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Restore Finale Customizations after Upgrade

Finale 26 is quite a bit faster in graphics performance and stability than 25, and well worth the upgrade, with quantum improvements in management of articulations, particularly.

Whether or not you choose the “replace Finale 25” option in the installer (I didn’t!), assets such as plugins, FinaleScripts, soundmaps, Device Annotation Files, Libraries, ensembles.txt etc. manually need to be copied over to their corresponding places in the new Finale 26 Application Support folders by users with any customizations they’ve added while using 25 and earlier.

Let’s take a closer look…

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How to Work With Large Time Signatures in Dorico Pro 2

🎬  This article is a transcription of one of the excellent tutorial videos posted to the official Dorico YouTube channel.

Dorico Pro 2 introduces support for two conventions for time signatures: the “commercial” larger time signatures used on scoring sessions, and the other for the concert hall. It’s straightforward to show a large time signature centered on every bracket, with three display choices: the traditional bold serif numerals, a narrower version of the traditional numerals, or tall thin sans serif numerals. You can also show time signatures above the staff, with complete control over size, position, and typeface.

Presented here in written form with the kind permission of its creator, Anthony Hughes, this tutorial is titled “How to Work With Large Time Signatures in Dorico Pro 2″…

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Finale version 26 review

MakeMusic’s Finale v26 update was released  today. Their social media teasers over the last few weeks have contained the perfect buzzword for a guy like me: “productivity”.

(If you are new to Finale and anxious to get started,  feel free to skip to the last paragraph of this review. Then, head over to MakeMusic to download the free 30 day trial and check it out for yourself.)

For the rest of us, I’ll cut to the chase: for me, by far the most compelling productivity feature in this upgrade is Finale’s reworked Articulation Tool, so let’s start there.

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Using Virtual Machines (VM) for Legacy Music Notation Software

I recently had to retire my trusty 2007 Macbook due to lack of Dropbox support for OS X Lion (10.7). I ran into an unexpected snag with the Macbook Air I bought to replace it, though: the most current OS X operating systems do not support older versions of Finale, but a number of orchestrators I work with still use Finale 2011 and Sibelius 6.

Fortunately, there is a solution to this dilemma in the form of virtual machines.

A virtual machine (VM) is an emulation of a computer operating system. This operating system could be a different operating system (such as Windows OS running inside the Mac OS) or, in this case, an older version of the same operating system (e.g. two different versions of the OS running on the same computer).

My Macbook Air is now running High Sierra (OS X 10.13), but I have El Capitan (OS X 10.11) installed inside Parallels Desktop to run older software versions of Finale and Sibelius. It was a relatively painless process, though not without a few kinks along the way. I hope my experiences will help others navigate those setbacks. more >> “Using Virtual Machines (VM) for Legacy Music Notation Software”