Good morning everyone!

I recently acquired my Mac Powerbook Pro and
have loaded Sibelius and VDL2.  Kontakt II
was ordered from the Academic Superstore
and is on the way.  I have found the transition
from Finale 2006 to Sibelius to be a relatively
easy and pain-free process.  I suspect that is
an indirect endorsement of making the move from Finale
to Sibelius for all those who are asking themeselves
the question:  ";Should I make the switch?";

Now, my question:  At work I have a desktop PC, a DELL.
Can I set up Sibelius on that same computer along with the
Finale 2006 that is already in place and move easily between
the two programs without having to make changes, tweaks, etc.
to use either one with my VDL2?

I have years and years of Finale files and our arranger still
uses Sibelius.  Of course, maybe the answer is to just
convert those files into Sibelius files.  But, let's say I
take a Finale 2006 file and want to convert it into a Sibelius
fille--am I going to lose the VDL2 mappings?  Am I going to
have to re-enter any Finale file using the Sibelius template
to get it to play back correctly?

Any assistance anyone could provide would be greatly
appreciated.  Again, the move to Sibelius has been a
helpful one and it has many advantages and an
intuitiveness that has made my transition to it a
pleasant one, not to mention that I can play winds
and VDL2 at the same time!  Yeah!  I'll look forward
to your help!

Take care!
Neal

Neal Flum
Associate Director of Athletic Bands
The University of Alabama

The computer gods were smiling on me this morning.
I installed Sibelius 4.1 on my desktop PC.  It is
the same computer that already has Finale 2006
and VDL2 operating it.  I downloaded and opened
a Sibelius template from the Tapspace website and
was able to begin entering notes with the
corresponding sounds playing.  Well, I
should be accurate and write that I loaded my
sounds into the Kontakt player before engaging the
Sibelius VDL2 template.  Isn't it nice when things work
out well. For those of you who barely have your toe
in the Sibelius/VDL2 water--come on in.  Join us.
The swimming is good!  Thanks again for all of
your help and support, Jim!

Take care!
Neal

Neal Flum
Associate Director of Athletic Bands

[quote author=nflum link=topic=1154.msg4914#msg4914 date=1149551055]
Hello Jim,

Thank you for taking the time to respond.  One more
pertinent question, please:  Can I run both Sibelius and
Finale 2006 on my desktop DELL with the
VDL2 and move back and forth between the
notation programs without having to do a lot
of tweaking, adjusting (midi set-ups, maple midi, etc.)? 
I am hopeful that, eventually, I won't need Finale at all, but while
I am still in the transition phase between the two programs,
it might be ncessary to have both of them operational
on my desktop, if that's possible.  I'll look forward to
everyone's or anyone's assistance.

Take care!
Neal

Neal Flum
Associate Director of Athletic Bands
The University of Alabama
[/quote]

No problem Neal. Yes, running Sibelius and Finale on the same machine will not create any snags for you. The only thing you might consider ensuring is that you've UN-checked ";use finale's inter application ports"; in Finale's MIDI setup. If that's clicked, you'll see some Finale brand virtual midi cables appearing in your Sibelius devices window, which will just be confusing because they'd only appear if Finale's running. In most cases, I wouldn't think you'd need to run both programs simultaneously anyway, but just in case. Not a big deal.

The only differences when working from one machine to another are going to be the VMCs (virtual midi cables). On your Mac, you'll have the IAC Bus set as the default device in Sibelius, whereas it'd be Maple on your PC. The only challenge this may pose is that if you save a sibelius score on your PC, then transfer it to your mac, the next time you open the file, it won't ";see"; Maple (for example). You can account for this with the ";substitute devices"; window, and substitute IAC Driver for Maple.

Hope this helps!

Hello Jim,

Thank you for taking the time to respond.  One more
pertinent question, please:  Can I run both Sibelius and
Finale 2006 on my desktop DELL with the
VDL2 and move back and forth between the
notation programs without having to do a lot
of tweaking, adjusting (midi set-ups, maple midi, etc.)? 
I am hopeful that, eventually, I won't need Finale at all, but while
I am still in the transition phase between the two programs,
it might be ncessary to have both of them operational
on my desktop, if that's possible.  I'll look forward to
everyone's or anyone's assistance.

Take care!
Neal

Neal Flum
Associate Director of Athletic Bands
The University of Alabama

Hi Neal,

I regularly convert Finale 2006 files into Sibelius (primarily to import wind scores into a pre-existing Sibelius score). Here's the long and short of what I've learned.

1) The good news. You'll achieve the best results (in general) if you save your Finale file as a ";Music XML"; file (File>MusicXML>Export). This is much more accurate at retaining articulations, hairpins, dynamics, text, etc than the old ETF method. Once you've saved a version of your Finale file as a Music XML file, just select ";Open"; from Sibelius, and select that file. It will run through a series of conversions prior to opening the score, but is generally pretty speedy.

2) The bad news. Percussion results are less than desireable. Obviously, the proper Staff Types in Sibelius will not be in place in a freshly created file such as this. Unfortunately, applying those staff styles will have little effect since the noteheads imported (from the xml file) do not correspond to those setup in the Sibelius staff types. Sibelius staff types are reliant on an exact notehead being assigned in order to activate the correct midi pitch. So this aspect, I'm afraid, would take some cumbersome rebuilding.

The other thing I've noticed (and haven't quite figured out) is that when importing transposing instruments (such as trumpets, french horns, etc), you do have to activate an initial transposition setting in the newly created sibelius file. Otherwise, you won't have things playing back or displaying accurately. That's actually very easy to adjust. You just have to remember to do it.

There is a more advanced MusicXML plug-in (Dolet) that you can purchase from [url=http://www.recordare.com]Recordare[/url] who developed the MusicXML language. I've purchased the Sibelius one (since Sibelius doesn't incorporate this type of exporting), however I haven't tried the Finale one to see if it's more reliable than Finale's built-in capabilities in this department.

If you have lots of old Finale scores containing complex percussion mapping that you want to be able to access and retain, my best suggestion would be to leave them in that format. If you need to open them in the future, it'll cause the least amount of grey hairs if you just open those in Finale.

Hope this helps.

I haven't tried this but since it displays the notes in their original format before applying a template, couldn't you then copy and paste those notes into a sibelius template?

Would the corrected staff type recognize the note for its original value and then translate it into the modified version?

Its still a lot of work but this theoretically makes sense to me.

Neal,

From what I recall, you can save a Finale file as an ETF file, but when you open it in Sibelius, it won't map correctly.  It will play back correctly, but the notes would be where they are on the keyboard, not where they are mapped.

The only solution I've come up with so far is to re-enter each piece.  (talk about a pain in the butt)

Thank you, Eric!  I'll be curious to learn
what some of the more capable folks have to
share with us in response to my query.

Just for clarification:  I have a 17";
Powerbook G4.  It has 2 G of RAM.

Have a great day!
Neal

Neal Flum
Associate Director of Athletic Bands
The University of Alabama

Neal,

Switching to Sibelius was one of the best decisions I ever made. It sounds like you are really enjoying it!

If I'm up on my Finale, it seems like Sibelius is a lot more forgiving when it comes to using a file that was saved in Finale in Sibelius. I've done that a number of times, when I've wanted to work on an old Finale file in Sibelius. But I'm pretty sure you can't save a Sibelius file as a Finale file or Finale-readable file. And it only makes sense.

Unless something has changed, I don't think you can open Sibelius files in Finale and I'm 99% sure that you can't save a Finale file as a Sibelius file. Why would Finale want you to do that?!

As for VDL files being used in either platform, I don't know the answer and I'll be curious to see what other folks have as their responses. My hunch, though, is that if there are separate templates for separate platforms, then the staff types probably won't be compatible.

That's not to say that you couldn't try taking a Finale file (with VDL staves), opening it in Sibelius, then trying to change the staff types. It sounds like it could get pretty messy, and what's to say that a left hand attack in the snare drum will be ";mapped"; the same across platforms and staff types.

My guess is that it is possible, but maybe not less time intensive than just re-entering all of the notes. Of course, Jim will have better insight on this, but those are just my two cents.

Good luck!
ER