IMHO, if you want a good mp3 from Finale export it as a wav (or whatever Mac calls it). Then use Audacity to convert it to a mp3. Better yet you can use Audacity to enhance the mp3 way better than anything Finale has. Audacity is free!

BTW, if you don't already have them beside Audacity you need Note Performer 4, and further, the JW plug-ins that ship with Finale 27 along with Perfect Layout. They are in my opinion mandatory. A few lua scripts, too.

Thanks Ernest, but I'm not trying to make a commercial-quality recording that sounds like live players. I just need something to share with some people so they get the gist, and I need trombones to sound like trombones—even clearly digital ones—rather than a piano with hi-hat. As I said, previous MP3 and AIFF exports have been fine for my purposes, and even a current export from a different file works. I just need to know why a specific file is exporting the wrong sounds and was hoping for some suggestions to rectify that. 

Fritz,

I don't spend any addition time making an mp3 just export from Finale and have Audacity make the mp3. A couple clicks is all. Now if you wish to, Audacity has tons on settings you can tweak.

This is straight from Finale and to Audacity for the mp3. No editing or tweaking done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmLzU9YgIAk 

It is so easy and it is free except for Note Performer 4.

Ok, you are doing something wrong but you've not given us enough information to go on other than you are on a Mac. If you are exporting AU instruments, then you have selected them. If following the exact steps outlined in the User Manual doesn't pinpont your error, then please post your exact steps in order. You can illustrate them with screen shots (Shift Command 4 will bring up a cursor that you drag across the area you want us to see — release and a picture will show on your desktop) if that will help. 

If you ran both installers, you have GIFF (Garritan Instruments for Finale) and the ARIA Player installed. Learn how to use them and this won't happen again. There are instructions and tutorials that you can access from within Finale as well as a ton of videos on YouTube.

I can tell you that it's a bad idea to export audio from Finale other than as a .wav file on a Mac. There's a long-standing bug (Finale or Apple? each blames the other) that can mess up Core Audio and AppleMusic if you export as .aif till you force-quit and reboot. To my knowledge, it's never been fixed. This has absolutely nothing to do with finding the wrong instruments.

Mac users do not need any 3rd party app to convert to mp3. QuickTime and iTunes/Apple Music can do this and are part of the macOS for the last 20 years, perhaps longer.

Hello Fritz!

RE: Finale export to audio file playing back as piano sounds, or other random sounds.

Finale is doing exactly the same thing for me. I've been using Finale for 32 years. I've had NUMEROUS exporting issues with Finale, but never this one.

For Mike Halloran...  I'm on a Mac OS X 13.0.1. I'm playing through MIDI (under the MIDI/Audio menu). I'm using SmartMusic SoftSynth 1 for every channel. I'm playing back a marching band chart that I just wrote, and trying to export for a director to listen to and play for his kids. Everything is set up perfectly in Score Manager. All 16 channels are correctly assigned to each instrument, and no two instruments are sharing the same channel.

Human Playback is set to None. I don't use it ever. It always causes more problems than it solves.

Again, the playback is perfect. Everything sounds as it should. Articulations and dynamics track perfectly. But, when exported, the sounds all become piano sounds.

Any help is appreciated!! - Joe Murphy

Hi Fritz,

I concur with Ernie about the sound libraries.

They do make a significant difference--for the better.
:-)
Vanessa

Hi Joe Murphy,

It's been a couple of months since I had this problem, and I don't recall every step I took and what resulted, but the upshot for me was that rather than seeking more community help and hearing what third-party software is mandatory when it never was before, I contacted MakeMusic technical help. It was suggested that I export xml from the problem file (all other finale files exported MP3, AIFF, and WAV with the expected sounds) and import it back into that file. After doing that, the playback and export sounds were good, but the fonts and layout had been changed, as I recall. So you might try that as a start. As I recall, importing the xml may have created an "untitled" file, and I saved it with a new name to preserve the original file. 

—Fritz

Mac users do not need any 3rd party app to convert to mp3.

Besides the point MikeH. The fact is you need something besides Finale to get the better sound. QT is not even in the same zip code as Audacity, don't know about iTunes but I doubt it.  That is, if you want to go further than just the basic enhancements.

It's been a couple of months since I had this problem ...

Fritz,

Does that mean it was just a one off occurrence? It isn't happening any more? Not that it really means anything but I have never seen your problem or even heard of anyone having it. That makes it more difficult to figure out a solution or a why it happened.

Finale is doing exactly the same thing for me ...

Joe,

Does that mean Finale does it every time? Always happens? Both of you are using Mac's.