MuseScore 4.1 beta is now ready for testing

• Jun 22, 2023 - 19:30

Hi everyone,

I am pleased to announce that the beta version of MuseScore 4.1 is now available for testing.
This version includes all the new features we have planned to release in version 4.1.

How to get the beta (Updated with new builds: 28 June 2023)

Windows

https://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/musescore-nightlies/windows/4x/testing/MuseS…

macOS

https://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/musescore-nightlies/macos/4x/testing/MuseSco…

Linux New

https://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/musescore-nightlies/linux/4x/testing/MuseSco…

N.B. These builds are also available from this page (click on “Beta” for your required operating system): https://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/musescore-nightlies/

Important – do this first before testing!

In order to test the major changes we’ve made to the playback engine, you’ll need to have Muse Hub BETA installed:

  1. Uninstall MuseHub from the settings menu within MuseHub
  2. Download MuseHub beta from here: https://www.musehub.com/ (scroll to the bottom of the page)
  3. Install and open MuseHub beta

You’ll now be ready to open and test MuseScore 4.1 beta.

New features to test

  • Adding ornaments (trills, turns, mordents) and applying chromatic alterations via the Properties panel
  • Applying capos via the new “capo” palette element (look in the "guitar" palette)
  • Applying harp pedal diagrams from the new “harp notation” palette
  • New auxiliary channel strips and sends in the mixer (note you’ll need to expose the new aux channels via the “three dots” menu icon to the right of the mixer).
  • As a result of various changes we’ve made throughout the app that affect playback, please thoroughly test anything playback related, including loading VSTs (there’s a new VST scanning system that should prevent hangs and crashes much more effectively).
  • Opening your cloud scores from the new “my online scores” tab (Home > Scores) and saving/publishing scores to the cloud.
  • Uploading audio to audio.com: this can be done directly from the Publish tab or the File menu, and allows you to share your score audio for others to stream or download, as well as build an audio portfolio of your work online.
  • Adding expression text to notes with dynamics

A note on engraving changes

MuseScore 4.1 includes a large number of engraving fixes and improvements. Read this article to learn more about them (for those who want to look out for these in your testing!).

Some known issues

All of our current bugs prioritised for fixing are listed here on GitHub. Please be aware we are now only prioritising for 4.1 fixes for issues that are:

  • Regressions from 4.0.2
  • Stability problems (crashes)
  • Issues with new features in 4.1

A note about backward score compatibility

It is currently still possible to open a score created in 4.1 in a previous version of 4.0. Doing so may cause your scores to become janky, however, so we’d encourage you not to try this (at least on scores that are particularly precious to you).

As usual, be sure to double check whether an issue has already been raised before logging anything in GitHub. If we can’t fix something for 4.1, we’ll make sure it gets assigned to 4.2 or an appropriate project.

Thanks, and happy testing!


Comments

In reply to by beniegenie

Agreed, I'm really hoping manual velocity adjustments is being worked on right now. The current method of messing around with dynamics until it sounds ok is incredibly tedious and really puts me off creating new scores until the next playback update comes out. Especially when combined with different articulations like staccato etc. The piano sound font has also really suffered without single staff adjustments.

In reply to by fernandoamartin

There are a number of aspects to this, and I'm still sorting it out, but basically what I see happening is if a note already has a dynamic, if you then add an "expression" from the Text palette, it gets added to the right of the dynamic and the two are automatically aligned together. So, you no longer need to edit the dynamic text itself, or do manual adjustments to positions of things, to show things like "mp dolce". I think there are other improvements to the way dynamics, hairpins, and expression text interact but I haven't experimented (or studied the code) enough yet to say more.

Note this new expression element has to be added from the palette it seems - not with Add / Text or Ctrl+E. Not sure if that's a bug or not, but I'll find out. EDIT - yes it's a bug, and a fix is now in place :-)

I hope this new version fix many stuffs. Yesterday I was working on an arrangement that took me 4 hours instead of 2, that is the maximum i've had with musescore 3. And the time consuming was because the interface is slow! to open the Style window take a while omg, and it makes the instance running slow too. Playback start with a delay always, like if it was playing with a fade in effect, the input MIDI option still has latency (I don't see the option to choose what audio motor you wanna use to reduce latency, it's not been implemented) So, yes, there are cool options but not functional professionally, at least not for me at all and for what I need. Do you gonna fix these problems in the next update?

In reply to by MichelCA

There are a handful of systems that seem to have problems opening the style dialog, but so far it doesn't seem anyone has been able to explain what is going on with these systems to make them behave differently. We'd love to get more insight into this from people experiencing the problem so it can hopefully be fixed! See https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/issues/13193.

The slight delay in starting playback is specific to Muse Sounds, which takes a moment to start up sometimes. I find it improves if you then restart again. Also seems to work better if you select a measure then hit Esc versus select a note, not sure why. Or you can switch to MS Basic temporarily, or just deliberately start playback a little earlier than where you really want.

In reply to by MichelCA

You can try out the beta for yourself to see. But as far as I know, like I said, no one has yet understood why the style dialog does what it does on the systems where it is a problem. It's certainly possible it somehow fixed itself as a side effect of some other change, though - I'd be curious to know how it does for you! If it doesn't help, I recommend starting a new thread in the Support forum so people experiencing the issue can compare notes and hopefully identify the common triggering element.

For Muse Sounds, they are constantly updating; that isn't tied to MsueScore specifically. Meaning, updates to Muse Sounds happen independently of updates to Muse Sounds. I don't know if they plan to release any further updates around the time of the official release of 4.1 or not, other than the one they already made to support the beta.

Does this remove MuseHub, then install MuseHub beta also require removal of currently-installed instruments, and re-installation of them??
And what of MuseScore 4.1 beta users who do not want to utilize MuseHub instruments? Can the 4.1 beta be tested w/o MuseHub beta?

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Exactly. I have replaced the Hub with Hub beta on my systems (macOS and Win) and all the sounds remain as before. The Hub beta is at this stage only required for the updated version of our musesampler, but this will soon be added to the stable Hub so you won't need to bother with the beta version once that is done.

I was very much looking forward to the return of the Piano Roll Editor which was said to be coming in 4.1. Seems it didn't make the cut. I know it isn't essential to typesetting music but it would be really helpful for simple composition tasks. It would be really nice to have a pro-standard Piano Roll Editor. Also, I'm on Linux, I see no option for VST. I guess Linux is now a lower priority than other platforms? No musehub either. I hope this isn't a policy decision because if the platform features fall too far behind over time I'd hate to see Linux dropped.

In reply to by revdjohngoodman

I don't speak in any official capacity - I'm just one of many volunteer contributors - but I don't recall any statements that the piano roll editor would be returning in 4.1. On the contrary, the public statements I've heard from the core team about the piano editor all point to a major rewrite and significantly enhanced version being designed for much later down the road, like MuseScore 5.

As for VST on Linux, there has been a call out to developers in the open-source community to help with the porting - see https://musescore.org/en/node/349691. So it isn't a matter of a policy decision not to support it - presumably it's just a matter of time before someone volunteers to take up the task. I have helped implement many other features I'd have loved to help with this too. But unfortunately, it seems this work requires much deeper knowledge of system internals than I have experience with. So hopefully someone with more specialized skills can step in.

Muse Hub, however, is definitely on Linux and has been from day one - and same with Muse Sounds (which is the only reason you'd need Muse Hub). You should see it listed on the download page you can access from the main page of this site.

In reply to by revdjohngoodman

Ah yes, that is from a fellow community developer who was working on porting the old MU3 editor to MU4.
Note that the video dates from 2021 - almost a year before there was even an alpha version of 4.0, and certainly long before there could possibly have been any sort of official statement about what 4.1 might or might not contain. It's not uncommon in the open-source world to see some development experiments here and there that don't end up panning out or that take longer to become reality than one might project. And there's a pretty big difference between someone showing off one such experiment and speculating about what might come of it, versus the core team officially announcing a specific feature will be in a particular release.

So anyhow, I don't know the status of that work, but I wouldn't see this as anyone going back on anything specifically promised.

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