Yes and no.
You could do the following things:
Quit other programs which are running at the same time.
Use less AU instruments or FX plugins.
Normally I would recommend using a higher buffer size for the audio driver, but unfortunately this doesn't seem to be possible with Finale for Mac. I'm already in contact with MakeMusic about this matter.

Best,
Andi

@Mark Lortz said:

Do you know of customers that are using VSL with Finale 2009 successfully to write orchestral scores?

I use Finale for composing orchestral and chamber music and I also own Vienna SE. I bought Vienna a year ago but haven't been able to use it until very recently when I upgraded to a 2x2.8ghz Mac Pro 8-core (6 GB RAM).

Not many people are aware that the latest versions of Finale have become extremely CPU intensive. (Playing back a blank score can use as much as 50% of CPU on a G5) My previous computer was a PowerMac G5 2x2 ghz dualcore with 4.5 GB RAM and though this machine could play 25-30 GPO instruments without any problems it could only playback 4-5 Vienna instruments without pops and clicks.

@Mark Lortz said:

Are you able to have the VSL sounds be that way or do you have to do a good bit of tweaking?

Hi Mark,

as I mentioned in my earlier post I have just started to use VSL again with Finale (I did some simulations with VSL in Logic last year but that's pretty much what I have used VSL for so far).

Regarding "plug and play": I'm afraid we will never see a software library that won't need tweaking in Finale. There are two many ways to notate similar things. The more sophisticated libraries such as VSL are not designed to to work with notation to start with. Another thing to consider is that though VSL does supply HP prefs for Finale (thanks a lot Andie!) most VSL/notation users are using Sibelus (including Andie from VSL). Wether we like it or not we Finale-users are more or less Beta-testers for VSL. Hopefully we can combine our efforts during time to come but at the moment we are "pioneers" is this area of Finale...

To be more precise: At the moment I seem to get a decent result with Finale and VSL using the VSL HP prefs (you can download them from the VSL site). It's not fantastic but it's ok. The overal impression is better than GPO (for instance) but there are moments when I get strange playback results with VSL. I just discovered some oddities with playback of timpani (I will get back to you Andie about this!) but I think I know how to solve this particular problem. It's most likely I will encounter more things like this during the coming months. I will try to post my results here and contact Andie as often as I have time.

Hope this helps

Albert

@Another User said:

Are you working with Finale for the final product or exporting to a sequencing type program and tweaking the sounds from there?

My "final product" is always a score and I always write for living musicians or orchestras. When I have finished a work I just send it as a pdf-file to my publisher and then my work is done. Playback is a nice feature but not essential for me. From time to time I have been asked by conductors or soloists if I could supply a computer simulation of my work (usually if it's a premiere performance and I don't have a "real" recording of the piece). What I do is this:

- I disable HP and then apply the HP plugin on the whole piece (be sure to choose the VSL HP prefs when doing this).

- I save this as a midi file.

- Open the midi file in Logic and then start tweaking...

If it's just a fragment of the piece and Finale is playing it ok I just save it as an audio file directly from Finale.

/Albert

@Mark Lortz said:

Have you ever considered switching to Sibelius.

Not since Finale 2007... 😊 (that must have been the buggiest version of Finale, ever! It was driving me nuts with crashes three times a day etc..) On the serious side, no, I haven't considered switching. The main reason is that I have been using with Finale since 1994 (I've been working full time as a composer since 2000) so I know this program well. The other reason is that I still believe that Finale is somewhat more adjustable when it comes to notation and layout. Finale is maybe harder to learn but Sibelius is known to "think" for you and I don't want that. The quality of my "notated" end product will always be more important for me than playback. That's why I'm sticking with Finale.

Albert