Freezing when opening older version .mus files, and major playback issues.

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Michael White Edited February 10, 2022 05:33

Hello, community! :D

I'm doing my best to shake off the sour taste in my mouth after having recently upgraded from Songwriter 2010 to Finale 27.

Songwriter 2010 was starting to have issues with not scrolling during playback, which was randomly resolved with a reboot, and that was the only issue I was having. Regardless, I wanted to upgrade for the more plentiful staves and other features offered by Finale 27, so I took advantage of a recent sale to do just that.

Sadly, I've had nothing but problems with playback randomly not scrolling just the same as with Songwriter 2010, but also the playback is absurdly lower volume. I've been unable to find a resolution from MakeMusic, but only found several articles saying the issue is affecting many users and has no permanent solution.

I'm now also unable to successfully open a great deal (about 20 of 50) of my .mus files which were working just fine late last year in Songwriter. When attempting to open them, I get a prompt asking if I'd like to use Postscript Settings or Screen settings for converting ties, which is overlapping a second prompt explaining that the file in question was created with an older version of finale, and that it would be converted to the new Finale format. I'm unable to reach this second prompt regardless of which option I select for the first prompt. Neither results in anything other than Finale freezing/not responding to any clicks.

I'd be glad to offer screenshots of this behavior, but I'm curious if I have failed to realize or be informed of a patch to address these many issues?

Many thanks for anybody's time or assistance, as I truly feel I have been swindled, and would be better off installing my old Songwriter software, converting all my .mus files from .xml and going with another software as to not lose all my decades of hard work :'(

I am using Windows 10 on a Desktop PC w/ an Intel i5-10th generation CPU, 16GB RAM, and Realtek® ALC897 Codec on-board audio card.

P.S. I have noticed the main issue with opening files is regarding those .mus projects from 2008 and prior. All .mus files 2009 and forward appear to be opening successfully.

7 comments

Date Votes

Michael M Posted February 10, 2022 07:24

When you have opened a file that you could open and Finale is running, go to Edit Preferences and check/adjust your settings. Try the following (just a guess), which should avoid any of these opening screens. OK the settings, exit and restart Finale and see what happens when opening one of your older files.

Michael M Edited February 10, 2022 07:45

overlooked one thing - you should probably also un-check Tie Conversion "Ask when converting"

As for your playback sound problems - other than having set the appropriate levels in the score manager or Mixer, have you also checked your levels at MIDI/Audio > VST Banks & Effects (Banks Volumes and Master Volume)?

Michael White Edited February 10, 2022 08:32

Ahhhhh. Michael M Thank you so much! You've fixed the issue of freezing when importing.
By unchecking "ask when converting" for both Tie Conversion & Articulation Conversion, I'm no longer getting the glitched/overlapping prompts, and Finale is no longer freezing. My older .mus files are all importing 100% :D

The volume of Finale Playback is still much lower compared to Spotify and other programs, despite Finale's VST Banks & Effects Master Volume being 100% across the board, but it's at least functional. :)

The last elements of odd behavior at this point are:

1. The playback speed is rather inconsistent. It's slowing down often, akin to the old days when processor speed or resources was lacking, but I'm running more than sufficient hardware to handle midi playback.

2. The scrolling playback bar is also quite ahead of playback in some files, and I can't figure out why. It's consistent for the files that it affects, and in those files, there seems to be a one-to-two second delay after starting playback (whether space+click method or clicking play on the toolbar).

Playback of those select files is so bad that in order to hear a file played back, I'm forced to export to Audio then have a listen in a third party player... but one speed bump at a time, I suppose. Thanks to your tips, I'm at least functional, and for that I'm excited again 🥳!

Michael M Posted February 10, 2022 08:39

Try and select all > right-click > clear selected items > None > MIDI Data.>OK and see if that helps. If you are running Human Playback, check playing back with it turned off.

MIKE HALLORAN Posted February 10, 2022 09:47

The volume of Finale Playback is still much lower compared to Spotify and other programs, despite Finale's VST Banks & Effects Master Volume being 100% across the board, but it's at least functional. :)

There's a lot to learn—but you will and then this will no longer be issues. The good news is that there's a lot of functionality. The bad news is that you can't just hit a button or two and have everything be instantly loud. I'm guessing that you're on Windows — system audio is different from a Mac.

Michael White Posted February 10, 2022 18:15

MIKE HALLORAN I see the system requirements for Finale 27 are a bit vague, as sound card requirements are "ASIO, DirectSound, or WASAPI audio support" for Windows. Sadly that's not like back in the day when developers would recommend exact makes/models of sound cards.

I'm using just the onboard Realtek Audio which I don't love, so I may just upgrade to a Creative Labs Sound Card to see if that improves playback. 💲🔉

MIKE HALLORAN Posted February 11, 2022 01:05

There are many forums and user groups that claim Windows audio works fine for all other applications — except for the one that's being discussed, of course.

I'm not going to debate Mac v. Windows other than to say I like Apple Core Audio — but I wish that Apple let it do everything so that I wouldn't have to deal with the Zoom audio driver etc. With Win it's more difficult especially as gaming and audio interfaces require proprietary drivers and ASIO4All … isn't. Haven't seen the system where this can't be worked out.

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