key difficult. It makes any editing that is contrary to what Dorico wants to do extremely frustrating. Now don't take my word for it and certainly don't take a Dorico fanboy's word for it buy the cross platform offer and see for yourself. Get all three, I did. BTW, both have free demo versions if you don't want to spend the money but $298 for over a thousand dollars worth of software is a real deal. And of course MuseScore is free all the time.
Not sure to whom you're referring in terms of being a "fanboy," ...
Well a fanboy swallows the hype and spews it without knowing all the facts.Does that fit? For instance I have Dorico and Sibelius and Musescore and Capella and Lilly Pond and Noteworthy and web based notation softwares. I have completed at least one score in the first three each more in Sibelius and MuseScore. My conclusion is, Sibelius is the most logical choice for a Finale user to move toi. It is the most Finale like and has the most features and ability to do what composers do. You will be up and running much quicker in Sibelius vs Dorico.
Can you create a score in each of these, of course you can. Lilly Pond is a joke. Noteworthy and Capella are not serious and no serious composer is going to consider them. They both work with simple stuff. I suspect Sibelius will become the full on industry standard replacing Finale.
MuseScore 5 may surprise everyone if they come through with all they claim they are going to do. However its not ready yet so that leaves Dorico and Sibelius. It took me almost two weeks with constant back and forth with Dorico support to get to where I could do an average jazz big band score. Yes it looks nice and yes the parts are great as they come. But it is the biggest convoluted mess I have ever tried to use.
Now in about one hour I was up and running with Sibelius. I got a score done quite easily with controls that are not too unfamiliar to Finale. The big elephant in the room, not entry. Sibelius is more like Speedy Entry. Dorico by their own admission was basically designed for midi keyboard input for one example. Computer keyboard not so much. It makes Finales' Simple Entry look "speedy".
Simple scores can be done in any of these however. But nobody wants the software to be in the way because something is hidden down in some menu somewhere. Dorico has menus on the top on the bottom on the left and on the right. And if you don't have the Dorico Quick Reference sheet you must memorize dozens of key commands. That is precisely why they added the pop overs. Folks complained about it.
That's the difference between you and me. I tried them all. DId you?
I purchased Perfect Layout (first the Silver version and then Gold to try to have a bit more control) largely on your "fanboy" recommendations, EB ;
The difference here since you are unable to distinguish it, there was/is no other choice to Perfect Layout. There is in notation software.
Well a fanboy swallows the hype and spews it without knowing all the facts.Does that fit?
Not at all. I'm pretty objective in my assessments of both Dorico and Finale. I used Finale for many decades but was never blind to its many shortcomings. And for me, Perfect Layout was not necessary, but did help for a few old scores of mine. My error in not doing more due diligence. But that's water under the bridge; I have no need for that in something like Dorico.
Dorico by their own admission was basically designed for midi keyboard input for one example. Computer keyboard not so much. It makes Finales' Simple Entry look "speedy".
Actually I've found it's more computer keyboard-centric, but works perfectly fine with my old Ensoniq KS-32 synth from around the time I started using Finale (1990 or thereabouts). And they have the same things Speedy Entry has in Finale. Instead of caps locking a duration, Dorico's duration before pitch is the same thing. And you can easily change to pitch before duration. I also mapped the same duration key commands from Finale to Dorico. Not critical, but one less keystroke I need to change on my muscle memory (I keep hitting = for ties, which is like hitting + in Finale for increasing the pitch a half-step; in Dorico, it's T for ties).
And if you don't have the Dorico Quick Reference sheet you must memorize dozens of key commands. That is precisely why they added the pop overs. Folks complained about it.
I have the reference sheet (Finale had one too-I still have it from Finale 3.2) and don't use it. I've figured out the main keyboard shortcuts I need to use the same way I figured it out for Finale. And in Finale, for those keystrokes I didn't use all the time, I still had to look them up in the online manual. It's all the same.
Popovers are really helpful and pretty intuitive. Rather than opening up a dialogue window in finale to let it know I want 5 16ths in the space of 4 16ths, I can hit ; type 5:4w or 5:4-3 (again, I've mapped 3 to 16th notes just like Finale) and have the tuplet I want.
Even better, I can select multiple staves, enter notes in both hands on my synthesizer, and they're entered in the staves I selected. No need to set a split point or use the note mover after entry in one staff, or use TGTools' smart split point. TGT appears to be abandonware, BTW, as is every JW plugin that was not incorporated into Finale 27.
There are no Dorico fanboys in this thread. We are all devotées of Finale who have been left with a dog's breakfast of options, each one looking at the best way forward that meets our objectives. Since we all have different objectives we will come to different conclusions, including hybrid. But we are to a man or woman *Finale* fanboys.
Brief update - Dorico has conceded the superiority of Finale (kidding, but they have acknowledged the importance of its new crossgrade users) by making it possible to input notes in a native Finale fashion in the Dorico 5.1.6 update. If you're evaluating or trialing Dorico, or like me you rolled the dice on Dorico yet found the lack of this capability a glaring shortcoming, make sure you watch the release video to see how to configure this. To all the Finale devotées in this thread, find the direction forward that maximizes your creativity and output, which might be Sibelius - who has their own attractive crossgrade price - or Muse, which has no price at all but is still only playing AA ball. These developers are competing to attract us.
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