Has anyone purchased Finale 2006 yet?
And if you have, is it compatible with VDL2?
The 2006 version comes with Kontakt Player
and something named Garritan Professional Instruments.
Before I upgrade and have to engage another
learning curve of new items, I'd like to see if
anyone has put together Finale 2006 with
VDL2.  I look forward to your responses.

Thanks!
NHF

Neal,

To the best of my knowledge, Finale 2006 has not yet begun shipping. I have purchased the upgrade, but the Coda site says shipping in July. As far as being compatible with VDL2, I don't anticipate any major issues. Once it arrives in the mail I'll let everyone know how things develop.


Ted

True - Finale 2006 hasn't yet begun shipping as of yet, but will be soon from what I've heard. For VDL2 users, one of the coolest new features of this program is that it will allow you to host VDL2 directly in Finale. Essentially, Finale 2006 will be compatible to host nearly all Native Instruments VST/AU players, which includes Virtual Drumline 2. For more info, see:
http://www.finalemusic.com/finale/features/new/nativeinstruments.aspx

Neal, this may affect the way you currently setup your Finale 2004 configuration to work with VDL2, but it should most definitely be a positive change as now you'll have all your VDL2 stuff contained within each Finale file, and won't have the added step of configuring virtual midi cables, etc. Should be very cool for Finale folks!

FWIW,

I got an email notification from Coda that Finale 2006 is shipping and I should recieve my copy Wednesday or Thursday. I'll post a review after I've had a chance to play with the program.


Ted

First impressions,

1) Coda is trying real hard to match Sibelius with a ";Mixer View";. Basically it is like the mixer in Sibelius, you can change instrument assignments, set volume and panning for individual instruments and master volume. There is an 'Ambience' plug which allows you set reverb.

2) The Kontakt GPO player is a nice addition and you CAN use VDL2 as a plug-in with Finale 2006. This is instead of stand alone with some type of virtual midi cable. As a matter of interest, you can use any Native Instrument AU as a plugin. This allows for 128 midi channels. The drawbacks are that when using the NI plugs Finale will not playback through any hardware devices. How this will work in Windows will be interesting to see, I'm using Mac OS X.3.9. The following NI programs appeared as devices: Absynth, VDL2, Kontakt and Battery, all of which I have installed. Reason, which I also have, did not appear in the list which makes sense because it is not an AU device but Rewire.

My only real complaint/whine at the present is that the GPO player doesn't include saxes. Fat lot of good that does someone scoring for band, wind ensemble or jazz ensemble.

I'll post back in a couple of days after I really try and break it.


Ted

Ted,
Thanks for the early report on Finale 2006! Hosting VDL2 as a VST/AU directly within Finale will be a welcome feature for sure!!!

Ted,

You've now discovered my frustration with every popular wind library, they are orchestral libraries with no saxophones.  I have yet to find a good sax library that isn't grossly over priced.

I have heard complaints about Finale 2006 erasing people's address books.  I have been away from interenet access, so I didn't realize that it erased mine until today.  What's up with that? Is there a way to recover it?

[quote author=drumcorpbc link=topic=742.msg2872#msg2872 date=1122500754]
Ted,

You've now discovered my frustration with every popular wind library, they are orchestral libraries with no saxophones.�� I have yet to find a good sax library that isn't grossly over priced.
[/quote]

Good luck even finding a ";good"; sounding MIDI sax....That's one of the worst sounding instruments, next to guitar for MIDI.

[quote author=jimdrum66 link=topic=742.msg2942#msg2942 date=1122862386]
I have heard complaints about Finale 2006 erasing people's address books.�� I have been away from interenet access, so I didn't realize that it erased mine until today.�� What's up with that? Is there a way to recover it?
[/quote]

I would go to the Finale forums for more information. My understanding is that this only caused problems with people using OS X.4, Tiger. I'm still using .3.9 and did not have any difficulties with the address book. My Alesis QSR is a whole other story, see my posts in the FIN-MAC forum under external sound module playback problem.


Ted Boliske

[quote author=drumcorpbc link=topic=742.msg2872#msg2872 date=1122500754]
Ted,

You've now discovered my frustration with every popular wind library, they are orchestral libraries with no saxophones.�� I have yet to find a good sax library that isn't grossly over priced.
[/quote]

I believe that GPO will be coming out with a jazz library very soon, and I'm told the GPO advanced library, due out late 2005, will have classical saxes and euphonium for us band geeks.

I'd like to be able to see VDL Instruments in the Set-up wizard, as I can with GPO and GPO Finale.  I think there must be a AU txt file needed.  Anyone know for sure?

[quote author=nflum link=topic=742.msg2847#msg2847 date=1122240224]

Has anyone purchased Finale 2006 yet?
And if you have, is it compatible with VDL2?
The 2006 version comes with Kontakt Player
and something named Garritan Professional Instruments.
Before I upgrade and have to engage another
learning curve of new items, I'd like to see if
anyone has put together Finale 2006 with
VDL2.�� I look forward to your responses.

Thanks!
NHF
[/quote]

I have both Finale2006 and the full version of GPO.  I also have VDL2.  I am able to get it to work in Finale with little problem at all, although I'd like to see it in the set-up wizard.  The problem for now is that GPO does not have all of the instruments I need (no saxes or euphonium).  They will soon come out with additional instruments, and I am also interested in what saxophone4 comes out with, especially if it uses Kontakt.  The problem here is that you cannot mix the MakeMusic SoundSynth with the NI instruments, or at least I have not yet discovered how to. (I just got VDL2 yesterday!) I could write great percussion scores, but cannot yet mix with the winds I need.

[quote author=Dave Hoffman link=topic=742.msg2978#msg2978 date=1123186068]
I have both Finale2006 and the full version of GPO.  I also have VDL2.  I am able to get it to work in Finale with little problem at all, although I'd like to see it in the set-up wizard.  The problem for now is that GPO does not have all of the instruments I need (no saxes or euphonium).  They will soon come out with additional instruments, and I am also interested in what saxophone4 comes out with, especially if it uses Kontakt.  The problem here is that you cannot mix the MakeMusic SoundSynth with the NI instruments, or at least I have not yet discovered how to. (I just got VDL2 yesterday!) I could write great percussion scores, but cannot yet mix with the winds I need.
[/quote]

You may consider upgrading to Kontakt 2. It will load instruments from VDL2 as well as GPO, and you could use it to import the [b]synthgms.sf2[/b] file which is basically the GM soundfont that comes with Finale. Doing it that way, you'd simply be running it via an NI plug-in, rather than via Finale's SoundSynth.

Another benefit to using K2 is that each it will allow for more channel outputs than the Kontakt Player which only allows 8 channels per instance.

We'll definitely look at offering some files that can assist Finale's setup wizard in the future.

Thanks, Jim!!