When I first came to Los Angeles I worked for an audio dealer who represented a computer notation device call the McClayvier. Music copying was all done manually in those days, and there were 3 and 4 story buildings on the film studio lots just filled with people copying music all day. Being able to do this automatically was revolutionary, but alas, the McClayvier couldn’t make it out of the development stage into widespread use. Just a few years later though, a software notation program called Finale did deliver on that promise, and copying music was never the same again.
Finale was the only game in town for music notation for along time, but eventually Sibelius (now an Avid product) became a big competitor. It wasn’t long after when companies like PreSonus and Steinberg began offering professional notation software of their own, namely Notion and Dorico, and now we’re seeing it as a feature built into more and more DAWs.
The problem is that Finale now looks and feels a bit outdated in comparison, and the developer MakeMusic has now acknowledged that maintaining Finale’s “millions of lines of code” isn’t worth it anymore.
According to MakeMusic president Greg Dell’Era, “Today, Finale is no longer the future of the notation industry—a reality after 35 years, and I want to be candid about this. Instead of releasing new versions of Finale that would offer only marginal value to our users, we’ve made the decision to end its development.”
But There’s An Alternative
What this means is that Finale will no longer receive updates, although the program will still work on devices where it’s installed. However, a year from now in August of 2025, you will no longer be able to authorize Finale on any new devices or re-authorize it.
If you’re a Finale user, it’s time to look for an alternative, although the good news is that you have plenty of time to do so with quite a few packages to choose from. In fact, MakeMusic is suggesting to users to use Dorico instead and is even providing a way to port over to the Pro version at an attractive price.
It’s always painful to say goodbye to an old friend. The good news is when one door closes, another usually opens up.
