A Facebook group devoted to musical theater orchestration is freaking out, loudly, because every American licensing house uses Finale. One knowledgeable soul predicts the current plan will create a global archival catastrophe, both within the business and for libraries that take on the challenge of preserving computer files from this era.
As for transferring to Dorico, the process is far from foolproof. On a technical level, hundreds of thousands of computer files will either become inaccessible or have to be laboriously transferred to Dorico/Sibelius to be corrected or updated, and we all know that no software has emerged that makes such a transfer absolutely perfect. On a user level, quoting one guy: "I've done arranging and copying work for a noted opera composer in his 70s who has been using Finale since 1990. He's an able musician but rather scattered in his approach to computers and very set in his ways. I cannot imagine him learning to compose in new software, and I would not be surprised to learn that he's having a panic attack right now."
Currently, every Broadway-bread-and-butter music prep person I know is advising on a wide scale to "crack" one's Finale 25 and 27 ASAP if anyone wants to continue to access their old files. Mac users had not had workarounds for ages, but this lit a fire under their asses; a "crack" for the latest version became available literally today. Right now, there are a couple of competing campaigns forming: either MakeMusic provides Dorico with the code necessary for Finale files to directly transfer as-is, with no MusicXML middle step necessary (those who know what I'm talking about will rejoice if that ever happens), or instead of killing authorization in the way they propose, they simply remove the need for it after August of next year, thus allowing people to reinstall without reauthorizing. (The latter is unlikely since the way this roll-out has gone suggests that Dorico's non-compete partnership involved this "kill-switch" to force sales rather than enabling another free competitor like MuseScore.)
Me, I'm keeping Finale because I finally paid for the damn thing last summer ("cracks" were notoriously easy to find and use, speaking from direct experience, but the discount in last summer's sale was frankly too good to pass up), and I'm gonna get my money's worth while I can. However... I'm also taking the crossgrade to Dorico Pro 5 because there's no way on earth it will ever be available for that low a price again, certainly not in the Pro version.
Formerly gvendo2005
Broadway Legend
joined: 5/1/05
Blocked: After Eight, suestorm, david_fick, emlodik, lovebwy, Dave28282, joevitus, BorisTomashevsky, Seb28
Updated On: 8/26/24 at 12:23 PM
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