I am often surprised how many times I have run across a client that either does not know about, or just doesn’t use the main tool palette context menus.  These are the menus that you can get to by right-clicking (ctrl-click on Mac) on a highlighted measure.

Continued

The hardcopy of the Finale User Manual is an unwieldy beast of a document. Weighing in at just over 5 pounds, it is 982 pages of 2up printing totaling 1,964 pages of Finale documentation.  What a monster!

I know that there are many of you whom, like myself, prefer to have a hardcopy of manuals so that we may read them as we would read a great novel. Unfortunately, the mammoth size of this manual relegates it to the bedside table. This is one peripheral that you won’t be whipping out on the plane during that overnight to Bangladesh!

Continued

A press release today from MakeMusic detailing Finale’s use in

Oscar Nominated Films!
http://www.makemusic.com/press_releases.aspx?pid=139

Very cool!

For those Finale users that create SmartMusic files there is an updated version of SmartMusic available now!

http://www.makemusic.com/press_releases.aspx?pid=138

Primarily it looks as though the major updates are user interface improvements!

If you haven’t done so already check out SmartMusic! 

 Let’s face it, midi devices and their drivers are mysterious enough as it is - they don’t need any help in order to act strange or to flat-out not work at all.

So, if you use a midi device while using Finale, I recommend connecting it directly to your computers USB port - not through a USB hub. I have looked through some of the major midi manufacturer’s support sites for information regarding this subject - but of course most are very vague. All of them claim that the device will work and offer no trouble-shooting methods whatsoever.

Here is what led me on this quest:

Continued

With the introduction of Linked Parts in Finale 2007, MakeMusic changed their philosophy behind how Finale fundamentally handles parts in relation to a score. One of the best changes ever to Finale - yes. The problem was that they didn’t let anyone know just how much they had changed the normal work-flow of Finale. MakeMusic had made a mistake and they knew it. How can we tell that MakeMusic knows they made a mistake? They acknowledged it with the release of 2008 and the little piece of paper that was slipped in with the upgrade discs. Much like the introduction of Linked Parts, the combining of the Mass Edit Tool and Selection Tool was no trivial matter. But, unlike the release of 2007, MakeMusic was quick to explain the how and why they made the change. With Linked Parts there was no piece of paper. We got an upgrade and a list of new features. They did not let the user know that extracting parts would no longer work as it had for the past decade. To this day - over a year and some months since the release of Linked Parts - we still get questions from clients about missing multi-measure rests and added measures that are a reduced size. We were glad to see the piece of paper explaining the selection tool change. We were glad to see MakeMusic not only listening, but responding.

Here are the few important points that we use when dealing with parts in Finale 2007 and 2008 - we’ll call it the philosophy of Linked Parts:

Continued

I know, you don’t want to hear this - it’s time to update your templates.

Here is the situation:

You get the call, your client needs an arrangement of the Spongebob Squarepants theme song and it has got to swing. Easy. You open Finale and break out your trusty jazz band template, you know, the one that is set-up just right; your name in the left-hand corner, custom staff names, slash notation with chords applied to the piano part, your copyright notice footer, your custom expression and chord libraries pre-loaded.

You begin writing, noticing a small issue … Continued