Mouse-over each button to learn about its function.
Never before has Finale been so easy to learn. Besides a more intuitive interface, a broader range of short onscreen videos step you through most common functions of Finale. Easily access the videos from the Launch Window.
Setting-up your score — Get started fast
When creating a full score, a worksheet, quiz or even a dissertation, the easiest way to start is simply to open a pre-created template. Over 60 to choose from including SATB, Kodály, solfege and more.
 |
 |
|
| click on images for larger view |
Hear Your Music
Integrated Kontakt® Player and Garritan™ Sounds
Hear Your Music Come Alive with a Built-in Kontakt® Player and Garritan™ Professional Instruments
The Finale Edition of the highly acclaimed Garritan Personal Orchestra® includes more than 100 studio-quality sounds. Plus, hear your music with stunning realism thanks to the award-winning Kontakt Player.
AUTHENTIC
Garritan provides different players to fill the section realistically. Click for a complete list of sounds. |
 |
Listen to these orchestral excerpts showcasing the Garritan Personal Orchestra sounds included in Finale 2006:
 |
Capriccio Espagnole – Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
mp3 | wav |
|
Pictures at an Exhibition -- Modest Mussorgsky
mp3 | wav |
|
Symphony #9 -- Antonin Dvorak
mp3 | wav |
|
Brandenburg Concerto #3 -- Johann Sebastian Bach
mp3 | wav |
INTEGRATED
Kontakt® Player is automatically configured and loaded by Finale’s Setup Wizard. Simply click and play!
EXPANDABLE
Exciting libraries of additional instruments are available from Garritan and Native Instruments.®
Advanced Reverb Control – Finale 2006 makes intelligent reverb choices so you don’t have to. Those seeking more control, however, have it at their fingertips.
Windows XP or Macintosh OS 10.2 or higher required to use Garritan sounds in Finale 2006. Click here for complete system requirements.
Finale: Human Playback
New in Finale 2006 — Ultimate integration with the Garritan sounds included in Finale 2006 (including legato and specialized instrument techniques for harp, strings and percussion) and improved drum interpretation including rolls, diddles, and flams. Also includes expanded support for the full version of Garritan Personal Orchestra®.
Your music deserves to be heard with all the feeling, phrasing and nuance you felt when you wrote it. The new Human Playback feature will play your music as you would want it to be performed, even if you enter notes manually. And you can choose a variety of musical styles and customize the playback parameters, articulations, range,
and much more.
Listen to the difference:
-
Edit and save your preferences for Human Playback.
-
Combine, retain or overwrite existing MIDI data.
-
More custom settings — reverb room types, marching band options, support for Garritan Personal Orchestra, and more.
click on image for larger view
- Now you can apply discrete Human Playback styles to specific regions of your piece.
- Now you can edit the output of Human Playback with Finale's MIDI Tool.
|
click on image for larger view |
Finale 2006: SoundFont
New in Finale 2006 — SmartMusic Soundfont playback is expanded from 16 channels to 128. Plus, you can now combine playback of Row-Loff® Marching Percussion Sounds with standard SmartMusic SoundFont percussion.
Bring your music to life with the SmartMusic SoundFont®
You want your music to look good. Now it can also sound great with the addition of SmartMusic SoundFont, the same professional grade instrument sounds found in the award-winning SmartMusic Studio practice system. Add this to Finale’s new Human Playback and the results are astounding.
Save As An Audio File - MP3, .WAV, and .AIFF.
Now turn your Finale file into an audio CD! Press one button and save your Finale files into an audio format for recording onto an audio CD. Hear all the nuances of your music through the fabulous sound font from SmartMusic and our Human Playback feature.
Row-Loff® Marching Percussions Sounds
New in Finale 2006 — Combine playback of Row-Loff Marching Percussion Sounds with standard SoftSynth percussion.
Nothing extra to buy! Nothing extra to install! Sounds include: Bass Drums, Crash Cymbals, Snare Drum and Tenor Drums.
Marching bands rejoice! Check out the terrific new percussion sounds in Finale. From Row-Loff Productions — foremost in marching and concert percussion literature.
Download and listen to these two MP3 samples:
Sounds include:
Bass Drums: Five Drums plus Rims, Unison and Buzz Roll.
Crash Cymbals: Crash Choke, Hi Hat Choke, Open and Closed Hi Hat, Crash Cymbals, Cymbal Smash Ride Cymbal, Ride Cymbal Bell and Crash Cymbal with Stick.
Snare Drum: LH, LH Rim Shot, RH, RH Rim Shot, Gok (both hands, rim shot), Short Guz, Long Guz, LH Rim, RH Rim, Cross Shot, Stick Shot, Stick Click, and Buzz Roll.
Tenor Drums: Four Tenor Drums each with Rim Shot and Buzz Roll, plus Spock Drum, Spock Drum Rim Shot, Stick Click, High Rims and Low Rims.
Entering Notes
Simple Note Entry
The Need for Speed.
Quite simply, this tool has been transformed. Create music the way you do with paper and pencil – writing all the music as you go with one utensil. It is all the function of Simple Note as you knew it, plus the power of Speedy Note Entry, with additional control. It may become the way you get most things done in Finale.
Click notes onto the staff or use MIDI to indicate pitch. Or input notes with the numeric pad and keys ‘A’ ‘B’ ‘C’ ‘D’ ‘E’ ‘F’ and ‘G.’ Change octave. Enter rests. Add accidentals. Add notes in a chord to an existing note. Create triplets. Now add grace notes. Break and join beams.
But entering notes is just the start. 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. Change layers or create multiple voice lines on the staff as you write or edit.
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.
Scanning
No other notation program offers scanning as accurate as Finale, with its included SmartScore® Lite by Musitek®. Includes:
- Secondary voice recognition - counterpoint
- Correct transposed instrument recognition
- Multiple page scans
- Correct page formatting including system and staff sizes
- Up to 32nd note resolution
New to Finale 2006 — SmartScore Lite now recognizes grayscale images, simplifying the use of scanners, including HP models that save in this format.
Scanning is brought right to your fingertips in the new Launch Window. What's more, Windows users can now scan directly from Finale, and Finale determines the ideal resolution and color depth.
And Finale now imports scanned SmartScore 3.0 and SharpEye files, capturing notes, text, lyrics, chord symbols and more! (Currently Windows only. Uses FREE Music XML Lite plug-in to convert SharpEye files.)
Take a look for yourself.
Here's the original:
Scanned into Finale: Only 5 easy edits needed.
Another notation product using PhotoScore Lite™: 30 difficult edits needed:
These examples were scanned from original engraved music (no photocopies), using a Canon N670U scanner at 360 dpi. The scan for SmartScore Lite was a line art (black and white) tiff file, and the scan for Photoscore Lite was a grey scale, the preferred file type for Photoscore. Both images were untouched to enhance results. The Photoscore example was transferred, without edits, to the most current version of a competitor's product. The time to correct errors in the two examples- Finale, 10 seconds to add missing rests and tie necessary notes, hence the term 'easy edits' compared to the 2 minutes it took to add voice 2 notes, correct notes, change notes from voice 1 to 2 etc in the competitor's product, thus the term 'difficult' or time consuming edits.
Require more advanced scanning take a look at Sharpeye for Windows.
Hyperscribe
Notate as you play a MIDI keyboard — even 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 new generation of MicNotator is now much more accurate and even easier than ever before. Pick up your clarinet and start making music!
The example below is an unedited flute solo line played in at 90 bpm.
Composing and Arranging
Auto-arrange — Band-in-a-Box® Auto Harmonizing
Automatically transforms your melodies, creating up to 6-part hamonies in dozens of styles and voices. Thanks to a partnership with the makers of the popular Band-in-a-Box software, the incredible Auto Harmonizer is FREE with the purchase of Finale.
Rhythm Section Generator
Creates piano, bass and drum accompaniments for your melodies — instantly. Choose from four styles—Swing, Ballad, Bebop and Bossa Nova.
Drum Grove
We've got the beat.
Creating custom drum parts has never been easier. Select any region and apply a pre-created drum groove in the style and feel you want.
You can add to the list of available styles by placing any MIDI file into the Drum Groove folder. The plug-in intelligently copies only the drum and percussion information.
Smart Cue Notes
Never miss an entrance - Smart Cue Notes.
Give your performers an easier way to recognize their entrances after long multi-bar rests by having Finale automatically create cue notes. Tell Finale what decisions to use in creating cue note entrances, and it does all the work for you.
Smart Page Turns
Everyone’s on the same page - Smart Page Turns.
Getting the music aligned in individual parts for natural page turns used to take careful evaluation and a fair amount of re-positioning measures and staff systems. Now, just tell Finale what to consider, and it does the page turn formatting for you.
Plug Ins
Plug-ins let you add capabilities to Finale for specialized notation tasks. The following plug-ins are included in Finale 2006:
| Add Cue Notes on any staves in any layer at any percentage. |
| Apply Human Playback applies discrete Human Playback styles to specific regions of your piece, and allows you to edit the output of Human Playback with Finale's MIDI Tool. |
| Automatic Barlines can place double-barlines automatically before all key changes and a final barline at the end of the score. |
| Auto-Dynamic Placement automatically places dynamics on the score based on the key velocity of notes entered. |
Auto Slur Melismas 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!) |
| Band-in-a-Box Auto-Harmonizing lets you automatically create an entire orchestration from any melody with or without chord symbols. |
| Beam Over Barlines lets your easily create beams over barlines. |
| Canonic Utilities transforms the selected region using inversion, retrograde, transposition or any combination of these. Also use this plug-in to apply or remove accidentals to every note within a selected region and remove ties in any selected region. |
| Cautionary Accidentals can be added to your score including accidentals displayed on all notes. |
| Change Font allows global editing of text blocks, staff names, group names and lyrics. |
| Change Noteheads changes the noteheads of all the notes in the selected region. |
| Change to Default Whole Rests changes all the whole measure rests in the selected region to default rests. |
| Change to Real Whole Rests changes all the default measure rests in the selected region to real whole rests. |
| Check Range verifies the range of notes for selected instruments with settings for beginner, intermediate and advanced players. |
| Check Region for Durations checks the selected region for any measures that have too few or too many beats. |
| Classic Eighth Beams beam eighth notes together when using common time over the selected region. |
| Clear Lyric Positioning resets any changes you’ve made to your lyric baselines in the selected region. |
| Clear Measure # Positioning clears all measure number positioning in the selected region and sets it back to the default position. |
| Command Line allows for quick note entry by typing in specific text commands. |
Chord Analysis looks at your notes and generates chord names from the harmony, analyzing any number of staves across any region and placing chord symbols automatically according to your specifications. |
| Count Items displays a count of various items in your score such as measures, notes and articulations. |
| Create Coda System automatically creates a separate Coda section and adjusts the layout, with space before the coda, text, symbols, and properly configured playback. |
| Create Tempo Markings is an easy way to make tempo markings that also affect playback. |
| Cross Staff plug-in moves notes across staves with a single keystroke. |
| Drum Groove. Add drum parts to your score — add more by simply placing any MIDI file in the drum groove folder — the plug-in intelligently cuts and pastes ONLY the drum and percussion information. |
| Easy Measure Numbers easily places measure numbers over a region of the score. |
| Extract Lyrics lets you save your lyrics to a text file and share. (Windows only) |
| FinaleScript. Apply a change or series of changes using many of Finale’s features and options to a single Finale document, or batch process multiple Finale documents at once. |
| Find Range finds the highest and lowest notes in the selected region. |
| Global Staff/Group Attributes applies the same staff or group attributes to any staves or groups. |
| MiBAC Jazz Rhythm Section Generator can create piano, bass and drum set accompaniment parts for any melody with chord symbols automatically. |
| Midline Stem Direction changes the stem direction of notes on the middle staff line to follow the direction of the melodic line. |
| Mid-Measure Repeats makes it easy to put a repeat in the middle of a measure, without impacting measure numbering. |
| Move Rests moves rests in the selected region to a different vertical position. |
| Number Repeated Measures places numbers over measures that are repeated again and again. |
| Patterson Beams applies additional beaming options for the most elegant beams imaginable. |
| Piano Reduction creates a piano reduction of the selected staves. |
| Resize Noteheads can resize regions of notes including any specific voices within a staff making it easy to notate harmonization. |
| Rhythmic Subdivision changes the selected region to eighth notes, or divides all your notes in half. |
| Score System Divider automatically inserts or removes system separation marks between staff systems on the same page. |
| Smart Cue Notes. Search an entire score for cue note opportunities, and add them automatically. |
| Smart Page Turns. Tell Finale to intelligently edit the layout of an entire part to avoid awkward page turns. |
| Split Measure automates the process of splitting a measure across two systems, right down to the proper flow of measure numbers. |
| Split Point. This plug-in lets you reset the split point between two staves in the selected region. |
| Staff Set-up places selected instruments automatically adding appropriate clef, transposition and instrument name. |
| Text Search and Replace lets you search and replace text items or phrases. |
| TGTools lets you align/move dynamics; add easy string harmonics fast; create tremolos for display and playback; write your own script to automate common tasks; and add a playback effect to glissandi, hairpins, and trills; the ability to specify a different split point for selected regions (or automatically analyze your music and make intelligent split point decisions); easily create parts from staves in which multiple instruments have been notated; and automatically minimize rests by expanding preceding notes. New in Finale 2006 is the ability to automatically generate a "handbells used" chart. |
| Voice 2 to Layer moves Voice 2 entries to the selected layer. |
| Word Extensions is a very easy way to add or remove word extensions to or from your lyrics. |
| Also: Flat Beams (Add/Remove) Ledger Lines (Hide/Show) Notes and Rests (Hide/Show) Slash Flagged Grace Notes (Add/Remove) |
Point, Click, Edit
Selection Tool
A feature that new users love and many experienced users haven’t discovered, Selection Tool allows you to click on virtually anything: note, articulation, clef, smart shape, chord, lyric, text block or tempo marking so you can move, edit or delete as you choose. Point. Click. Edit. It’s that easy.
Expression Customization
Creating tempo markings (like quarter note = 120) in Finale is easy and now you can edit them just as easily. Many options for expressions have also been added, permitting alignment based on either measure or note.
Contextual Menus
New in Finale 2006 — Key Signature and Mass Edit Contextual Menus
Contextual Menus provide a wide range of editing features in a pop-up menu when Windows® users right-click and Macintosh® users control-click. Here’s one example: click the staff tool to select some music. Right-click or control-click and you get a menu of choices for turning the selected music into a one-line staff, blank staff, slash or rhythmic notation, 1- or 5-line percussion staff, and more. Even customize your own staff style. Most tools in Finale now have this great method of instant editing.
Multiple UNDO's
Forgiveness is a wonderful trait in a musical partner and so we added it to Finale. Now you can undo any number of your last moves in the current session—even past the point that you saved the document. Applies to all actions including
plug-ins.
Educator Tools
Studio View™ & Powerful Mixer
Introducing Studio View,™ a Revolutionary New Way to Experiment with Musical Ideas
Finale 2006 integrates key sequencer features with the groundbreaking Studio View. Now it’s easy to create, evaluate, and shape your ideas into songs, arrangements, and compositions.
INTEGRATED SEQUENCER CONTROLS
Integrated controls for each staff enable you to set volume, panning, and patch as well as choose to mute, solo, or record. Adjust parameters for all staves – in real time – with the powerful new mixer.
STANDARD MUSIC NOTATION
Build compositions track by track in Studio View’s multi-track recording environment. Because everything appears in standard music notation, there’s no need for separate sequencing software that uses complex computer symbols. As before, MIDI data can be easily edited.
ALL-IN-ONE
Finale 2006 has it all: professional notation and key sequencer features for creating in multi-track environments.
Mid-Measure Playback Controls offer more detailed feedback and the ability to resume your playback right where you stopped or anywhere you want.
Revolutionary Tools for
Teaching Composition and Arranging
Sculpting Musical Compositions
Composing in Studio View is a lot like sculpting: Students build a composition by adding to it piece by piece, line by line. Experimentation is fast, easy, and always performed in standard music notation. Changing, modifying, and improving the work is possible because Finale 2006 empowers students to make creative choices.
Unlock the Possibilities for Composition Students
with New Studio View
With Studio View in Finale 2006, students work in standard music notation at all times. There is no need to switch to separate sequencing software or learn complex computer symbols. With Finale 2006, students compose, learn, and notate all at once. Then they can print the results as engraver-quality sheet music.
How does it work?
Studio View puts power at students’ fingertips, allowing them to shape compositions right before their eyes and ears. Click the steps below for examples:
.gif){kind=small}
