If you’re working with a very notationally dense score, you may at times find that your computer gets overwhelmed by the amount of MIDI data it’s asked to play.
If you experience erratic playback with SoftSynth defined as your output device in MIDI Setup, and are using a machine with a dual processors or hyper threading capability, set Finale to run on a single CPU. To do this, press CTRL+Alt+Delete and then select Task Manager. Choose the Processes tab, right click “Finale.exe” and choose Set Affinity. Then, ensure only one CPU is selected. Click OK, close out of the Task Manager, and the erratic playback problem should be resolved. If your score has many chords, consider using the MIDI tool’s Randomize command to offset the note attacks (Start Times) slightly from each other—not enough to hear, but enough so that your MIDI system doesn’t have to handle many notes being struck precisely together. See MIDI Tool menu.
If you notice Finale missing notes or instruments during playback, Garritan Personal Orchestra may be exhausting your computer’s resources. You can disable GPO at any time by unchecking Play Finale through VST under the MIDI/Audio menu. To use Finale’s internal SmartMusic SoftSynth, choose MIDI/Audio > Device Setup > MIDI Setup, select SmartMusic Softsynth from the MIDI Out Device drop-down menu, and click OK.
