I'm at a point where I am needing to do this some, and my first experience with this was more or less a bust. The Finale file was saved as an XML file and when I opened it in Sib 5, I wasn't even able to tell Sibelius to use the VDL template. Copying and pasting into a VDL template yielded a bunch of the wrong sounds -- didn't even sound like VDL sounds to me (General MIDI?).

The one thing I haven't tried is opening a MIDI file originally generated in Finale into Sibelius to see if that will work.

And, I definitely understand that nothing is going to be a flawless transition here, but I'd just like to get an idea of how much work this really should be versus what it was for me already.

Does anyone have any experience with this that can shed some light on the easiest workflow?

Thanks!

I've found that any no melodic percussion stuff never transfers from Finale to Sibelius, and have always had to just use a score to re-enter that sort of stuff.

What you could try is exporting the House Style from the VDL template, then import it to the XML file you're working with.  That way you'll have all of the instrument definitions in your new file.  From that point, it would be a simple matter of creating the VDL staves where needed.

When collaborating with wind arrangers, that is what I have done. That way, you at least get a relatively clean-looking wind score to start with. However, if thye are using the Jazz font from Finale, it won't transfer as well.

Was this sort of what you were looking for, or am I totally out in left field?

[quote author=Bryan Harmsen link=topic=3145.msg16602#msg16602 date=1244989269]

Was this sort of what you were looking for, or am I totally out in left field?
[/quote]

It's definitely the right idea. Now that I'm dabbling in wind arranging, I have a friend of mine helping me out with the battery parts. I do the wind parts in Sibelius, send it to him, he does the battery parts in Finale then sends it back. The idea is that I then infuse those parts into the original score, write the pit parts and [i]voila'[/i]: full band arrangement.

I'll try messing around with the House Style and see if I can get some better accuracy. I'm also hoping that the MIDI might give me some other options...

Due to the fact that things are mapped differently in Finale and Sibelius, you'll never get a clean transition from one to the other--I don't think.

May want to check out Dolet. A plug-in designed to translate Finale to Sibelius and vice versa.

http://www.recordare.com/sibelius/

Yikes! That's kinda pricey!

[quote author=erath link=topic=3145.msg16616#msg16616 date=1245091362]
Yikes! That's kinda pricey!
[/quote]

Yup.  If you collaborate a lot with Finale composers then it is well worth it.  You can also try and convince him to get Sibelius :) 

..or Finale which includes XML import/export for no additional costs.

:-)

[quote author=Cobybos link=topic=3145.msg16617#msg16617 date=1245092492]
[quote author=erath link=topic=3145.msg16616#msg16616 date=1245091362]
Yikes! That's kinda pricey!
[/quote]

Yup.  If you collaborate a lot with Finale composers then it is well worth it.  You can also try and convince him to get Sibelius :) 
[/quote]

And I've tried!

I'm slowly working on him to switch...

In fact, I've convinced a good number of friends of mine to switch to Sibelius and still haven't seen a 'thank you' check, err... card from Sibelius!