The End of Finale
August 26, 2024
Greg Dell'Era
The end of Finale
35 years ago, Coda Music Technologies, now MakeMusic, released the first version of Finale, a groundbreaking and user-centered approach to notation software. For over four decades, our engineers and product teams have passionately crafted what would quickly become the gold standard for music notation.
Four decades is a very long time in the software industry. Technology stacks change, Mac and Windows operating systems evolve, and Finale’s millions of lines of code add up. This has made the delivery of incremental value for our customers exponentially harder over time.
Today, Finale is no longer the future of the notation industry—a reality after 35 years, and I want to be candid about this. Instead of releasing new versions of Finale that would offer only marginal value to our users, we’ve made the decision to end its development.
Effective immediately, we are announcing these changes:
There will be no further updates to Finale, or any of its associated tools (PrintMusic, Notepad, Songwriter)
It is no longer possible to purchase or upgrade Finale in the MakeMusic eStore
Finale will continue to work on devices where it is currently installed (barring OS changes)
After one year, beginning August 2025, these changes will go into effect:
It will not be possible to authorize Finale on any new devices, or reauthorize Finale
Technical support for Finale v27 or any other version of Finale will no longer be available.
The end of Finale.
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- KVRAF
- 9110 posts since 28 Apr, 2013
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- KVRian
- 1115 posts since 6 Jul, 2009
For those with a Finale license, there is a very competitive crossgrade price to Dorico. I picked up a Dorico license about a year ago, it's great software, highly recommend taking advantage of the crossgrade.
"It has entered into an agreement with Steinberg Media Technologies, the Hamburg, Germany-based musical software and hardware company, endorsing a path for Finale users to obtain Dorico Pro at a heavily discounted price of $149. This special offer is available exclusively and directly from the MakeMusic online store, and requires the customer to log into their MakeMusic account and to be a registered user of Finale or Finale PrintMusic to complete the purchase. (Dorico Pro retails for $580 and the usual crossgrade price from a competing product is $300.) The offer is available immediately, and, according to MakeMusic, only for a limited time.
"It has entered into an agreement with Steinberg Media Technologies, the Hamburg, Germany-based musical software and hardware company, endorsing a path for Finale users to obtain Dorico Pro at a heavily discounted price of $149. This special offer is available exclusively and directly from the MakeMusic online store, and requires the customer to log into their MakeMusic account and to be a registered user of Finale or Finale PrintMusic to complete the purchase. (Dorico Pro retails for $580 and the usual crossgrade price from a competing product is $300.) The offer is available immediately, and, according to MakeMusic, only for a limited time.
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- KVRist
- 392 posts since 1 Jul, 2004
New updates:
"We've heard your concerns. They are valid. We originally announced that it would no longer be possible to reauthorize Finale after August 26th, 2025. But as a result of our community’s feedback, Finale authorization will remain active for the foreseeable future."
and
"We are currently working on a solution for all customers who have purchased or intend to purchase a Dorico Pro crossgrade to be able to download Finale v27. This will ensure that you can export your Finale files using MusicXML 4.0, the most robust version of MusicXML available."
"We've heard your concerns. They are valid. We originally announced that it would no longer be possible to reauthorize Finale after August 26th, 2025. But as a result of our community’s feedback, Finale authorization will remain active for the foreseeable future."
and
"We are currently working on a solution for all customers who have purchased or intend to purchase a Dorico Pro crossgrade to be able to download Finale v27. This will ensure that you can export your Finale files using MusicXML 4.0, the most robust version of MusicXML available."
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- KVRAF
- 2471 posts since 25 Sep, 2014 from Specific Northwest
If you're calling it quits, why kill auth servers when you can just put out a final update to work with serial number only? Why piss off all your faithful customers? I just don't get it...
I started on Logic 5 with a PowerBook G4 550Mhz. I now have a MacBook Air M1 and it's ~165x faster! So, why is my music not proportionally better? 
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- KVRian
- 948 posts since 25 Sep, 2014
Anything other than straight talk runs the risk of getting customer's hopes up that there is some "cheeky," "wink-wink" plan of reviving the software.
A... Finale Fantasy, if you will.
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- KVRAF
- 9560 posts since 6 Jan, 2017 from Outer Space
I vote for a law that forces software companies that end their service to remove drm and set it free…
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- KVRAF
- 7097 posts since 22 Jan, 2005 from Sweden
Around 2008 or so I talked to Finale folks, just having the Finale Guitar 2003 then, everybody was harassing Cakewalk to improve notation in Sonar and stuff.
- why don't you talk to daw people to integrate Finale notation code into their system?
- daws already have VST libraries support and whatnot
But they instead decided to double up with things in daws already, a lot of coding that daws already have.
We could have a daw with notation worth having, in my case Sonar. A bit like Melodyne that most daws have included nowadays.
At least they implemented the simplicity I showed from Sonar had for splitting bass clef and treble clef with a simple split note in v27, not there when I trialed v26. They refered to some overcomplicated plugin for that simple purpose that I never even succeded with.
- much more readable even if not doing grand piano stuff alone
- some library had cellos in left hand and violins in right and playing two hands was hard to read unless splitting staff.
Notion in StudioOne complicated this as well, you could only select if recording into Notion or midi track had to be named piano in StudioOne, or it was not possible to split clefs. Simplest things not possible.
At least good they backed down on just keeping authorization up for another year, so you can move to another computer is needed in future.
- why don't you talk to daw people to integrate Finale notation code into their system?
- daws already have VST libraries support and whatnot
But they instead decided to double up with things in daws already, a lot of coding that daws already have.
We could have a daw with notation worth having, in my case Sonar. A bit like Melodyne that most daws have included nowadays.
At least they implemented the simplicity I showed from Sonar had for splitting bass clef and treble clef with a simple split note in v27, not there when I trialed v26. They refered to some overcomplicated plugin for that simple purpose that I never even succeded with.
- much more readable even if not doing grand piano stuff alone
- some library had cellos in left hand and violins in right and playing two hands was hard to read unless splitting staff.
Notion in StudioOne complicated this as well, you could only select if recording into Notion or midi track had to be named piano in StudioOne, or it was not possible to split clefs. Simplest things not possible.
At least good they backed down on just keeping authorization up for another year, so you can move to another computer is needed in future.
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- KVRAF
- 2140 posts since 16 Jan, 2013 from USA
It's good they backtracked on the authorization. There's a lot of Finale users that don't deserve to be locked out of new hardware.
As to Notion no longer being needed, some prefer a pure notation environment rather than working from within a DAW with all its extraneous features.
As to Notion no longer being needed, some prefer a pure notation environment rather than working from within a DAW with all its extraneous features.
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Electric Mayhem Electric Mayhem https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=431668 - KVRist
- 70 posts since 12 Dec, 2018 from On the bus
I definitely won't be cross-grading to Dorico, I don't like it at all.
Doubly so because of all the guff that Steinberg insists must be installed for the program to actually run, even the free version.
I find it very odd that Make Music are giving away Finale licenses as part of the cross-grade.
So it will be a move over to Sibelius for me instead.
It always was a toss-up between Finale and Sibelius for me in the first place.
Doubly so because of all the guff that Steinberg insists must be installed for the program to actually run, even the free version.
I find it very odd that Make Music are giving away Finale licenses as part of the cross-grade.
So it will be a move over to Sibelius for me instead.
It always was a toss-up between Finale and Sibelius for me in the first place.
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- KVRAF
- 7097 posts since 22 Jan, 2005 from Sweden
Good to know, thanks.jamcat wrote: Fri Aug 30, 2024 7:21 pm But now Studio One Pro has excellent notation built-in, Notion no longer needed.
- if I would upgrade my 4.x some time
But did they fix to do simple grand piano staff as simple as in Sonar and Finale v27 once midi was there.
- image below from Sonar
- just pick a split note and done
- and readability doing anything two handed increase a lot
They really overcomplicated this in Notion 6.x and once imported midi you could not do that. Really weird.
- you could record having grand staff in Notion
- or midi from StudioOne needed to be called piano
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Artie Fichelle Artie Fichelle https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=49629
- KVRist
- 338 posts since 28 Nov, 2004
I switched to Dorico at an incredible price and got me cubase 13 at 70% discount. I have know a good production line and notation software.
I run all on Windows 11 now.
I run all on Windows 11 now.
artie fichelle sounds natural