Don’t know if everyone has heard the news, but, it looks like this is happening everywhere! Finale is now calling it quits! Finale has basically given it’s blessing/deference to Steinberg’s DORICO.

The End of Finale

During the pandemic when the M1 Macs came out and GVox/Passport announced Encore and MusicTime Deluxe would not be receiving updates, I felt it prudent at the time to start looking into other notation software, so I dusted off my Finale & Notion licenses (meaning, I paid for the current version/upgrade), and also bought Dorico, and got a sub to Sibelius.

Finale was a waste of time as (just like the past) the workflow never made sense.

Notion (which I bought in 2010 because it could use VSL samples at the integration was AMAZING!) had/has a GREAT iPad App where you can start notation with your Apple Pencil, and then (do Apple’s freakin’ clunky) export to the Mac version and finish it. The engraving (look of the exported scores) is washed out and bad. I am sure you can get things to work, but Notion seems to have lost their mojo. Promising, but never delivered.

Sibelius SEEMS like it can do things, it’s just confusing! You all MUST watch the YouTuber “Tantacrul”! Such a great breakdown on Sibelius. HOW this thing got so popular, IDK!!!! Watch his video on Sibelius!

Dorico seems very promising. I was able to get things going very quickly and the scores looked great and the engraving options seem intuitive. Tantacrul has a video on Dorico as well where he pulls no punches.

I even tried Logic’s SCORE EDITOR. Uh, NO! Why I can’t use my VSL instruments and key switching articulations without so many summersaults is INSANE!

So, I still have my 2012 MacBook Pro, my 2012 MacBook Air, and 4 MacMinis all at Mojave (the last great OS!) and have one of those computers … one at home, one at the office … one at church/school … ALL SO I CAN KEEP USING ENCORE!

Encore is quick, easy and good and you CAN do good engraving with it if you know how.

So…. any news on Encore?