Finale – the world’s most powerful music notation software – lets you express your creativity and love of music. Compose, arrange, notate, and print engraver-quality sheet music.
Features
Getting Started
Finale’s Launch Window saves you time by putting all of Finale’s power at your fingertips. Choose to create exercises, scan existing sheet music, work from provided templates, or create a score from scratch with Finale’s Setup Wizard – which configures things like instrument transpositions so you don’t have to.
Don’t like manuals? Finale’s QuickStart Videos guide you through the process of putting your music on the page. Finale also includes comprehensive help that is contextual, interactive, and searchable. Quickly get the answer to any question, whether you want to know how to indicate a nonstandard time signature, need to create a marking whose name you’re unsure of, or are just curious what that checkbox does.
Entering Notes
Enter notes with your computer or MIDI keyboard.
Click notes onto the staff or use MIDI to indicate pitch. Or enter notes with the numeric pad and keys ‘A’ ‘B’ ‘C’ ‘D’ ‘E’ ‘F’ and ‘G.’ But entering notes is just the start. You can also:
- Change octaves
- Enter rests
- Add accidentals
- Create triplets
- Add grace notes
- Add notes in a chord to an existing note
- Enter articulations on the fly or ‘lock in’ an articulation to place on several notes
- Change the key or time signature simply with key commands
- Add expressions like dynamics or tempos
- Enter a rhythmic pattern using a single note and then re-pitch the repeated notes using your MIDI or computer keyboard
Enter articulations on the fly or ‘lock in’ an articulation to place on several notes. Change the key or time signature simply with key commands. Flip enharmonics, add expressions, and flip ties. Re-pitch existing notes, regardless of their durations, using any of the note-entry methods to re-pitch these rhythms.
Keystrokes are intuitive and a special key map for laptop users is provided. Best of all, if you prefer certain key commands, change the defaults in Finale to whatever you like.
HyperScribe®
Enter notes in real-time as you play a MIDI keyboard.
- You can play along with a click, provide the click as you play (for example with a sustain or other foot pedal), or enter the pulse later.
- Record your live vocal or instrumental performance — an exclusive Finale feature.
- Recording first and second endings with HyperScribe is seamless — Finale skips over the first ending on the second pass allowing for smooth transitions
- Specify a playback tempo before you record or Finale can record at the tempo you use when playing your MIDI keyboard.
- Record continuous data including the sustain pedal.
MicNotator® – No MIDI Required
This revolutionary technology allows you to enter notation into Finale simply by playing your brass or woodwind instrument.
Finale’s next generation of MicNotator is now much more accurate and even easier than ever before. Pick up your clarinet and start making music!
Scanning
No other notation program offers scanning as accurate as Finale, with its included SmartScore® Lite by Musitek®.
Finale’s SmartScore Lite Scanning includes:
- Improved recognition and accuracy with XML Technology.
- Easier Scanning – scanning is brought right to your fingertips in the Launch Window. With a compatible scanner, Finale 2008 provides an auto-preview and automatically chooses resolution and contrast settings.* - All you have to do is click "Final Scan."
- Secondary voice recognition – counterpoint.
- Correct transposed instrument recognition.
- Multiple page scans.
- Correct page formatting including system and staff sizes.
- Up to 32nd note resolution.
- Improved recognition of multi-measure rests, grace notes, and repeat measures (slash and dot symbol).
- Recognition of grayscale images to simplify the use of scanners, including HP models, that save in this format.
- Improved recognition when scanning scores with optimized staves.
- Finale also imports scanned SmartScore 5.3 and SharpEye files, capturing notes, text, lyrics, chord symbols and more. (While SharpEye is Windows only software, the MusicXML files it creates can be read by Finale on Macintosh and Windows computers.)
*Scanning directly from SmartScore Lite within Finale is supported by nearly all Windows scanners and Epson scanners on Macintosh.
Adding Markings, Lyrics, and More
Finale has been redesigned to make entering, creating, copying and moving dynamics, tempo indications, and other text and markings intuitive AND powerful. As a result you get the most control with the fewest mouse clicks.
Finale allows an unlimited number of lyric verses and automatically spaces the lyrics to match the notes they’re attached to.
Finale also automates countless other entry tasks like repeats, codas, adding cue notes to your parts, and tablature and fretboards for guitar and other fretted instruments.
Streamlined Workflow
For their 20th anniversary, Finale studied new and long-time users to learn how their workflow could be streamlined. Finale observed that their work with dynamics, tempo indications, rehearsal letters, and other markings – or expressions – represented a great opportunity for improvement.
Dynamics and Tempo Markings
In Finale, expressions include dynamics, tempo markings, rehearsal marks, technique text like arco and pizzicato, and expressive text. Entering these markings is easier than ever in Finale and they’ve also improved how you move them around in your score.
Lyrics
Finale offers unlimited lyric verses and the following time-saving enhancements.
Automatic Lyric Placement
Lyrics space themselves and the notes they’re attached to automatically.
Easy Lyric Font Changes
Lyric fonts can be easily changed after lyrics are entered.
Automatic Word Extensions
Word extensions flow into the score automatically and also wrap to the next staff system. If the music expands or contracts, the extensions stretch or shrink to fit.
Smart Hyphens
Finale offers automatic hyphen placement with precision results even in tight spacing. Plus Lyric hyphens automatically wrap to the next staff system.
Auto-Slur Melismas
Finale analyzes your lyrics, and automatically places slurs anytime a syllable lasts for more than one note. You can even specify dashed slurs in situations with multiple verses!
Repeats
Repeats are easy to add and edit and they automatically play back. Select the measures that will appear in the first ending. Select "Create first and second ending." You're done.
Create Codas
Finale automatically creates space, text, and symbols as well as controls playback.
Hearing Your Music
Finale includes world-class instrument libraries and several innovative tools to make sure your music sounds as good as it looks. Only Finale lets you record or import an audio file for even more realism.
Integrated Sound Libraries
Included are more than 300 world-class sounds from the makers of Garritan Personal Orchestra, more than 100 sounds from the acclaimed TapSpace Virtual Drumline™, Latin Percussion instruments and rhythms, and marching percussion from Row-Loff. Finale also includes a general MIDI set with minimal system requirements (compatible with nearly any computer) which offers consistent playback when your Finale files are heard in SmartMusic®, Finale NotePad®, and other MakeMusic products.
Garritan Sounds
Hear Your Music Come Alive with Garritan™ Instruments for Finale
Finale includes more than 300 world-class instrument sounds from the makers of Garritan Personal Orchestra. Free sounds include orchestral instruments, jazz brass, saxophones, piano, choirs, drum set, guitar, marching percussion, world instruments, and more.
Tapspace Virtual Drumline™ Sounds
Finale now includes more than 100 sounds from Tapspace Virtual Drumline, the world’s most powerful marching and concert percussion software instrument, featuring the world-champion Santa Clara Vanguard percussion section.
Record/Import Audio
Give arrangements authenticity and life with a real vocal or instrumental track. Record or import a mono or stereo audio file to enhance playback. No other notation software offers this capability.
Row-Loff Marching Percussion Sounds
Nothing extra to buy! Nothing extra to install! Sounds include: Bass Drums, Crash Cymbals, Snare Drum and Tenor Drums.
TempoTap
Create Tempo Nuances Effortlessly with TempoTap™. Finale gives you complete control over rubati, accelerandi, and ritardandi. Perfection is just a tap away.
Human Playback
Your music deserves to be heard with all the feeling, phrasing, and nuance you felt when you wrote it. Finale’s exclusive Human Playback plays your music as you would want it to be performed, even if you enter your notes with a mouse.
Sharing Your Music
Printing
With its introduction in 1988, Finale revolutionized the art of putting music on the printed page, placing world-class, engraver-quality printing within everyone’s reach. Now celebrating its 20th anniversary, Finale remains the first choice for composers, arrangers, publishers, engravers, educators, and other professionals who demand the very best.
Beyond Printing
Technology has advanced at a breathtaking speed in the last 20 years – and so has Finale. You can also share your music by:
- Creating .mp3 or .wav audio files
- Exporting MIDI or MusicXML files
- Creating textbooks, worksheets, or quizzes by exporting music into a word processing program. Finale allows you to save entire pages or just a section as a TIFF or EPS file. (Macs can also save as PICT.)
- Creating SmartMusic accompaniments
- Posting your music at the Finale Showcase, a free site hosted by MakeMusic. Anyone with Finale NotePad can see, play, and print your music via the Showcase.
In addition, anyone with a computer can download Finale NotePad for free to play, print, edit, and save your Finale files – revolutionizing the way musicians collaborate – again. No one else offers more ways to collaborate and share your music.
Educator Tools
Finale’s easy to use, time-saving features help you customize music curriculum to meet the individual needs of all your students.
SmartMusic® Support
Only Finale can create accompaniments for SmartMusic, the acclaimed music learning software for band, orchestra, and choir.
Instant Exercises
Finale’s Exercise Wizard helps you create custom exercises or lessons – for your entire ensemble – in minutes.
Share Files with Students
Full compatibility with the free, downloadable Finale NotePad® lets all students – at home or on school computers – use NotePad to complete tests or assignments created in Finale.
Teach Composition
Finale’s exclusive Studio View™ is perfect for teaching and practicing composition and arranging using the language of music notation.
More
- Video support to sync your marching band show with your score
- Marching percussion sound libraries from Tapspace Virtual Drumline™ and Row-Loff
- Customized educator templates to create quizzes and worksheets
- Create worksheets or quizzes by exporting music into a word processing program
- Colored Noteheads and Boomwhackers® sounds
Time Savers
Finale’s introduction in 1988 represented a revolution in saving time. Today it’s taken for granted that you don’t have to start over if you decide to add another bar on page one, or make a slight change in instrumentation. Similarly, Finale’s subsequent evolution has continued to offer musicians more ways of making the best use of their time.
- Linked Parts mean you no longer have to make edits to your parts and score separately.
- Finale’s Selection Tool takes the guesswork out of editing nearly anything on the page.
- Multiple Page Editing lets you place as many pages on your screen as you wish AND edit anything you want.
- Intuitive cut/copy/paste enhancements ensure that you always get the results you seek – the first time.
- ScoreMerger consolidates multiple movements into a single score or a collection of parts into a conductor’s score
- SmartFind and Paint copies articulations, dynamics, and expressions to the same rhythmic motif across your score.
- Chord Analysis generates chord names from your harmony and creates chord symbols automatically.
- Quick Change makes it easy to change expressions and articulations with simple keystrokes.
- Resize Noteheads automatically to notate harmonization within a specified region.
- Multiple Undo lets you reverse any number of changes you made in the current session (even past the point you saved your score).
- Automatic Note Spacing, Smart Page Turns, automatically generate a “Handbells Used” chart, and more (.pdf).
Composing & Arranging Tools
Finale takes the work out of composing and arranging and lets you concentrate on the inspiration. Finale handles instrument transpositions, offers range checking, and provides instant arrangements and piano reductions. Writing for video or film? Use Finale’s seamlessly integrated video support.
Idea-generating Tools
Running low on inspiration? Finale offers composers and arrangers several idea-generating tools, perfect for saving time and suggesting creative options.
- Generate up to 6-part harmony with Band-in-a-Box Auto-Harmonizing
- Create custom drum parts with DrumGroove
- Choose from a variety of authentic Latin Percussion rhythms.
- Transform your score with Canonic Utilities which apply inversion, retrograde, transposition, or any combination of these to a selected region.
- Use the Composer’s Assistant to realize chords, create common-tone transpositions, transition from one melody to another with melodic morphing or one chord to another with chord morphing and generate a series of chords with increasing complexity and texture with the frequency modulation chord generator.
Engraver Tools
Finale offers ultimate control of the printed page, making it the first choice for engravers and others who seek perfection. Equally important, Finale also speeds up and simplifies the process.
- Only Finale’s Engraver Slurs automatically snap to avoid collisions even after transpositions that cause stems to flip.
- FinaleScript® is an exclusive, easy-to-use scripting language that saves you time whether you create your own scripts or simply use those provided.
- Document Styles let you control the appearance of your documents and make creating your own Styles instantaneous.
- Customize your workspace with textured paper backgrounds, display colors, views, and palettes.
- Control the appearance of the printed page with engraver tuplets, a selection of music fonts, Vertical Collision Remover, and other spacing controls.
- Add embedded or linked graphics to your score. Finale imports TIFF or EPS and Macs can also import PICT. Embedded graphics allow you to easily transport your files to anyone.
- Embedded Fonts in Macintosh EPS files – Finale embeds TrueType and OpenType fonts as well as Postscript fonts. This ensures that your files look and print the same for others as they do for you.
- Finale also has over 50 time-saving plug-ins for specialized notation tasks like applying Patterson Beams, cross-staff beaming, creating tremolos or specifying different split points for selected regions using TGTools, and more. Creating cross-staff beaming is a snap. Just select the notes you want to move to the bass staff. It's that easy.
Can blocks of text be added anywhere on the page in PrintMusic, Finale or Sibelius?What differences are there between Coda's Print Music, Finale Guitar, Allegro and Finale?How do I qualify for the academic price for Finale?How can I upgrade to the latest version of Print Music, Allegro or Finale?Can I sing or play an instrument and have the computer write it down (pitch to MIDI)?
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PC
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Mac
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- Windows XP/Vista 32-bit.
- DVD-ROM drive.
- 800x600 minimum monitor resolution.
- Minimum 512MB RAM (1GB or more recommended for optional use of Garritan sounds/Aria Player: more RAM = more available sounds).
- 400MB hard drive space required for software and user manual. An additional 2GB hard drive space is required for all VST/AU sounds included with Finale 2009.
Optional:
- MIDI interface
- MIDI input and/or playback device
- Printer
- Scanner
- Microphone required for use of MicNotator®
- A soundcard (including a DirectSound AS20 recommended driver) is required for playing the Garritan sounds in Windows.
- Better processor and hard drive speed is required for simultaneous use of more VST/AU instruments.
System requirements vary for additional products by Garritan and Native Instruments
|
- G4 or higher recommended. OS 10.4 or 10.5 (Mac-Intel or Power PC).*
- DVD-ROM drive.
- 800x600 minimum monitor resolution.
- Minimum 512MB RAM (1GB or more recommended for optional use of Garritan sounds/Aria Player: more RAM = more available sounds).
- 512MB hard drive space required for software and user manual. An additional 2GB hard drive space is required for all VST/AU sounds included with Finale 2009.
Optional:
- MIDI interface
- MIDI input and/or playback device
- Printer
- Scanner
- Microphone required for use of MicNotator®
- A soundcard (including a DirectSound AS20 recommended driver) is required for playing the Garritan sounds in Windows.
- Better processor and hard drive speed is required for simultaneous use of more VST/AU instruments.
System requirements vary for additional products by Garritan and Native Instruments
|
Notation & Scoring
