QuickTime

QuickTime, included with Mac OS X, can be used for playback in Finale. Finale’s General MIDI Sound Font is compatible with QuickTime. The QuickTime Musical Instruments file includes some of the sounds listed in the General MIDI patch table.

Limitations of QuickTime playback

When using QuickTime playback, Finale has no way to ensure that QuickTime playback is fully synchronized to its recording functions. This is because Finale sends information to QuickTime and the Apple Sound Manager, which plays the information according to its own internal timing.

Here are a few specific issues you should be aware of when using QuickTime playback with Finale.

  • You won’t be able to use “Scrub”-playback, the Play command in the MIDI tool menu, or HyperScribe with “Playback With Staves”.
  • If you use the scrolling playback feature, the screen display and the playback may get out of sync.
  • If you want a patch to change during playback (using the MIDI tool or the Expression tool), you’ll need to set up that patch in the ScoreManager. Unless you do this, Finale won’t make the patch change. This is because Finale sets up instruments in QuickTime based only on the ScoreManager, not by scanning your document for patch changes.
  • Because Finale sets up a one-to-one relationship between a patch and its channel (meaning that two patches can’t share a channel), normally you have up to 64 channels available for playback, with up to 64 different patches. Using QuickTime, you can play up to 29 different sounds at one time (not including percussion).