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Discussions about composing, arranging, orchestration, songwriting, theory and the art of creating music in all forms from orchestral film scores to pop/rock.
MIDI Life Crisis wrote:
BTW, Finale is still behaving quite well. It is about time it started to act like a pro program again.
Ah, the irony of life. I'd once incorporated DP to facilitate using Finale. Now, as I tip-toe across DP6 quicksand Finale 2009 is suddenly the hot new auspicious software of the day.
7 versions and about $1400 later... Yes-- it was about time.
I totally hear that. I used to have to switch back and forth between Finale and DP so DO could play the movie while Finale played the score. Not I don't have to run DP at all. I probably save a couple of hours a day (no exaggeration!) just in instant cueing.
Frankly, DP is essentially obsolete now as far as creating for a printed score. I'll used it for audio and when scores are never to be played by real musicians, but frankly, I'd much rather be writing for live musicians and never have to deal with a DAW ever again.
MIDI Life Crisis wrote:
Frankly, DP is essentially obsolete now as far as creating for a printed score.
You think so? Hmm. It always has been in terms of the finished "window-dressed" version where QS doesn't go far enough, but I get a kick out of running my better orchestra libraries in DP first then porting the notes into Finale.
Now-- I understand that Finale is supposed to be better at VI support, but I still can't stomach entering notes in Finale. I just don't have that kind of time. That whole fiasco in Amsterdam took 2.5 days using a mouse-- and someone else did the printing for me. Working on a laptop is even worse because of the linearity of the number keys. I can get a whole orchestral score in DP and ported into Finale in about 3-6 hours max and printed, depending on how extensive the dynamics and articulations need to be if the score is 100 bars +/- 20 measures.
How are you entering notes in Finale? I've seen people race over their keyboards like nobody's business doing this stuff, but I can play a MIDI keyboard more easily than I can master all the shortcuts. Speeding up DP's sequence tempo makes for even faster note entry.
If I thought I could leave DP out of the equation, I would. Just not quite there yet.
Frodo wrote:
Gosh, I wish I could do that on my laptop. Maybe I need to invest in a supplementary keypad.
Y'know I bought one a while back and returned it and I can't remember why (gettin' old I guess) but there was something it didn't do... let me think (jeopardy theme...)
I think it didn't allow for modifier keys or something like that. Maybe some weirdness with the number lock? W...
Frodo wrote:
Gosh, I wish I could do that on my laptop. Maybe I need to invest in a supplementary keypad.
Y'know I bought one a while back and returned it and I can't remember why (gettin' old I guess) but there was something it didn't do... let me think (jeopardy theme...)
I think it didn't allow for modifier keys or something like that. Maybe some weirdness with the number lock? W...
I sure wish I could get a functional traveling workstation put together. After the Amsterdam fiasco, I'll never leave home without all of my files and the software. I'd planned on getting in on the $99 upgrade this month. It's just my luck that the last gig before doing the update was the one-- the ONLY one where there was a post facto key issue.
I've already picked up a USB dongle drive for easy transfers. Those things are the bee's knees. Don't know what took me so long.
Frodo wrote:
I've already picked up a USB dongle drive for easy transfers. Those things are the bee's knees. Don't know what took me so long.
Silly hobbit.
I've seen 8GB flash drives for $20. $20!!! Dang-gle! My Atari 20MB (with an M) cost me something like $300. <sigh>
Yeah, if there aren't top notch librarians who are willing to help you change stuff, portability is the only way to go. Out of town premieres can be such fun. Just be glad you don't have to deal with variable film speeds and unexpected edits! I'm not looking forward to that in a 90 minute project early Nov.
Man-- throw SMPTE into the equation and I would have been totally sunk. Thank goodness the Dutch librarians were on top of things. Actually, it was the principle trumpet player that offered to help with Finale. He formatted the parts and the library had everything enlarged and bound in about 30 minutes.
Getting back to being in guitar mode, I just bought a new guitar about 5 minutes ago!! LOL! So much for setting up a traveling Finale workstation. But I don't have any major road work until December, so there's time to figure it out. The thing that prompted me to buy the guitar was a new commission from the Saint Louis Symphony that just came in. They offered to pay 50% up front!! That's a whole lot different than Sony who hammered me for two emergency arrangements back in February and have been feeding me paperwork ever since before they'll commit to paying up.
At least there'll be some immediate gratification with the guitar!!
Excellent! Congrats! I don't suppose you're interested in some copy/bowing work if I get stuck? I think I can handle it, but the piano part of the new work is really a killer. I've even thought of asking you if you would want to play it, but I think my client expects my "personality" at the keyboard. <sigh> That's what I get for writing hard parts. Now I'll have to actually learn to play the stuff.
Glad to hear about the guitar as well. I didn't realize you were accomplished there as well. You're another dang Vivaldi!
MIDI Life Crisis wrote:Excellent! Congrats! I don't suppose you're interested in some copy/bowing work if I get stuck? I think I can handle it, but the piano part of the new work is really a killer. I've even thought of asking you if you would want to play it, but I think my client expects my "personality" at the keyboard. <sigh> That's what I get for writing hard parts. Now I'll have to actually learn to play the stuff.
Glad to hear about the guitar as well. I didn't realize you were accomplished there as well. You're another dang Vivaldi!
No, I suck at the guitar by studio session standards...
But I'd be happy to bow the strings or help you with Finale. Just let me know what help you need.
Call me slow... but I just discovered that Finale is Control-click savvy. PIck a tool and control click on the score. Pick the selection tool and control click. Instant pop ups of what I use often.
Has it been like this a while? THIS is why I like a printed manual instead of a PDF. I'd actually have read the printed manual and discovered this long ago.
MIDI Life Crisis wrote:Call me slow... but I just discovered that Finale is Control-click savvy. PIck a tool and control click on the score. Pick the selection tool and control click. Instant pop ups of what I use often.
Has it been like this a while? THIS is why I like a printed manual instead of a PDF. I'd actually have read the printed manual and discovered this long ago.
Duh!
Yeah-- it's been like that for a while. I just right click to get to those delicious contextual menus. Cuts the time of some tasks in half because you eyes don't have to search a menu and can stay right on the score itself.
Ah-- that printed manual. All 786 pounds of it. It is a little odd that for all of the environmental friendliness PDFs have to offer, that much reading on a computer screen is difficult to do. There's nothing like having an actual book in your hands, using post-its, highlighting text, and-- imagine this: being able to do REAL BOOKMARKING!!
I posted this in the Finale forum and someone suggested I print out the entire section "Keyboard Shortcuts" chapter of the PDF. Guess it's time to hits the books in my spare time. I don't recall F2006 having that feature, but again, I may have missed it way back when.
MIDI Life Crisis wrote:I posted this in the Finale forum and someone suggested I print out the entire section "Keyboard Shortcuts" chapter of the PDF. Guess it's time to hits the books in my spare time. I don't recall F2006 having that feature, but again, I may have missed it way back when.
Yep. Right clicking has definitely been here at least since 2006 (or some letter update of it). Prior to that I'd never owned a double-click mouse so I can't really say whether or when it started prior than that.
As for keyboard shortcuts in Finale-- how many reams of paper will that take? LOL!! It's probably not a bad idea. I may print out a number of pages and have them coil bound at Kinko's (oops-- that's now *FedEx*- Kinko's, and I understand they are trying to drop the Kinko's part...).
Thinking back on the Amsterdam fiasco, I was pretty amazed that I didn't get stuck with 2009 with it being so different in places than 2006. You know, I'm so used to wrestling with software that it was nice to come away from that experience largely unscathed, even if a little sleepy.
