At the time of writing this, it has been two years since MakeMusic announced they were discontinuing Finale. I plan on doing this for quite a while longer, and I like being current on the latest OS and the new goodies that it brings, so staying with Finale on an old machine or OS is just not going to work. Anyone who has read my writings or heard me talk about programs would know that “the other program” was not going to be my first choice. I have always had some issues with how it looked. That meant looking into Dorico. My team and I jumped in and started to learn it and do some experiments to see how we could work in it.
Unfortunately, the more we did this, the more we realized it was not going to work for us. We have a particular way of doing things that is just not compatible with Dorico. For example, I work in scroll view until the very last part of the process. In Finale, I could control the look and spacing; unfortunately, you have no control in Dorico, and it is not pretty. Also, the way it handles instrument doublings with extra staves for the “player” means you can quickly end up with way more staves than needed, and filtering all the time would not be practical. Dorico splits things up into sections, to match some ideal workflow, but that is not mine. At any stage of the process, I want to be able edit any dynamic or change any note, I don’t want to have to switch back a mode or two to do it, then switch back again. I don’t think it is a bad program; it can look great when done and the team is constantly expanding it. It is just that the process to get to a great look does not easily fit with mine.
That really left only one option. In January, Avid reached out via my friends at JoAnn Kane Music Service, came over for a coffee, and showed me around the other program. I was still not sold on it, but it was a much closer match to my workflow. They also seemed genuinely interested in hearing my thoughts on the program and what could be done to improve it. I pointed out what has bugged me about scores in the past. For example, I have always had a huge issue with ties and how their arc was so big, and there was no default setting to fix it.
In March, my team and I started to look at it seriously. It was great not learning it all on my own. We also had a lot of friends who helped out. I would have three on the go at once so I did not just bombard the same person with heaps of questions. We started by XML’ing a Finale score in and trying to make it look the same. There were some things we had issues with. Firstly, the way it handles default/empty bar rests is different. It is an all-or-nothing approach; there was no way of turning them all off in the score, but then having some show when needed. We found a workaround with a custom line that was really blank with a rest in the middle, but it was not perfect. I mentioned it to Joe and Sam from Avid, and in the next version, there it was—I could turn on/show individual rests!
Once we had our template started, we imported a sketch like we would in Finale, then pasted it around and worked out how to manipulate and add things. We got familiar with the plugins, and then a few of us learned how to program them (not me!). This has been a game changer. There are many amazing ones out there, but sometimes they did not work quite like I wanted, so we got in there and edited them to do what we wanted. We also came up with our own ideas and have many custom plugins that make our lives easier and faster. I have a lot of muscle memory with my Finale Keyboard Maestro setup, so I kept some things the same; others I reorganized and improved the flow. It took some time, as nearly everything I do has some sort of macro involved.
At this stage, I was still working in Finale during the day and learning the other program in the evening, but I also had a little downtime between gigs, so I could really dig in. We had some TV sessions coming up that were small ensembles, so we decided to give it a go, and we really enjoyed it. Then we had some small orchestra sessions for Outer Banks and decided to use it on that. I spent about a month using it exclusively, and when I had to go back to Finale for something, I was lost and realized I was done with it—and that was that. I had made the switch and was not looking back. I tried to make an example in Finale to compare some settings the other day and could not do anything!
So for a couple of months now, everything has been in it. The first real test was a 17-minute suite for Ray Chen and the Boston Pops. We made the parts ourselves, and that was a huge learning curve, but we made it. We had a last-minute part format change requested by the orchestra, and in Finale, we would have been screwed, but here it was just a couple of settings changed and we were good to go. I just did a chart for Cynthia Erivo in it, several for the BBC Proms, and we just recorded the Frozen III teaser trailer.
So far it has been amazing—I am faster than ever, and the program does not crash like Finale did. It took about a month to get to the point where I could use it smoothly. Some things it does the same, but many things I have found are actually better! When we hit a wall, we edited plugins or made our own. I am still learning and improving but I am glad I took my time and found the right path for me and my workflow. And those nasty ties? Stay tuned.
So now, here we are: it is not “the other program” anymore. It is Sibelius, and I am out as a proud user.
