New features in MuseScore 0.9.6
Top new features
- Ready for basic ensemble scoring. Multi-measure rests automatically break at all the right places (key and time changes, double barlines, etc.), transposition preserves pitch spelling (for example E-sharps no longer turn into F's after switching to concert pitch and back), dynamics can affect whole system or a single instrument or staff (not working with all SoundFonts), repeat text and system text extracted to all parts, ready-made templates for orchestra and concert band.
- Choose from 128 instrument sounds for playback plus eight drum and percussion sets with the built-in SoundFont (TimGM6mb.sf2). Previous versions for Windows and Mac OS used a piano sound for all instruments and required that you set up your own SoundFont if you wanted to hear instrument sounds other than piano
- Support for nested tuplets and better support for tuplets in general
- Initial support for custom-made key signatures
- Significant improvements to MusicXML which allows you to share files with other score-writing software more accurately
- New support for Overture and ABC import and significant improvements to LilyPond export
- Auto save recovers your scores after a crash
- Plus hundreds more improvements... (see below)
Important information for people upgrading from older versions
- Files saved in 0.9.6 do not open correctly in versions 0.9.5 or earlier. This is because of necessary changes to the file structure. Of course, version 0.9.6 is still able to read all your old MuseScore files.
- To delete and remove a measure select the measure normally and choose → or use the shortcut Ctrl+Del (Mac: ⌘+Del or ⌘+Fn+Backspace). With previous versions you had to use a special dotted-line selection. For more details see the "Delete" section of measure operations
- For people that like to switch SoundFonts, the setting is located in → and no longer requires a restart. In previous versions the SoundFont settings was in → → I/O tab. For more details see SoundFont
Playback
- Repeats play back more accurately for volta brackets, D.S. inside repeated section, and D.C. al Fine
- Master pitch tuning preference. You can set playback higher or lower than the standard A-440
- Remove pause button (equivalent functionality already in play button)
- All instrument sounds included thanks to Tim Brechbill's compact and open-source SoundFont: "TimGM6mb.sf2"
- New playback settings panel via → featuring reverb, chorus, master volume, and SoundFont changes without restart (previous versions required a restart of MuseScore to change SoundFonts)
- Swing, shuffle and regular eighth notes via →
- Playback via Jack MIDI enabling playback via MIDI keyboard (experimental feature, see MIDI out via JACK) or playback via VSTi
- Keyboard note input works even if you have multiple MIDI devices connected to the computer. Select your MIDI input from the drop-down menu in → → I/O tab
- Hear MIDI keyboard sounds in MuseScore even if you are not in note entry mode (useful if your MIDI keyboard does not have speakers and you want to play a passage before writing out the notes)
- Piano roll view during playback. Right click on a staff and select "Pianoroll Editor..."
- Change the velocity (loudness) of an individual note via right-click
- Notes play for full duration by default
- Dynamics can affect the specific staff, part, or the whole system. Right-click on a dynamic marking and choose "MIDI Properties..."
- Sustain pedal markings affect playback
- Upwards arpeggios affect playback
User interface
Save time
- Improvements to New Score wizard: find instruments quickly (shows only the most common instruments initially), less steps (you can click Finish early instead of wading through the whole new score wizard).
- Apply changes to multiple notes at once:
- via →
- Small notes for cues or cadenzas
- Any Note Properties
- New ways to select similar items via right-click and choose
- Copy and paste of notes now includes any slurs
- Copy and paste between transposing instruments preserves the sounding pitch rather than the displayed pitch
- Change an instruments for an existing staff in half the number of clicks of previous versions. Right-click on an empty part of the staff, choose Staff Properties..., click "Change Instrument" (currently has some bugs: missing flats, font style, clef)
- Duplicate a selection of notes using the handy R shortcut
- New keyboard shortcuts
- Switch between handles on slurs, lines, and brackets in edit mode Tab and Shift+Tab
- Add staff text Ctrl+T (Mac: ⌘+T)
- Add system text Ctrl+Shift+T (Mac: ⌘+Shift+T)
- Previous lyric syllable: Ctrl+Left (Mac: ⌘+Left)
- Next lyric syllable: Ctrl+Right (Mac: ⌘+Right)
- Up to previous stanza: Up
- Down to next stanza: Down
- Change double or repeat barline back to normal bar line: Click to select it then press Del
Ease of use
- Delete and remove measures using normal selection then choose → or use the shotcut Ctrl+Del (Mac: ⌘+Del). No need to deal with Ctrl+click, dotted line selections
- Text selection via mouse now possible in edit mode. Also Ctrl+A (Mac: ⌘+A) works in text edit mode
- Larger drag-and-drop area for time signatures and key signatures. In previous versions you needed to drag and drop into the small space between the left bar line and the first note.
- Out-of-range notes use darker shades of red and yellow and more readable. Voice 2-4 notes are also darker.
- Halve or double the duration of a note you just entered using q or w during note entry.
- Accidental buttons in the note entry toolbar work correctly (in previous versions the buttons stayed pressed down when you went to the next note)
- Add a slur or hairpin spanning multiple notes easily. Just select notes and press shortcut (S for slur, H for crescendo, Shift+Hfor decrescendo). No need to fiddle with anchor positions.
- The former Notes palette is now correctly labeled as Grace Notes palette
- Double dot and tie icons in the note entry toolbar are clearer and more recognizable
- Better error messages for SoundFont that fails to load
- Better wording for → → Page
- Automatically check for updates. Customize your settings via → → Updates tab
More control
- Out-of-range note colors can be disabled via → → Note Entry tab
- Edit the usable pitch range for an instrument: Right-click on empty part of staff and choose
- Remembers whether main window was maximized and restores previous setting
- When adjusting pitches, the Up arrow uses sharps and the Down arrow uses flats
- Split-screen options via → or →
- Navigator panel shows more pages (especially helpful for longer scores)
Notation
- Nested tuplets
- Tuplet brackets can be flipped to the opposite side by clicking to select and pressing X
- Tuplets calculate the correct note durations based on standard engraving rules
- Allow beaming between tuplet and non-tuplet notes
- Allow beaming across bar lines (please note: beams across systems don't work yet)
- Smaller beams for grace notes (to match their size)
- Full support for multi-measure rests. They now automatically break at rehearsal marks, tempo changes, time signatures, key signatures, double barlines, repeat barlines.
- Measure numbers: pickups in new scores no longer included in measure number counting, measure number offset fixed, correct number after a multi-measure rest
- New symbols including caesuras, dotted slurs, arrowed accidentals, alternate fermatas
- All accidentals can have parentheses: drag the parentheses from accidental palette onto the accidental in the score
- New vertical bracket in the arpeggio palette for indicating notes that are supposed to be played at the same time, more note head options
- "Winged" repeats
- Repeat bar lines can now span multiple instrument staff lines correctly. Previous versions showed dots for only the first staff
- Line breaks can be added to horizontal frames
- Clef changes can be horizontally re-positioned. Double click and use Left and Right arrows
- Better spacing for dotted notes to avoid collisions with the next note or rest
- Transposition with correct pitch spelling. Previous versions often spelled pitches incorrectly after a transposition. This was particularly evident for people switching between concert pitch and transposing scores. For example an E-sharp on a Bb trumpet staff would become an F natural in old versions of MuseScore after pressing the concert pitch button a couple times
- Courtesy key signatures
- Adding time signatures mid-score no longer overrides later time changes (#2927)
- Time signature stays at the beginning of the score if you delete the first measure
- Only show one accidental for two notes sharing the same note head
- Note heads can be changed via right-click
- Grace notes transpose along with normal notes
Text
- Change the style of all existing lyrics or other types of text using the "change all elements of the same type" checkbox in the text property dialog
- Text Properties available to Chord Names via right-click
- Natural sign appears in the F2 palette (previous versions had only sharp and flat)
- Narrower spacing and better kerning for the "f" in dynamic markings such as mf, ff, etc.
- Add more numbers to MuseJazz font
- Score no longer jumps up and down when leaving or entering text edit mode. The text toolbar is now at the bottom of the main window instead of the top
- Tempo text has better initial metronome settings for each tempo
Plugins
- Much improved plugin framework
- Plugins can now be contributed on musescore.org and are featured on the plugin page
- Import ABC music files via →
- Break measures at a specified interval via →
- Change via →
Files
- Auto save recovers your scores in case of a software crash or power outage
- Audio export: respects instrument settings from mixer
- MusicXML improvements: added support for staff line count, invisible notes and rests, unpitched percussion, tempo and metronome markings, arpeggio and glissando, breath mark, grace notes, two-note tremolos, quarter-tone accidentals, beams over rests and other beam customizations, string fingerings and pluck markings. import of instrument sounds. import vertical placement of dynamics, pedal markings and hairpins (crescendo/decresendo), ottava and volta, import fonts and vertical placement of words. export correct placement for staff text in multi-staff systems, fix problems with octava markings and rests, instrument transposition information, pedal symbols
- LilyPond export: Octava markings, staff text with special characters, tremolo, segno and coda, grace notes, whole-measure rests for multiple time signatures, repeats, metronome markings, fingerings and string-numbers, arpeggios and glissandos, pickup bars, fermatas on rests, staff text and dynamics on the same note, flat symbol in instrument names, triplets with chords, work on rehearsal marks and segno/coda symbols, experimental support for lyrics
- Capella import: crash fix, recognize whole-measure rests
- New support for import of Overture files (versions 3 and 4)
Internationalization
- All item names are now translatable except plugins (previously some palettes were English only)
- New languages: Polish, Romanian, Catalan, Greek, Japanese, Thai
- New handbooks added: Russian, Brazilian Portuguese, Polish, Romanian, Hungarian, Norwegian, Greek, Simplified Chinese
Fixes to Mac-specific bugs
- Ctrl+click works as alternative for right-click on Mac
- Dynamic markings display correctly on Mac
- Flats and sharps in chord names display correctly on Mac
- Better shortcuts for Palette, Navigator, Play Panel, and Mixer. Previous versions used Function keys (F9 - F12) which are already used by Mac OS
Fixes to Windows-specific bugs
- Text no longer appears tiny if no printer is installed
Credits
Programming
- Werner Schweer: Project lead, main developer
- Nicolas Froment (lasconic): Windows and Mac OS builds, bug fixes
- Toby Smithe: Debian and Ubuntu builds
- Olav Gundersen: LilyPond export developer
- Leon Vinken: MusicXML import-export developer
- Van Ferry: Ove import
- Jason Essington: MIDI in improvements
- Aaron Epstein: Playback improvements
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Localization
- Arabic
- Chinese, Traditional
- Chinese, Traditional (Taiwan)
- Chinese, Simplified
- Danish
- Morten Poulsen
- Stig Wolff
- Dutch
- Jaap Plaisier
- Thomas Bonte
- English, US
- Finnish
- French
- Jean-Louis Waltener
- Nicolas Froment (lasconic)
- Galician
- Greek
- Ionian University, Department of Music (As. Prof. Pan. Vlangopoulos, As. Prof. Ioannis Toulis, Niki Stavrati, Petros Andriotis)
- German
- Hindi
- Hungarian
- Italian
- Angelo Contardi
- Antonio Marchionne
- Daniele Bravi
- Japanese
- Norwegian
- Dag Henning Sørbø
- Per Holje
- Polish
- Portuguese
- José Luciano Batista Gomes
- Portuguese, Brazilian
- Romanian
- Russian
- Spanish
- Carlos Sanchiavedraz
- Juan Díaz Porras (alkayata)
- Macedonious
- Swedish
- Thai
- Turkish
- Ukrainian
Other
- David Bolton: Handbook
- Thomas Bonte: Website
- Maurizio M. Gavioli (Miwarre): Plugin documentation
- Katie Wardrobe: Video tutorials
- Tim Brechbill: SoundFont
- Raùl Posac: MuseScore logo
- Zachary Chione: Splash screen design