Make Music Finale 2011 Isosceles
1: Finale 2011 offers users a comprehensive set of notation and playback tools.Finale has long been the top dog of software notation programs, but it's no longer the only serious contender for professional music copying. Other products, such as Avid Sibelius and even Apple Logic Pro (through its Notation section), are quite capable of creating fully professional charts and scores. This has led to a leapfrogging contest between Finale and, in particular, Sibelius for the inclusion of more subtle and esoteric capabilities while still improving the interface for the more commonly used features. WORDS OF WISDOMThe most significant improvement in Finale 2011 is Lyric entry and spacing. While functional in the past, entering lyrics could be cumbersome, and getting the layout to look right could be downright tedious. The handling of lyrics has been mostly revamped, and it now works really well. All of those annoying extra spaces at the beginning of notes with large syllables, melismas, or punctuations are gone.
The new Lyrics Window allows you to work effortlessly back and forth with typing directly into the score, and it automatically updates in both locations. Hyphens and word extensions now automatically and perfectly lay out and wrap to the next staff system and maintain proper placement if the score or part changes in size.
STAFF REDUCTIONSThe need to optimize staff systems is now largely a thing of the past. Scores and parts are always optimized and appear as they will in print, so you don't need to spend as much time in the Page Layout tool. The way staves are handled has been completely redesigned under the hood, and it's now much easier to move and reorder staves without causing a mess.When dragging a staff, you now get a numeric value for more precise placement—unfortunately, this number doesn't also display when using the keyboard to nudge—and all staves under a staff can be made to move together when making adjustments.
Managing brackets and groups is also much easier now. Hiding and showing staves has also been simplified with contextual menus, making it much simpler to manage a large score with large sections of rests in multiple instruments. Hidden staves are displayed onscreen as a soft, dotted line. 3: Adding capo chords to a guitar part is a single-click operation once you define the number of frets required.One of the welcome features for me is the simplified entry of chord symbols. You can now enter a chord without having to first create and attach it to a note or rest (and possibly then hiding it) in the staff. Chords can be placed automatically on any beat, even within a blank measure; if there are notes already on the staff, the chord can easily be repositioned to another note by simply dragging it.
A handle shows which note the chord is attached to. If a note is deleted below or the musical line changed, the chord remains unaffected and can be reassigned to a new note at will. Chords can be typed directly into the score or played by a MIDI keyboard simultaneously without having to change input methods in the menu.
4: The new Garritan Aria Player is elegant and simple to use. All of the included audio content can be loaded into Aria, and you can add your own audio plug-in effects on top. You still have the option of using your own plug-in players in combination with Aria, as well.HEARING IN CONTEXTOne of the most exciting aspects is its ability to provide somewhat authentic audio playback of a score. For several versions now, Finale has included a Garritan soundset, and there are several new instruments included for it in Finale 2011: Flute Section, Bass Trombone, Children's Choir Aahs, Steel Drums, and a couple of new synth sounds. The Aria playback engine has replaced the former Kontakt player, and it is elegant and simple to use (see Fig. 4).In addition to the Garritan sounds, Finale 2011 also includes soundsets from Tapspace Virtual Drumline, Row-Loff Marching Percussion, and Jose Cortijo's Latin Percussion. You can also use any of your own soft synths or samples when playing back your score.
Make Music Finale 2011 Isosceles 2014
The various Human Playback styles help the virtual instruments respond in a musical way to the sterility of notation symbols. Even though I am a bit old school and don't necessarily need to hear my score played back with appropriately matched sounds, it is a very useful tool for education purposes. Countries with nuclear weapons. And, I admit, it is seductively fun to hear your score played back with the intended timbres (see Web Clips, and 1c to view and hear one of my orchestral scores using the Garritan sounds for playback).