VST plugin

• Oct 25, 2019 - 10:17

Good morning

I would like to know if I can hope that in the near future Musescore will interface with VST plugins (for example loading a .dll file from a directory)

Comments

• Oct 25, 2019 - 11:08

define near future ;-)
The answer is very likely no, not directly

But you can use a different VST host (for example Kontakt) and route MIDI out from MuseScore into that host.

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• Oct 27, 2019 - 15:33

My question is based on a very simple need.

The fact of having decided that Musescore uses soundfonts is perhaps the best choice: I believe it was taken by very skilled people (also considering the beauty of Musescore).

However, the difficulties that soundfonts present every time you need to do portamento is a big limitation that an important music software, in my opinion, must overcome in some way: precisely because it is now a leading product for musical notation.

I remind you that the trombone as the Hawaiian guitar (lap steel) make the bearing their main feature. In the same way, all stringed instruments, especially the guitar, often use this type of sound. In addition, I also remind you of the beginning of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue to emphasize that it is not a rare thing to resort to portamento.

If it is not possible to connect a dll to a complete VST, it may be sufficient to use Vst effects without the user having to go crazy in the configuration of jack or Carla or alsa or any other complication.

My attempts to date, to achieve something that can be heard, can be reproduced with an example:

Instead of writing like that

image1

I was forced to write this way

image2
where! G is the "text" for the linked expression. I created the tied expression with Viena modifying attack and decay.

But unfortunately
1) the correct notation is that of image 1 which, however, makes me feel all the semitones that are in the interval in a distinct way
2) a guitarist who reads image 2 does not understand that I only want to do a glissato from king to fa.

It doesn't seem like a problem to me. What do you think about it?

Tnx

Attachment Size
image1.png 6.66 KB
image2.png 3.42 KB

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• Oct 27, 2019 - 15:50

I don't understand exactly what you are doing to connect to the VST, but that's fine I don't need to. What I do for proper notation and playback when they are different is put the proper notation in voice 1 and mark all of the wrongly played notes to not play in the inspector. I then put everything that is there only for playback into an unused voice and make everything in that voice invisible including text which can be applied to any voice. I do realize this is a workaround and am not saying your request should be totally ignored, I would like to see proper portamento playback also. There are several requests for this in the issue tracker including #127341: Add Glissando playback style portamento which indicates a programmer has looked at this particular issue and worked on solution. I haven't looked to see why it has not yet been included. Perhaps it will be soon.

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• Oct 30, 2019 - 18:22

The issue is dated 16-10-2016 !!!

Nothing happened in three years: if I could I would do it but I can't.

I tried to modify the characteristics of the sound with Viena but it seems that the portamento is not a possibility of modification also for the synthetic instruments (lead, synth brass, warm pad etc.)

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• Oct 30, 2019 - 18:54

No one that contributes code has placed this as a high enough priority to submit a fix that has been accepted. As you can see, someone did write code to try to fix it, but it was rejected due to conflicts with existing code. As recently as this past May there has been work on trying to fix it, but other things apparently become a higher priority. BTW, I have put a note in that issue referring to this post so someone may take another look...but no promises.

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• Oct 27, 2019 - 21:00

I'd also like to add that the playback of portamento style glissandi has nothing to do with whether the sound is loaded from a soundfont or not.
When rendering with VST's withouth changing the events leading to that rendering would give you the exact same results.

For the distances you've shown, you can use the bend as a workaround. See for example m127-128 of https://musescore.com/jeetee/scores/2798821 for this technique

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• Oct 30, 2019 - 18:32

Not always the distance is that of example: think of a Hawaiian guitar that plays continuously in portamento mode or even an electric lap steel with the thimble.

If as you say it is not a problem of soundfonts you can tell me by changing the characteristics of the sound with a software (polyphone or Viena) where should I go to work?

With some dlls of some virtual syntehetizers it is very simple make portamento; however one way or the other is fine if it is not very complicated.

Many thanks

note:

59/5000
I did not understand in your example what is the trick to apply

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• Oct 30, 2019 - 22:56

Not always the distance is that of example: think of a Hawaiian guitar that plays continuously in portamento mode or even an electric lap steel with the thimble.
I'm aware, which is exactly why I mentioned the workaround of using a bend is only valid when the interval is small enough (less than 3 and a half semitones) as that is the maximum range of a bend within MuseScore.

If as you say it is not a problem of soundfonts you can tell me by changing the characteristics of the sound with a software (polyphone or Viena) where should I go to work?
To make it work, you have to change the coding of MuseScore. Which is what the linked issue is all about. There is nothing you can do to fix this other than fixing MuseScore to generate the correct commands

I did not understand in your example what is the trick to apply
As mentioned, the workaround (but only for small intervals) is to use a bend (https://musescore.org/en/handbook/3/bends) for playback purposes; they do use a portamento style of playback.

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• Nov 13, 2019 - 14:25

"To make it work, you have to change the coding of MuseScore."

I was thinking "is it possible in qml to think of creating a plug-in that modifies the frequency of a note with a" for "loop during the execution of a sound?"
If the answer is yes where can I start studying to get a sufficient skill to do this thing?

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• Mar 8, 2020 - 08:56

Just to complete the why part. MuseScore is easy to use, not quite like F2002 (which I love) but close enough. However, soundfonts just don't cut it. I am tired enough of the unrealistic sound to toss as much money as needed at getting the high end symphony orchestra. No quality compromise. I would buy a small studio to finally get to realistic sound. Dammt.
I would have moved to other software if I only knew what would do it. F2002 won't run on newer PCs, F26 is broken.
By F, I mean Finale.

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• Mar 13, 2020 - 01:41

Notation software, any notation software, is not a DAW. Notation software is for creating a score to hand to real players. If you want good playback you have to invest thousands of dollars in a DAW and the libraries to go with it.
Short of that, it is not unusual to have 2 scores. One for musicians and one modified to get playback as close as you can to what you want. But it's still not a DAW.
That said, MuseScore is so much better than it was in the playback department. I'm not sure any notation software will do what the OP wanted. And the sounds in them are not GM based like MuseScore is.

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• Mar 13, 2020 - 14:39

"That said, MuseScore is so much better than it was in the playback department. I'm not sure any notation software will do what the OP wanted. And the sounds in them are not GM based like MuseScore is."

You can explain better with simpler English.

Can you give me some examples of DAW that come close to your idea.

Thank you

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