… music notation tips & tutorials by experts in this field.
A few days ago, I was asked to visit the students of Seattle’s Pacific NW Film Scoring Program to speak about my role as music copyist, orchestrator and music librarian for feature films and video games.
The students asked some great questions, so I thought I would post a few of them along with my answers here.
more >> “An afternoon with the students of the Pacific NW Film Scoring Program”
November 3rd, 2014 : MakeMusic today announced a new 2014d update to Finale which includes a half-dozen new features, as well as a handful of bug fixes:
Of special note is a new opt-in anonymous usage data feature which will help MakeMusic better track how Finale users are working with the program, so that relevant improvements can be made more frequently and efficiently in the future:
“Improve Finale: By selecting “Yes” below, you allow MakeMusic to automatically collect anonymous information about your hardware configuration and how you use the software. With this information, we will identify usage patterns so that our designers can make informed decisions when creating future versions of Finale.
We will not collect your name, address or any other personally identifiable information, and you will not be contacted in any way. Since we have no visibility into your actual documents, there is no risk that any unpublished or copyrighted material will be accessed.
You can change this setting at any time by choosing “Help Improve Finale” from the Help menu.”
Here is a list of the features and bug fixes:
MakeMusic, Inc. has announced that they will join the umbrella company Peaksware, Inc., effective immediately. Peaksware is division of LaunchEquity Partners.
MakeMusic, which currently employs about 100 people, is moving its headquarters to Colorado.
SibeliusBlog first broke this story on Wed. Aug. 6th. The article features an interview with Peaksware’s CEO Gear Fisher.
The MakeMusic product line currently includes Finale, SmartMusic, Garritan instruments and the MusicXML music interchange format.
As you may be aware, Steinberg is currently developing a professional level scoring program which will compete directly with Finale and Sibelius.
If you are composing, arranging or orchestrating in Finale or Sibelius and have ever tried to incorporate any of the available high end third party sample libraries with the goal of achieving realistic, expressive playback from your notation program, you know this isn’t currently possible with the current crop of software.
There are already several professional level scoring (music notation) programs available. Some, like Finale and Sibelius offer decent playback using bundled sound sets, but while playback quality is adequate, it is nowhere close to the level of realism offered by sample libraries from VSL, EastWest, Project SAM, Wallander, Cinesamples, and others when triggered via a DAW.
Steinberg appears to be interested in raising the bar here; recently posting a survey on the topic of integration of sample libraries with notation programs. Their survey was titled, not surprisingly “Scoring software and sample libraries”.
Finale and Sibelius both allow the user to control (and save for later recall) parameters to control Instrument Techniques (in sample library parlance “Articulations”), Dynamics and Special Effects optimally configured for playback of a specific sample library. Finale calls these parameters Human Playback Preferences, while Sibelius calls them Sound Sets.
However, many composers, arrangers and orchestrators working in Finale or Sibelius have simply given up trying to achieve realistic playback from within their scoring program. The result is that their primary use of playback from the scoring software becomes checking for wrong notes and other mistakes.
For those professionals who need to produce high quality audio mockups for clients, the most intuitive and least labor intensive option remains a DAW sequencer (Logic, Digital Performer, Cubase etc), which offers much greater flexibility and ease of use to get realistic playback results.
Sibelius users should check out The Sound Set Project, which provides Sound Sets for a number of 3rd party sample libraries designed to facilitate realistic playback from Sibelius. If you are aware of any other resources of this type for either Sibelius or Finale, please share them in the comments.
Even if you plan to continue to work in Finale and / or Sibelius in the future, in a small niche market like notation software, competition raises the bar – so if Steinberg develops a scoring program with amazing playback of third party sample libraries, there is a greater chance that playback will improve in your scoring program of choice, too. Stay tuned….
MakeMusic has issued a security notice for all registered customers of SmartMusic, Finale or Garritan products. On April 23rd, an attempted intrusion to MakeMusic’s computer systems was detected.
At this time, there is no indication of unauthorized acquisition of computerized data that would compromise the security, confidentiality, or integrity of personal information maintained by MakeMusic.
However, as a precaution, MakeMusic is encouraging all of their customers to change their current password to a new secure, strong password for all MakeMusic related products and accounts.
MakeMusic is in the process of hiring a third party computer security firm to review their systems to prevent future compromises of online security, and has pledged to communicate with their customers when additional information becomes available.
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact MakeMusic’s Customer Support team.
source : finalemusic.com
2/22/14 – Plugin Author Tobias Geisen today announced the release of version 2.71 of TGTools full / pro version for Windows.
The update is FREE and is recommended for all versions of Finale from 2010 thru 2014.
Concurrently, TGTools 2.71 for Mac has been released, which fixes the menu on German Finale versions and fixing smart shapes which could not be recognized in 2.70.
Like the Windows version, the Mac version is compatible with versions of Finale from 2010 thru 2014.
As a nice aside, Mac users may also note some cosmetic improvements in version 2.71.
http://www.tgtools.de/downdocs.htm
If you are a Mac user with the full (pro) version of TGTools who upgraded to Finale 2014; you’ll be happy to hear that versions of TGTools beyond 2.70 are compatible with the Mac OS.
An update for Windows users is expected soon. While version 2.61 of TGTools for Windows is compatible with Finale 2014, manual installation of the plugin is required. (The Mac OS version was non-functional, so the Mac updater was released first.)
Tobias Geisen quietly announced the update in a recent thread on the Finale forum:
“TGTools for Finale 2014 on Mac are now available on my web site as well as via the easy installation from the about menu of one of the bundled TGTools plug-ins.
A paid upgrade may come a bit later with a more dedicated adaptation.
I am open to suggestions for further improvements (by email), and also whether further development should be for Finale 2014 only or also include Finale 2012.”
Cheers,
Tobias
tobias at tgtools.de
If you plan to continue to work in Finale 2012 as well as Finale 2014 (one reason might be the version of the operating system you use), note that Tobias is asking for people to weigh in on whether he should make future versions of the plugin compatible with Finale 2012, or only with Finale 2014. So, if you would want the option of using new plugin improvements which also could be used in Finale 2012, you may wish to email Tobias and let him know. Now’s the time.
Robert