ajjs

i just posted these on other threads, but Sonar and Finale are great together: http://www.youngcomposers.com/forum/hi-new-member-need-software-advice-5263.html#post69975 http://www.youngcomposers.com/forum/gpo-questions-4720.html#post69970

it is true that you get what you pay for. there are many version of EWQL at different price ranges. The more expensive ones are going to sound much better than GPO and have more flexibility.

I just got Finale 2007 and have been exporting my scores as .mid and then importing the .mid into Sonar, and assigning the separate tracks to the Miroslav Philharmonik orchestral plugin. The results are SO much better than GPO. EWQL comes in many flavors and also sounds fantastic, but to get the best results you'd probably want to the GOLD XP edition which is about $800, or twice the cost as Miroslav. (it probably sounds better than Miroslav in some areas, but for $400 Miroslav will give you plenty of great options)

Give it away to somebody who wouldn't have to ask that question.

This can definitely be done. I'm not sitting in front of Finale right now so can't remember off the top of my head, but you can do exactly what you describe in just a few clicks. Just lookup "key signature" in the index of the help PDF.

I don't think this is true from what i've read on other Finale forums. It can be very difficult or impossible for some VST orchestral plugins to work effectively in Finale 2007. A much more flexible option though is to export a Finale file as a .mid file with tracks separated, then import the .mid file into a real sequencing program like Sonar. Then you have immense control over your VSTis and can do anything you want. Finale really becomes dynamite when used in conjunction with other sequencing software like this.