I have Finale 2007c with Virtual Drumline 2.5 running as a plugin. Since I am using an Imac running OSX 10.5 I cannot export an .mp3 or an .aiff. When I try to do so, I get a message that says ";Cannot preform action because File may be in use by another program. I looked at the Finale Mac user forum and it said that Finale cannot export soft synth sounds when Finale 2008a or later is run on OSX 10.5. Since I am using the samples from VDL not the soft synth, it may be possible for me to some how export raw midi and convert it in another program like Audacity and LAME or, possibly just save as an .mp3? Anyone found a way around that compatibility issue with OSX 10.5 and Finale 2008a and earlier? Any feed back would be very welcome.

Thanks,
-Hef

For SoftSynth sounds, this was a known error in 2008a and *earlier* -2008b and later should work fine if I remember right. Are you sure that when you go to the Midi Menu ";Play Finale Through AU"; is checked?  If it is, and you are sure that you are only using VDL sounds when you go to Midi-->Instrument Setup..., have you restarted your Mac recently? 

It sounds like upgrading to a version of Finale 2008b or later would feasibly solve the problem. Once you've output as an AIFF, you can convert it to an MP3 using iTunes.

If you don't want to update your Finale yet, you may want to look at audio utility programs like Wiretap or Audio Hijack which can record the sound coming from various sources on your computer. They're not free (like Audacity), but work well for that sort of thing.

Plus you will avoid a number of potential issues down the road, such as the program crashing and preference file corruption.

Since the update is inexpensive and probably would only help you, I would suggest this upgrade to 2009b.  You should not see any issues with this error.  Sometimes it has been other things that have caused this error on Mac though - and nothing related to Finale.  For example, i have seen it when trying to save a file as an audio file when that file is stored on a network share (permissions, or network availability issues).  I have also seen this error when the computer is holding onto the file from an earlier time and the computer hasn't been restarted in a long time (not saying it is the issue, it just has been the cause before).  The update to the B version would be the first thing to try because you are probably running into the issue I mentioned first - where your version will not save softsynth sounds as Audio files on Leopard.