|
|
| MakeMusic Forum > Public Forums > Finale - Macintosh - FORUM HAS MOVED! > Finale Vs. Sibelius? | Forum Quick Jump
|
 |
Ebony Ivory
On Ebony And Ivory I'll Tinkle All Day Long
      
Date Joined Dec 2005
Total Posts : 4594
| Posted 10/29/2007 7:45 PM (GMT -6) |   | Tyler said...
The limitations with the Sibelius version of MusicXML are not at all the same as Finale's included version. Most importantly, Sibelius doesn't include MusicXML export at all. If you want to take files to Finale, you have to pay money. Finale's included MusicXML export lets you share files with many other programs. Sibelius can't. Furthermore, I believe Finale's included MusicXML export is more accurate than the MusicXML export capability you can purchase for Sibelius (due to limitations on Sibelius plug-ins).
Have you heard of Tony Blair? He used to have an important political job here the UK, but thankfully has finally evaporated. He was the master of spin, and could (and did) twist anything anyone ever said into "his own" point.
Here was the (non-spun) point I was making ...
1) Finale needs MusicXML - even if it only ships the cut-down version - because it has no way of reading other people's (Sibelius) files, and no way of saving from version 200N to version 200N-X.
2) Sibelius does not need MusicXML - whatever version it ships - because it can read other people's (Finale) files, can can save from version N to version N-X.
Now, my (non-spun) logic suggests that (2) is better than (1). Tony Blair would try to convince us otherwise, and that Finale was the "People's Princess" of file interchange solutions, and the dumbstruck masses would roar in bemused approval.
Give Finale proper file save/load routines that work between versions, and together with other software, and then I'll join those masses. Until them, I'll content myself with mentioning the Emperor's apparent lack of attire ...
Brian
On ebony and ivory I'll tinkle all day long | | Back to Top | |
|
Ebony Ivory
On Ebony And Ivory I'll Tinkle All Day Long
Date Joined Dec 2005
Total Posts : 4594
| Posted 10/29/2007 7:58 PM (GMT -6) | | Tyler said...
Please look at my quote again. Sibelius is owned by Avid, but that doesn't mean the success of the Sibelius notation program is integral to the success of any separate, important product they have. I'm trying to show the distinction there. You could conceivably invest more money in Finale development than Finale itself brings in through Finale sales, because doing so could allow you to more than make up for it through increased SmartMusic revenue.
Hard numbers ar hard to find, but for all this bluster about SmartMusic driving Finale, I can't help noticing that, on this website, Finale topics and messages outnumber those of SmartMusic by a factor of more than 100:1. As of this evening:
Forum Name Topics Posts
---------- ------ -----
Notation - Windows 17456 106027
Notation - Macintosh 6495 36576
SmartMusic 353 1189
Finale Plug-In Development 359 1034
Finalescript Plug-in 182 604
Even Plug-in Development approaches SmartMusic in terms of forum interest, while Mac users's messages (of Finale) swap SM by some 30:1, and Win user's messages smother SM at nearlly 100:1.
Now of course this could simply mean that SM is a trouble-free, well engineered product, and the 100+:1 imbalance of Forum interest is purely down to Finale being increasingly broken and troublesome. Or it could be down to the fact the Finale is the more interesting and important product, warts and all.
Or somewhere in between.
As I said, hard numbers are hard to find. But using Forum traffic as a yardstick suggests to me, one way or the other, that MM should be paying most of its attention to Finale, and not to SmartMusic.
Brian
On ebony and ivory I'll tinkle all day long | | Back to Top | |
|
David Young : chambermusic
Registered Member
Date Joined Sep 2000
Total Posts : 2694
| Posted 10/29/2007 8:31 PM (GMT -6) | |
Obiwan Kénobi said...
Jetcopy said...
Sounds to me like he was describing his colleague as "stubborn" from his perspective. This remember me Asterix le gaulois in his breton village resisting "still and forever" to invaders (Roma). Sure we, Finale Users, do drink the "Magic Potion".  Bruno Paris-France A few of us, like Obelix, fell into the magic potion as a child. ;)
David
Composer of classical-romantic style chamber and orchestral music.
Finale 2.4 through 2008
Laptop PC, windows XP home, 2.4 ghz, 516 Megs RAM
Desktop PC, windows XP home, Gigastudio 3.03, 2 Gigs RAM, 3 hard drives
Also... GPO, Gigastudio 3.0, Kontakt 2.2, KH solo strings, VSL horizon solo strings, JABB, PMI pianos, Sampletekk renaissance flutes, Marimba, percussion, Giovani, complete Kirk Hunter orchestral library, Kirk Hunter Diamond Library with very limited knowledge of how to use them.
arranging and orchestration! | | Back to Top | |
|
Tyler
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2001
Total Posts : 3586
| Posted 10/29/2007 10:01 PM (GMT -6) | | Ebony Ivory said...
Have you heard of Tony Blair? He used to have an important political job here the UK, but thankfully has finally evaporated. He was the master of spin, and could (and did) twist anything anyone ever said into "his own" point.
Here was the (non-spun) point I was making ...
1) Finale needs MusicXML - even if it only ships the cut-down version - because it has no way of reading other people's (Sibelius) files, and no way of saving from version 200N to version 200N-X.
2) Sibelius does not need MusicXML - whatever version it ships - because it can read other people's (Finale) files, can can save from version N to version N-X.
Now, my (non-spun) logic suggests that (2) is better than (1). Tony Blair would try to convince us otherwise, and that Finale was the "People's Princess" of file interchange solutions, and the dumbstruck masses would roar in bemused approval.
Give Finale proper file save/load routines that work between versions, and together with other software, and then I'll join those masses. Until them, I'll content myself with mentioning the Emperor's apparent lack of attire ...
Brian, I'm sorry if I misunderstood you. I certainly wasn't trying to twist your words or debate something you didn't intend to say. I think part of the problem is that we're starting from 2 different places of understanding the value of MusicXML, and in particular the use for it that was being discussed in this thread. As far as I understood it, we were talking about MusicXML as a means of transferring files between two different programs (as in Sibelius to Finale), and not as a means of transferring files back to earlier versions of the same program. Finale allows import and export, and Sibelius only allows export. You will find Sibelius users who feel MusicXML export is just as important a feature as backwards compatibility.
If backwards compatibility was the only purpose for MusicXML, then I agree, Sibelius wouldn't need it. But I think in reality, the most common reason people use MusicXML is to go between programs from different makers. | | Back to Top | |
|
Tyler
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2001
Total Posts : 3586
| Posted 10/29/2007 11:00 PM (GMT -6) | | Ebony Ivory said...Tyler said...
Please look at my quote again. Sibelius is owned by Avid, but that doesn't mean the success of the Sibelius notation program is integral to the success of any separate, important product they have. I'm trying to show the distinction there. You could conceivably invest more money in Finale development than Finale itself brings in through Finale sales, because doing so could allow you to more than make up for it through increased SmartMusic revenue. Hard numbers ar hard to find, but for all this bluster about SmartMusic driving Finale, I can't help noticing that, on this website, Finale topics and messages outnumber those of SmartMusic by a factor of more than 100:1. As of this evening: Forum Name Topics Posts
---------- ------ -----
Notation - Windows 17456 106027
Notation - Macintosh 6495 36576
SmartMusic 353 1189
Finale Plug-In Development 359 1034
Finalescript Plug-in 182 604
Even Plug-in Development approaches SmartMusic in terms of forum interest, while Mac users's messages (of Finale) swap SM by some 30:1, and Win user's messages smother SM at nearlly 100:1. Now of course this could simply mean that SM is a trouble-free, well engineered product, and the 100+:1 imbalance of Forum interest is purely down to Finale being increasingly broken and troublesome. Or it could be down to the fact the Finale is the more interesting and important product, warts and all. Or somewhere in between. As I said, hard numbers are hard to find. But using Forum traffic as a yardstick suggests to me, one way or the other, that MM should be paying most of its attention to Finale, and not to SmartMusic. Brian
You can get better numbers by looking through press releases. But first, let me ask you this: how many middle school band teachers (many of whom are Finale users) do you know of who frequent this Finale board? And how many middle school students are regulars here on the notation forums? Now and then I see a person from either of these two groups post a question about how to use Finale, but I'm not aware of any regular posters from those groups, despite the fact that teachers make up a fair percentage of the userbase. Now with SmartMusic, those people ARE the userbase - probably over 90% of it. And I do see more of those people on the SmartMusic forum than I do here on the Finale forum.
There are many good guesses we can come up with as to why we don't see more activity there. Here are a few of mine:
1. The nature of the program isn't like Finale. You don't spend time learning how to use SmartMusic (it's obvious), and you aren't learning different ways of doing things.
2. Band teachers have their own "forums" where they meet and discuss things like SmartMusic with each other. Frequently these discussions aren't on the internet.
3. Most SmartMusic users don't know this forum exists. Those who do find it come through a "support" link. The same is true of Finale, but you're more likely to be looking for support with Finale than you are with SmartMusic.
I can think of a couple of ways MakeMusic could increase SmartMusic forum activity if they wanted to. First, they could sponsor some contests and get teachers to notify their students about them. Second, they could change the place people are directed to this forum from, and they could change the reason for coming here. Instead of just making it a place you go to for technical support, they could suggest it as a place to go to learn how other teachers are making use of SmartMusic in their schools. They could link to it directly from within SmartMusic Impact as well as the SmartMusic website.
As far as real numbers go, I'm going to hazard a guess that there are currently more "active" (as in using and paying) SmartMusic users in the world than there are Finale users. The last total the press releases gave was up near 76,000 current SmartMusic subscribers - up close to 15,000 from three months prior. If you do some calculations with a guess at an average cost of Finale and the company's total yearly revenue, I think you'll come to the conclusion that the number of "active" Finale users is smaller than the SmartMusic group. Of course, the total number of people who have ever purchased a version of Finale over the last 20 years is significantly higher than this. But I believe there are more SmartMusic users paying MakeMusic right now than Finale users. And SmartMusic user growth is far outpacing anything I've ever heard of with notation software.
SmartMusic has also caught some media interest in the last few weeks. A front page Boston Globe article was run on it, followed by a Boston Public Radio broadcast, then a broadcast on NPR, and finally a segment two days ago on CBS's Saturday edition of the Early Show (along with Guitar Hero 3  ).Post Edited (Tyler) : 10/29/2007 11:03:40 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | |
|
Erling Kroner
Registered Member
 
Date Joined Dec 2001
Total Posts : 408
| Posted 10/30/2007 2:53 AM (GMT -6) | | From a pro sight-reader and big band musician point of view . . . every time I come across a hard-to read, difficult to distinguish part, often from English publishers (!) I can easily tell that they use Sibelius. I get hopping mad having to read that crappp. Looking at my own parts, conceived in Finale, I get proud, because they look like . . . the closest thing to original, handwritten parts (by top-engravers) I was used to in the oldern days. Graphically easy on the eyes and very INVITING to play. Mind you, maybe it's just because I'm a helll of a better engraver than the so-called pro companies?
Anyways, having to read much music on a daily basis, my experience is: Sibelius . . . or their users . . . is/are of mediocre quality not fit for pro use.
That's just my take on it.
erling
Quicksilver G4, 867 Mhz, 1,25 GB SDRAM. 15" PowerBook G4, 1,5 Ghz, 1,5 GB Ram. 2008
always latest Mac OS version | | Back to Top | |
|
Obiwan Kenobi
Very happy Jedi
Date Joined Mar 2005
Total Posts : 1043
| Posted 10/30/2007 6:44 AM (GMT -6) | | Erling Kroner said...
Anyways, having to read much music on a daily basis, my experience is: Sibelius . . . or their users . . . is/are of mediocre quality not fit for pro use.
That's just my take on it.
I understand you are talking about publishers using Sibelius and not only users of this software.
I don't think that publishers can really print a score directly from Sibelius ; logically, the music score publishing entails many other softwares in the printing process.
Concerning users, if I can here try to play devil's advocate, I think that many (for both Sibelius and Finale) are able to obtain very astonishing results. Some among my wife's colleagues, using Finale, are able to produce such dirty-shit (not sheet) scores that I am totally unable to understand the way by which they can obtain this result. 
Same observation for Sibelius.
But I know some Sibelius "pro" users capable of doing a perfect score (look-like pro one).
The only Sibelius' limitations are those I have evoked above (Ancient music and very contemporary one).
To sum up: I think that Sibelius, at first "out of box" sight, is very attractive, but, day after day disclose from score to score, from problem to one another, that many things can't be done because this software doesn't offer the powerful tools like Finale is housing.
That's here the power of the Sibelius' schools demonstrations: nothing very in-depth is really shown.
In other hand, many people are purchasing Finale even though they don't really need it ; imagine that you install InDesign or XPress to write a simple letter to your mother, and Photoshop or Illustrator to make some birthday cards, and Maya to built some animation movies for your child !
The commercial trends are, unhappily, dependent on these basic users: life or end reason.
Their choice was wrong but they killed choice.
Noboby can prohibit whoever to buy an Aston Martin DB9 to go to supermarket. 
Kind regards
Bruno
Paris-France
G4-1.8Ghz / 1.5Go RAM / OSX 10.4.9
Finale 2000 - 2003a - 2005b - 2008Post Edited (Obiwan Kénobi) : 10/30/2007 9:20:11 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | |
|
Sebastian Huydts
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 1998
Total Posts : 178
| Posted 10/30/2007 8:58 AM (GMT -6) | | Flint said...Sebastian Huydts said...
I teach composition to kids in the ages of 12-18. I need to be able to have them develop their musical skills, not loose my lesson time on instructing them to "adapt" to a unwieldy piece of software.
So, it's important for you to teach them composition but not have them burdened by correct notation? Because in Sibelius, most of the time the engraving is too far from engraver quality. It's notational output is truly "good enough" for people for whom "good enough" is "good enough".
Mr. Flint,
You are confusing two issues: Correct notation and engraver quality. I teach the first. The second is a separate profession. Your observation about Sibelius' quality is a matter of taste. As such, your argument is not good enough for me.
Sebastian Huydts
*****************************************
PB G4, 1.25 GHz, 1,256 MB Ram, OS10.3.9, Fin2006d, Sibelius 4.1 | | Back to Top | |
|
Tyler
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2001
Total Posts : 3586
| Posted 10/30/2007 1:59 PM (GMT -6) | | Ebony Ivory said...
Vaughan, given that ETF is simply an uncompressed text representation of MUS (at least, as far as Finale 2005, it is), I think it is therefore fair to say that Sibelius opens Finale files directly, at least up to this point.
I know this from experience - I've successfully opened my own Finale 2005b files in Sibelius 4 without going anywhere near MusicXML!
And given that even Finale 2007/8 seems to have some issues, reported hereabouts, with opening earlier Finale files, I think Sibelius is doing a pretty good job at that!
At the time Sibelius implemented MusicXML import, they stated that it was a better means of opening Finale files than their own importer for ETF files. Furthermore, there were many problems with ETF files not opening successfully. The Sibelius ETF import started falling apart around Finale 2004. With 2004 and 2005 it's hit and miss. I haven't heard many reports of people trying it with anything past that. With Finale 2007 and 2008, it's impossible - you have only MusicXML or MIDI. | | Back to Top | |
|
Ebony Ivory
On Ebony And Ivory I'll Tinkle All Day Long
Date Joined Dec 2005
Total Posts : 4594
| Posted 10/31/2007 1:57 AM (GMT 0) | | Tyler said...Ebony Ivory said...
Vaughan, given that ETF is simply an uncompressed text representation of MUS (at least, as far as Finale 2005, it is), I think it is therefore fair to say that Sibelius opens Finale files directly, at least up to this point.
I know this from experience - I've successfully opened my own Finale 2005b files in Sibelius 4 without going anywhere near MusicXML!
And given that even Finale 2007/8 seems to have some issues, reported hereabouts, with opening earlier Finale files, I think Sibelius is doing a pretty good job at that!
At the time Sibelius implemented MusicXML import, they stated that it was a better means of opening Finale files than their own importer for ETF files. Furthermore, there were many problems with ETF files not opening successfully. The Sibelius ETF import started falling apart around Finale 2004. With 2004 and 2005 it's hit and miss. I haven't heard many reports of people trying it with anything past that. With Finale 2007 and 2008, it's impossible - you have only MusicXML or MIDI.
As I stated, through experimentation, I have found it perfectly possible to open my Finale 2005b files, saved as ETF, successfully in Sibelius 4. But I also recall someone (maybe you?) saying that after about Finale 2005, MakeMusic began to deprecate their own ETF format, and although Finale 2006 still "supports" it, that support is only partial. With Finale 2005, I can round-trip from MUS -> ETF -> MUS - indeed, I've done this in the past in order to perform some global edits on things like fonts. Apparently from 2006 onwards, this round-tripping is not reliable.
So Finale itself cannot read ETF files any more - any wonder Sibelius has a problem? It simply suggests that the ETF format has been broken and/or abandoned by MakeMusic. Another grand example of progress! Not.
Brian
On ebony and ivory I'll tinkle all day long | | Back to Top | |
|
Tyler
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2001
Total Posts : 3586
| Posted 10/30/2007 10:21 PM (GMT -6) | | Ebony Ivory said...
As I stated, through experimentation, I have found it perfectly possible to open my Finale 2005b files, saved as ETF, successfully in Sibelius 4. But I also recall someone (maybe you?) saying that after about Finale 2005, MakeMusic began to deprecate their own ETF format, and although Finale 2006 still "supports" it, that support is only partial.
And Sibelius stopped fully supporting ETF imports starting with Finale 2004 (according to Daniel of Sibelius). ETF has been a feature intended only for plug-in developers, and plug-in developers can still gain access to it by requesting a development version of the software. That's its only intended and supported use. As far as I can tell, you were taking a chance using it for other purposes even with older versions of Finale. Certainly in current versions of Finale, .mus files are not simply a compressed .etf file.
Ebony Ivory said...
So Finale itself cannot read ETF files any more - any wonder Sibelius has a problem? It simply suggests that the ETF format has been broken and/or abandoned by MakeMusic. Another grand example of progress! Not.
Brian, didn't you get on my case for supposedly trying to change the direction of one of your arguments? Why are we now discussing ETF as a result of a discussion that was about MusicXML export and Sibelius' need for it? Do you think Sibelius should make an equivalent of ETF so other programs can gain the ability to import from it?
Sibelius' problem with the ETF format had nothing to do with Finale leaving out some elements from it. The problem was related to text block features from 2004 onwards that Sibelius simply didn't know how to deal with because it wasn't updated to do so. And rather than make those updates to their importer, they decided to use MusicXML import instead.
As far as MakeMusic's decision to leave ETF export out of the shipping versions of 2007 and 2008, I think that's smart. It's something that almost no one outside of plug-in developers use, and keeping it 100% consistent with the .mus files wastes time that could be spent on developing features and fixes that people actually might use. Smart business is all about making effective use of your time, right? Why would you argue so forcefully against MakeMusic's decisions to drop the ETF dead weight but not jump on Sibelius for stopping their updates to ETF import support after Finale 2003? | | Back to Top | |
|
SF
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2001
Total Posts : 1555
| Posted 10/30/2007 11:01 PM (GMT -6) | | I hate to jump in here but I'm interested in the slightly changed subject. Tyler your comment about ETF being only used for plug-in developers seems strange. Are you saying that in version 3.5, ETF's intension was for plug-in developers and not to give more advanced users quick, easy ways to manipulate files as a text document or to help convert files back and forth between differing operating systems? Also, was it never intended to be a more stable way of retaining your files or another path to troubleshooting or rescuing a file?. I used to do a lot of Find & Changes back in the day via ETF. It was fast and easy and is currently sorely missed but I understand that it might be too complicated to retain ETF with the new linked part feature.
I would be interested in hearing more about the real purpose, logic and history of this part of the program (although I understand this is WAY OT) and where/when the focus may have changed on what ETF was intended to do.
Cheers,
SF | | Back to Top | |
|
Ebony Ivory
On Ebony And Ivory I'll Tinkle All Day Long
Date Joined Dec 2005
Total Posts : 4594
| Posted 10/31/2007 6:05 AM (GMT -6) | | SF said...
I hate to jump in here but I'm interested in the slightly changed subject. Tyler your comment about ETF being only used for plug-in developers seems strange. Are you saying that in version 3.5, ETF's intension was for plug-in developers and not to give more advanced users quick, easy ways to manipulate files as a text document or to help convert files back and forth between differing operating systems? Also, was it never intended to be a more stable way of retaining your files or another path to troubleshooting or rescuing a file?. I used to do a lot of Find & Changes back in the day via ETF. It was fast and easy and is currently sorely missed but I understand that it might be too complicated to retain ETF with the new linked part feature.
I would be interested in hearing more about the real purpose, logic and history of this part of the program (although I understand this is WAY OT) and where/when the focus may have changed on what ETF was intended to do.
Cheers,
SF
Thanks for backing up my own recollection about ETF! The "T" stands for "Transportable", which helped people shift files between Macs and PCs, bypassing little matters like big-endian and little-endian numbers, and the fact that the file was written in ASCII allowed precisely the sorts of things you describe. I remember taking some of my existing files, and doing global font changes (from Tekton to Benguiat Gothic) across the lot in order to quickly update their appearance. And I used a text editor to tweak the ETF version of DEFAULT.FTM in order to create my first custom template, again because I needed to hunt out and destroy/replace all instances of certain pesky fonts which I seemed unable to change with any Program Options dialog.
This had - and has - nothing whatsoever to do with plug-in development (though I am sure it could be useful in this respect), and it's a crying shame that MakeMusic have decided to withdraw it.
Yet another reason to stick with Finale 2005 ...
Brian
On ebony and ivory I'll tinkle all day long | | Back to Top | |
| 111 posts in this thread.
Viewing Page : 1 2 3 4 5 |
| Forum Information | Currently it is Tuesday, December 19, 2023 7:23 PM (GMT -6)
There are a total of 403,820 posts in 58,165 threads.
In the last 3 days there were 0 new threads and 0 reply posts. View Active Threads
|
Forum powered by dotNetBB v2.42EC SP3
dotNetBB © 2000-2023 |
|
|