I reached out to Daniel Spreadbury, the Product Advertising and marketing Supervisor for Dorico, and requested concerning the strategy of transferring from Finale to MusicXML. Daniel had some recommendation, which is listed under (and had already been shared on a Finale consumer’s group).
I additionally seen that Dorico has already positioned some Finale to Dorico movies on their YouTube Channel. Logically, they knew this was taking place as MakeMusic Cloud instructed that Finale customers migrate to Dorico.
I could also be oversimplifying Daniel’s response, however Dorico can’t learn Finale MUS or MUSX information as a result of these information merely comprise the knowledge they should make a rating work in Finale, not all of the points that may be wanted for an additional program to decode them.
Nonetheless, Dorico can learn MusicXML information comparatively nicely, although there could also be some enhancing required (see the linked video under).
Daniel did counsel one technique of bulk conversion—which Finale customers with a big library of MUS or MUSX information might want to do earlier than their present model of Finale stops working—straight from Finale.
You go to File > Export > Translate Folder to MusicXML. The batch course of embedded in Finale can deal with subfolders, so that you set it to a grasp folder, and let it work its approach by.
Nonetheless, as you’re seemingly making a transfer and by no means opening a Finale file once more, I might counsel transferring all of your MUS and MUSX information to 1 folder earlier than beginning the method, letting your laptop do the work, after which again up your new MusicXML information someplace.
It’s good that that is an choice, and great that Dorico is being extremely supportive of recent customers to their software.
I’ll enter three quick additions to this publish.
First, I’ve discovered that the strategy above doesn’t work for sub folders, and that’s okay. I simply transformed greater than 1800 of my Finale Information (ones that I created) to MusicXML information.
Second, I discovered my oldest dwelling rating, which is a partial draft of the “Yo Yo March,” which I might have been engaged on for my junior yr in school in 1994. It isn’t superb, and it isn’t full, and it is among the few works that I saved from that point. However that’s 30 years in the past (yikes). So, Finale has been in my life, albeit distantly, for the previous 30 plus years…greater than 1/2 my life. So the discontinuance of Finale is a bit like dropping an outdated good friend.
Third, I did resolve to purchase Dorico on the cross grade worth. It’s odd that you simply pay MakeMusic (about $158 with taxes) to get Dorico, as an alternative of paying Dorico immediately, however contemplating that you simply can’t buy Dorico that inexpensively whilst an educator—its a kind of issues that you simply simply go and do. As the longer term continues, I’ll positively proceed to make use of Notion and maintain dabbling with MuseScore (it does coloured notes, like Boomwhackers, which is essential for my present place)…however I’m additionally going to maneuver forward with Dorico, which I’ve loosely performed with—however now that is proof that it’s time to actually get going with it.
