I am SO over how terrible the Garritan instrument pack is for Finale. I'm arranging for trombone choir and playback just sounds like trash, especially in the extreme upper and lower registers. Are there any instrument packs out ther for Finale that sound better/more realistic, or am I stuck buying (and learning) new notation software?

I believe all the new notation softwares support Kontakt. So you can use the free orchestra sound libraries that are out there, or go crazy with Vienna instruments. Everything in kontakt will sound better than garritan.

[quote="harrisonreed"]I believe all the new notation softwares support Kontakt. So you can use the free orchestra sound libraries that are out there, or go crazy with Vienna instruments. Everything in kontakt will sound better than garritan.[/quote]
Is this basically using the Kontact Player for audio playback instead of VST?

[quote="TexasTBone"]<QUOTE author="harrisonreed" post_id="154934" time="1628898249" user_id="3642">
I believe all the new notation softwares support Kontakt. So you can use the free orchestra sound libraries that are out there, or go crazy with Vienna instruments. Everything in kontakt will sound better than garritan.[/quote]
Is this basically using the Kontact Player for audio playback instead of VST?
</QUOTE>

Not quite, and I'm not sure if finale works the same as Sibelius. At least in Sibelius, you load the full version of Kontakt as a VST and Sibelius acts as a midi player piano that triggers the sounds in Kontakt. I think the free player also works this way, as a VST, but not as many libraries work with that free version. If you do a search for "free orchestral kontakt libraries" you'll find a decent number of libraries, including full orchestras with each instrument it section individually tracked and catalogued, but also stuff like Ivy's trombone library and drum library, which sound great. Also there is an unbelievable free pipe organ, the "Leeds organ" I believe. Seriously, it's good enough to use on a professional recording and it's free.

It's all a big pain in the rear to get running, but sounds great. The gold standard is of course Vienna Instruments, but last I checked it was $20000 to legitimately obtain "the cube" and access their full 500 terabyte library of sounds and articulations.

For the cost of Vienna Instruments, it's probably more cost effective to just find someone who has it and pay them on a per piece basis. The brass pack alone is $700, and that's not in my budget right now.

Yeah, there is a reason why many movies do not contain actual recordings of real orchestras in their sound tracks anymore.

I gotta go back and dig, I'll try to find you the free orchestra that sounds decent

I'd recommend to check out NotePerformer: [url]https://www.noteperformer.com/

I use Sibelius, but I'm 99% sure it works with Finale. About 10 years ago, I purchased the EastWest Quantum Leap sound libraries to make virtual mockups of my arrangements and compositions - and that took FOREVER (with all the key switches and modulations...) I came across NotePerformer by accident, and bought it for both of my computers. Since then, I haven't bothered using EWQL for mockups. The brass patches are pretty decent - not perfect of course, but they're not offensive like Finale or Sibelius sounds.

Here's an example if you want to have a listen- it's an arrangement of the National Anthem for trombone octet: [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REFuZE44rhU

Hope this helps!

Definitely Noteperformer 3. All the pieces on my YouTube page were made with Finale version 26 and Noteperformer 3. You can check them out to see how it sounds.

<LINK_TEXT text="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-lsq- ... A0_vsd-K3A">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-lsq-WoYVmM3A0_vsd-K3A</LINK_TEXT>

Steve Troy