Lute Soundfont - Playing Unlisted Instruments in MuseScore?
Submitted by ina on February 12, 2010 - 2:13am.
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Is there a way to play the soundfont of an unlisted instrument (not selectable in the list of instruments for creating a new score)? Lute and other historical music instruments, perhaps?
General MIdi supports only 128 different instruments. They are listed, among other places, here: http://www.musiccenters.com/gmidi.html The easiest thing to do would be to use a guitar and just change the name of the instrument on the score. Since the guitar sounds bad, maybe it'll sound like a bad lute too. :-)
If you can find a non-general midi soundfont that you want to use just for your lute work that may get you closer to what you're looking for, but only one soundfont at a time is supported, so it wouldn't be that great for ensemble scores such as vivaldi lute concertos.
I've found a couple of lute sf2 files. I've tried changing the sf2 directory, but it doesn't show up. I'm guessing it's because the sheet music instruments aren't set to lute -- but how do you add a new instrument choice to musescore?
But if I had to make a completely random guess.... If your soundfont contains just the lute, it probably uses that as the same midi patch number as grand piano. Try adding a piano to the score, removing the bass clef, and changing the name to Lute. Might work, probably won't, maybe someone who actually knows can answer, or let me know if it works for ya.
Nope. :-( Tried that and a few other combinations. No sound!
Switching back to my fluid sf2 for now...
I am unable to find documentation on how to install new instruments or modify the instruments xml file (my guess at how to change instruments). Help appreciated!
Incidentally, are there other programs to use to play lute music?
I'm not into lute music at all, so I'm not sure it's the result you want to achieve.
I downloaded this soundfont, unzipped, pick it up in Preferences->I/O. I restarted MuseScore and the demo score is played with a lute or a guitar but not a piano.
This soundfont contains only a lute. See Display -> Mixer and the dropdown menu.
If you had no luck with other soundfont, please link to them.
Ah, *this* soundfont works! Thanks lasconic!
Corollary question... is there an easy way to change soundfonts - instead of having to update the path every single time, define shortcuts perhaps?
Probably the easiest way is to create your own file as suggested by MDMilford and Lasconic and then save it in the templates folder as described in the "Templates" section of Create new score.
I use a concertina soundfont. I simply put in in a folder and pointed MuseScore to it. It plays against the piano staff. Obviously I have to rename the staff.
Had to restart MuseScore for it to use the new soundfont, of course.