MakeMusic releases Finale 2012

MakeMusic has released Finale 2012, a major new version of the music notation software. The new release introduces ScoreManager, which intelligently controls the way music looks and sounds.

“Finale 2012 continues to expand on the renowned power and flexibility that has established Finale as the leading notation software product in the world,” said Karen van Lith, MakeMusic president and CEO. “Musicians I’ve spoken to are extremely excited about the new ScoreManager because it lets them perfect their music – to their individual taste – more quickly than ever before.”

Finale 2012 also includes Unicode font support, broadening Finale’s visual possibilities, additional Garritan sounds which reinforce Finale’s reputation of providing the highest quality playback, and several advances facilitating greater collaboration.

“Over the years, Finale has become so much faster and easier to use,” said ASCAPLUS award-winning composer Chris Opperman. “Truly, you are only limited by your imagination. There isn’t anything Finale can’t do.”

Finale 2012 in brief:

• ScoreManager – Finale’s new ScoreManager helps musicians quickly make their creations look and sound any way they wish. Advanced control over staff playback and appearance are now in one convenient place.

• Unicode text support – Musicians can easily access any character in today’s fonts, facilitating the creation of music in any language and the use of previously elusive font characters.

• Music education tools – Finale 2012 saves music educators time while helping them provide more for their students. More than 1,000 customizable worksheets and repertoire titles are included, as well as fonts created for music education and exclusive support of SmartMusic, the interactive music software for band, orchestra and voice.

• File sharing – Expanded.PDF support and graphic capabilities bring music to word processing and graphics programs. Music XML 3.0 offers collaboration with users of hundreds of other music programs, and additional enhancements redefine playback with other Finale products.

• Additional improvements – More Garritan sounds, new staff spacing tools, new fonts, auto-detection of MIDI devices, new tutorial guide and user manual with integrated video, and more.

Finale is a powerful music notation software application that lets you express your creativity and love of music. Compose, arrange, notate, and print engraver-quality sheet music.

Features:

• Categorized Expressions: Finale's new Expression categories allow all markings of a similar type (e.g. dynamics) to share font, positioning, and staff list settings.

• New Expression Positioning: Expression positioning is now part of every expression category's definition, and can also be assigned individually.

• Drag-apply Expressions: You can now click and drag over multiple staves to apply expressions en masse.

• Simplified Staff Lists: Staff lists are now part of expression categories, which makes editing, copying, and assigning expressions that apply to the full score easier.

• Easier Metatool Assignment: You can now assign several metatools at once in the Expression Selection dialog box.

• Attachment Indicators: Each expression is now equipped with an indicator that displays its attachment point on the staff (relative to the beat or measure). Expressions can now be dragged to different beats, measures, or staves to change their attachment point.

• Selection Dialog Box Zooming and Resizing: New "Zoom In" and "Zoom Out" buttons, and resize functionality have been added to Finale's selection dialog boxes for easier navigation. Some dialog boxes that benefit from this are the Expression Selection dialog box, Articulation Selection dialog box, and Shape Selection dialog box.

• Multiple Page Viewing and Editing: Finale now displays more of your score at once with multiple pages accessible for convenient editing.

• Finalescript 2.0: Finale's scripting language is now capable of calling virtually any command, whether in a dialog box, menu, or list. Press any button, check any check box, or enter a value into any text box. With an integrated dictionary and dynamic text coloring, creating powerful scripts is easier than ever.

• Updated Human Playback: Human Playback Enhancements include user interface improvements, compatibility with the Aria player, a new technique set supporting Finale 2009's open VSTAU abilities, and additional fixes and improvements. Plus Human Playback options are now found in Finale's MIDI menu, making access to different styles – as well as techniques and preferences – much more accessible.

• New Aria Player: The Garritan Aria Player is included FREE and is fully integrated into Finale 2009. It offers superior sound, more control, and a vastly improved user playback experience.

• Full VST/AU Instrument Support: Use any VST instrument plug-in and accompanying instrument libraries.

• Improved Playback Performance: With new ASIO drivers, Finale's playback engine has been retooled to allow for higher playback quality.

• Updated SmartMusic Accompaniment Creation: Creating SmartMusic Accompaniments (.SMP files) has never been easier with improvements to both Finale's saving mechanism and SmartMusic's interpretation capabilities.

• Updated Music XML: With support for MusicXML 2.0, +90 new features and a more transportable compressed file format, sharing documents between notation programs and between different versions of Finale is more accurate than ever.

• Tapspace Virtual Drumline Sounds: Finale now includes a library of performance-quality marching and concert percussion sounds by Tapspace.

• Garritan Sounds: Additional Garritan sounds include baritone sax, vintage electric piano, electric guitar, electric bass, vibraphone, handbells, mellophone group, baritone group, additional marching percussion cymbals, and more.

• Enhanced VST/AU plug-in management: Now specify which VST/AU plug-ins load, eliminating conflicts and assisting troubleshooting.