Chapter 4. Listen

Before Finale’s sonoric revolution, countless phone calls to MakeMusic technical support revolved around the subject of playback. The main question being, “How do I make it sound pretty?” An honest response? “Find a good ensemble.” Somehow users couldn’t appreciate the unique tinny timbre of the Microsoft Wavetable Synth or the Macintosh internal speaker.

In the early years, an expensive sound module was really the key to quality playback from Finale. Then, the SmartMusic SoftSynth SoundFont and Human Playback ushered in the first wave leading to what you could consider a somewhat realistic synthesized performance.