Before Finale 2012, setting up a staff to be fully defined as a particular instrument was a tedious process. First of all, playback was completely separated from the visual definition of any given instrument, requiring that you make changes in both the Staff Attributes dialog and in the Playback Window. And everything had to be set up manually, so if you were working with doubling parts, you needed to make changes in several areas of the program just to show the double’s transposition, clef and name correctly, and also play back the correct sounds.
More recent versions of Finale have neatly consolidated all of the parameters required to define an instrument into a single dialog and in the process, also given us an easy and intuitive way to create instrument changes for doubles occurring in the same staff. At the heart of this new feature is the Score Manager.
The Score Manager in Finale 2012 and later has two sections: File Info and Instrument List.
The File Info section of the dialog allows you to enter all of the global score information for the piece such as Title, Subtitle, Composer, Arranger, Lyricist, and Copyright. It replaces the old File>File Info menu item from 2011 and earlier. Statistical information about the score (or any individual part) such as number of pages, staff systems or bars is also available from here. Stats for the score are displayed when you are viewing the score, with stats for individual parts available if you open the Score Manager with a part forward.
You still need to enter a sub-dialog to see the File Statistics here, even though there is now plenty of blank space available in the redesigned File Info dialog to display these right in the overview. Hopefully, this info will be consolidated in some future version of Finale. Even without the inclusion of File Stats, though, the redesign is a big improvement.
In the Instrument List section of Finale’s Score Manager, you can define, edit, reorder, and delete score Instruments, including mid-score instrument changes.
Certain staff settings which used to reside in the Staff Attributes dialog such as the instrument name, transposition, initial clef and staff type (percussion/tablature) have been moved to the Score Manager. Playback choices for each instrument are made from this same location as well: MIDI or AudioUnits / VST Device, MIDI channel, Mute, Solo, Volume, Pan etc. You can use the Customize View button in this dialog to hide or show the settings you tweak most often.
To define a staff, while in the Instrument List, simply click on the Instrument name under the Instrument column. The Change instrument dialog will come up. If you choose “Clarinet in Bb”, the instrument name, transposition, clef, playback device, sound and midi channel will all update automatically. That’s all there is to it. Note that when you are viewing the score, you will see all of the instruments in the score, when you are viewing a part, you will only see that part’s information. Very intuitive.
For its part, the Staff Attributes Dialog has been pared down to define only special appearance considerations such as object visibility, and to control any independent elements or behaviors associated with that staff.
Click the Add Instrument button to add new staves / instruments to the score, and use the move handles at the left edge of the dialog to reorder staves. Note that staff order in a part can be completely independent from the score.
Finale restored the Reorder Staves feature in Finale 2014.5 which had been missing since Finale 2012. This allows one to reorder staves or groups of staves.
INSTRUMENT CHANGES
Instrument Changes are easily created in Finale 2012. First, select a region you would like the change applied to:
For instrument changes that go to the end of the piece, you don’t need to select every bar, just make a one bar selection at the instrument change start point to define an instrument change to the end of the piece.
Now, select the Change Instrument… option from the Utilities menu. The Change Instrument dialog will open, allowing you to choose the instrument change / double.
When you change instruments, Finale also loads the correct playback sounds, and makes all other changes, including Percussion Layouts and Percussion MIDI Maps, automatically.
Finale 2012 or later converts all instrument change Staff Styles created in earlier versions of Finale to Instrument changes and adds these respective Instruments in the Score Manager.
All instrument changes show up in the Score Manager. To see them, click on the little triangle next to the main / first instrument’s Name, and the list will drop down to show you where your instrument changes occur:
As above, if you are viewing the score, you will see all instruments and their associated instrument changes, if viewing an individual part, you will see only that part’s instrument changes and information.
Back out in your score or part, all that remains is add the instrument names using the Expression Tool:
One nice thing about using Staff Styles in earlier versions for instrument changes was there was always a visual reference for their exact location. Consolidating all of the instrument changes into the Score Info master list is very welcome, but the caveat is there is no longer always visible feedback right in the score about where these instrument changes occur.
For instance, you can get into trouble with octave transposing doubles such as Flute and Piccolo, or Clarinet and Tenor Sax, particularly where there is an instrument change in the middle of a system, as there is no new key signature for the transposition.
Additionally, if you work in “keyless” scores, since all transpositions are chromatic, there are no visual “key” cues at all.
To see the start and end bars of these instrument changes, you have to visit the Score Manager.
For now, just remember to add Instrument text labels immediately after applying an instrument change, so you won’t lose track of where they start and end, and you shouldn’t experience any problems. The pros really outweigh the cons here.
For more information, check out this Youtube video tutorial from MakeMusic:
Hey there,
I finally switched from Fin2011 to Fin25 and I am encountering some problems with that. Not only are you absolutely right about the lack of instrument change visibility (I work a lot with keyless scores), but there are also some problems with using different sound libraries.
I have made up three sets of Aria instances (ensembles) with alle the instruments and adjustments I need, including fine-tuning like EQ, length, vibrato, attack and so forth.
If I now apply an instrument change to a certain area, Fin25 automatically loads a connected sample into an Aria Channel which replaces the one of my individual ensemble. I then can change the playback sound for the instrument change in the score manager by choosing the right Aria instance and channel, however I need to reload my ensemble to get rid of the overwritten channel.
Is there a better or quicker around that? How can I quickly apply instrument changes that play back correctly with the desired sound? Is there a way to edit the Finale instrument list so I can chose the correct sounds directly?
Thanks!
Hey Florian,
Thank you for posting this. Unfortunately, I personally do not have the answer to your question, but I did forward this to Mark Adler at MakeMusic, as playback is something I know they are beginning to focus more on. Hopefully, we’ll hear something positive!
Robert
Hi Florian,
Have you looked at adjusting your Sound Map Priority? Adding libraries here and adjusting their priorities of may help, though from the details in your question, this may not afford a granular enough solution. It sounds to me like you are looking to set a priority for each individual instrument.
Mark