Normally I use the rack type column to indicate to the company the type of rack. We do this process manually and we have our own system. I do not understand why if I change an effect (for example mine red for mine green) the information in this previously assigned column disappears.    

Hi Bryan, check out Site layout diagrams basic instructions.   Site layouts are only available in the Pro version of Finale 3D. You can have to sets of safety circles on a site layout — effect based safety circles and position based safety circles.   • The effect safety distances are entered in the Safety Distance Meters column of the effects window. The column is hidden by default so you’ll have to unhide it using the blue gear menu.   • The position safety distances are entered in the Safety Distance Meters column of the positions window.   • To view the site layout, go to the racks window and select All Positions from the drop-down list in the upper right. The Window settings option in the upper left corner of the racks window contains the options for how the circles are displayed.

Hello Drew, While we were at Cobra-Con you showed me how to do this, but I am trying to recall how we set than up and edited the effects fallout distances and the position fallout distances. I am looking in Effects, Positions, and rack settings and I cannot find where I can get the site layout. Can you walk me through this again? Sorry for my poor memory.   Thanks bryan

  Curtis B wrote: Another feature that would be cool to see would to have separate volume control over the soundtrack and the effects. I like to add a “pop” as the launch sound of my single shots so I know if they align with the soundtrack but would prefer not to have to make those pops “big” as that would take away from some of the song. Having the ability to control the volume of the soundtrack and effects separately would help alleviate this need as you could lower the soundtrack volume without creating a “special” soundtrack just to use in Finale.   Hi Curtis B, all versions of Finale 3D have this feature. Just go to File > Render settings and look for the setting titled Effect audio volume and Song audio volume.

Thanks for the answer, I am currently on a M1 air with 16gb of ram. at this stage I am doing pretty basic designs and definitely nothing larger than pyrojam.

Another feature that would be cool to see would to have separate volume control over the soundtrack and the effects. I like to add a “pop” as the launch sound of my single shots so I know if they align with the soundtrack but would prefer not to have to make those pops “big” as that would take away from some of the song. Having the ability to control the volume of the soundtrack and effects separately would help alleviate this need as you could lower the soundtrack volume without creating a “special” soundtrack just to use in Finale.

That’s odd… I liked having it to help scripting a little easier. Thanks for the clarification!

Hi Curtis B, sorry for the confusion. Snapping events/cues to the playhead is a Hobbyist/Pro feature. The user setting never existing in the Lite version. The feature was originally enabled in Lite but we got some feedback that the behavior wasn’t preferred so we decided to disable it.

Hi Jamie,   i think it depends on which macbook air you are running – an M1, M2, M3 or even an older Intel besed one ? I peronally run Finale on an M1 Pro with 16GB of RAM . The speed is good enought to script small to mid size shows (like Pyrojam) without a lot of 3d Models. For me this is enough because most of the time i do support issues with addressing and racks so i am fine with this excellent computer ! Because i also do some Finale videos this is he richt laptop for me because you never heard the fans 😉 But i will switch to a M4 Pro as soon as it is available to be prepared for the future. A lot of my customers ask me if a mac is a good choice for finale. It is hard to give. a general answer here because it really depends on the shows you are scripting.   I thougt we should share a kind of demo show and users should answer how much time their pc or laptop need to render this show. So we got a first impression about the finale speed of a computer . Dirk

Hello, I am very new to Finale and just doing this as a hobby. trying to get this working on my macbook air.   I have it running via parallels. It runs but is a bit choppy on default settings. I can change the render settings to get it to be fairly smooth but I give up a lot of resolution in doing so.   Just curious if anyone has any luck running Finale 3D on mac laptops? If so, what hardware stats do you have?   May look at upgrading sooner than later.  An air would be ideal but interested to hear about pros as well.   Thanks, Jamie