Drumline Soundfont and Instrument List

• Dec 11, 2010 - 17:03

Hello all!

I am a part time percussionist and sometimes drum instructor at a high school in the United States, and I have put together an instrument list and drum line sound font for use with musescore. The soundfont and instrument list is located at http://sites.google.com/site/mhsbulldogdrumline/ under the "Composition" page.

The files replace the standard instruments file or soundfont file. Simply copy and paste instrumentswithDL.xml into the "musescore/templates" directory and copy the "TimGM6withDL.sf2" file into the "musescore/sound" directory. You can then start musescore, and go to the "edit" menu and select "preferences". On the "general" tab, you then change the path on the "Instrument List" (about half-way down the window" to select the instrumentswithDL.xml file. Change the soundfont over by going to the "display" drop down menu and select "synthesizer". Change the path to the soundfont at this location. All the sounds with the original TimGM6 soundfont have not been altered.

All the drumline sounds in the soundfont were either recorded by me, or taken from publicly accessible sources on the web. I am less than satisfied with the overall quality of the tenor drums and the bass drums, so if you have any better sounding recordings to send to me, then I will be happy to update it. Note that the instruments have been updated to reflect the battery only (Snare, Bass Drums, Cymbals, and Marching Tenors). Again, if you have any suggestions for changes and improvements, please let me know.

I have also attached an example of a short street-beat I have written with the new soundfont and instrument list. For those really looking for diddle notation, I have attached the musescore file to show how I managed to make diddles. I'm certain that when the programmers see it, they will freak out at the crudeness of the hack, but I'm not a programmer and it seems to work. If there is someone out there willing to write a diddle plugin, then I can assure you I would probably be the first to use it.

Anyway, please share and enjoy.

Sincerely,

Mike S.
michael.schorsch@gmail.com

Attachment Size
Ike Jime.zip 1003.76 KB

Comments

Fantastic work Michael! This is exactly what I have been waiting to see in MuseScore. I am also a volunteer drumline instructor and have had limited success using other software to write battery percussion. My wishes have finally been answered. This is the best! I can finally notate all of our warm-ups and rewrites of field shows. You have provided a valuable tool for the percussion community. AND your website is awesome! Thanks again.

I am truly amazed at what you have done, and while you might not be happy with the sounds, I'm shocked at how good it DOES sound!

One question - I can't find the Tenor Drums or Bass Drums that you used in your Ike Jime example. I loaded the soundfont with the Drumline sounds and the instrument list with DL, but I did didn't see them listed in either the pitched or unpitched percussion. What am I missing? (And which cymbal staff did you use?)

In reply to by newsome

Newsome,

Question... did you load the instrumentswithDL.xml file too? If you did not load the instrumentswithDL.xml file, then the drumline instruments would not have shown up on the instrument list. If you DID load that file, then on the instrument list there should be a separate category named "DRUMLINE" and it won't be under pitched or unpitched percussion.

Double check the instructions here: http://musescore.org/en/node/8223

I will be putting together a tutorial and posting it on the MHS Bulldog Drumline site. Unfortunately, I live in Michigan and about 12 hours after I posted the files we were dumped on by about a foot of snow. Needless to say, I have some distractions at the moment, but I will post as soon as I can. Expect to see within a week.

Sincerely,

Mike S.

In reply to by mschorsch

Yes, I did load the instrumentswithDL.xml file, but for some reason the DRUMLINE category didn't show up until I restarted MuseScore. After a restart, magically there it was! Thank you for all your work on this, it's fantastic.

Developers, I would suggest maybe changing the name from DRUMLINE to MARCHING PERCUSSION or something similar and including both the modified soundfont and the modified instrument list in the next release. Marching percussion is seriously needed for those of us that do marching band, percussion ensemble, or drum corp, and needs to be included if MuseScore is to be a complete notation solution.

In reply to by newsome

Fixed... The name "Drumline" is actually embedded within the xml file, so its a quick text edit to change that name to "Marching Percussion". You must download and re-install the updated xml file.

Sincerely,

Mike S.

In reply to by lot123

Lot123,

Alto b c & e? I'm not sure what instrument you are looking at here? Perhaps you have found the drumline sounds on a different instrument? Have you installed the instrumentswithDL.xml file?

That whistling seems strange... there are a few parts that are above the staff, in the tenor drums (the spock drum is above the staff), the snare drum (stick clicks and cymbal effects are above the staff) and the bass drums (high "F" bass). Do all of them whistle? I have to admit that I haven't really touched the "High F" bass drum, as I've been writing for 4 basses. Also, the cymbal parts for the snare have not gotten much attention in my writing, but the tenor spock has been working okay for me. If you can indicate which ones are whistling, I will double check to make sure the MIDI root key and the instrument pitch match up. Otherwise, it may be an issue specific to your system that I won't be able to help with (I'm a programming idiot).

Sincerely,

Mike S.

In reply to by lot123

lot123:

I apologize for the delayed response, but to be honest it didn't really click in my mind what was going on until I heard it in a different way.

I'm assuming the "alto" you described is the alto saxophone. Newsome tried to write a chromatic scale and got the same result.

What had happened is that those notes are a specific sound sample in the soundfont. As you may know, a soundfont is usually not just one sound for an instrument... it is usually a collection of sounds that covers the entire range of the instrument. The sound sample for that range (b c & e) of alto sax somehow became corrupted. Long story short, I made the fix, and you can download the repaired soundfont at http://sites.google.com/site/mhsbulldogdrumline/composition.

If you find any other issues or hiccups, please let me know!

Sincerely

Mike S.

In reply to by mschorsch

Although I will most likely never use your immediate work, I want to thank you for your contribution. I can tell from the enthusiastic responses to your work that you have helped many already.

Happy New Year.

Regards,

In reply to by jgbible_865

jgbible_865:

This should really go under "Support & Bug Reports".... please open up a new forum topic there.

When you open up a new topic, try to answer some follow-up questions:

1. What version of Musescore are you using?
2. What Operating System?
3. When Musescore first opens, and the demo is displayed... can you hear playback on the demo (piano?)
4. When you open a new score, is the marching percussion shown on the instrument list?
4. When you select a note on the palette, do you hear playback?
6. Have you downloaded BOTH files from the MHS website and installed them according to the tutorial?

Screenshots are a big help too! Remember, we can't really help unless we know more about your system and what you are trying to do.

Sincerely,

Mike S.

First off, thank you for making this!

I'm just wondering if you can break down, either via comment or tutorial, how you got the diddle audio effect without butchering the notation? I tried copying what you had done on the sample jam but couldn't figure it out.

Thanks again!

In reply to by rtdivito

rtdivito,

Diddles are a little bit of a pain.

In order to get the diddle sound, without messing up the printout, what I did was write the diddle sound on a separate voice, and then set those notes/rests on the other voice to "invisible". On the first voice, I could just insert a tremolo marking so that it printed out okay. In order to save the spacing, I did all sorts of other tricks like reducing the size of the 2nd voice note, and its leading/trailing space. It is a very crude hack, but it seems to work. EDIT: I have posted a snippet showing the process.

As a drummer, what I recommend you do it write various tricks and hacks out on a separate file, and then use that as a pallete for copy/paste things like diddles. I'm afraid that right now the only real solution is to write diddles in musescore just like you learned to play diddles in real life... take it slow, have patience, be prepared for frustration, and experiment with what works.

Good luck!

Mike S.

First of all, this is EXACTLY what I needed. Very nice work. My only beef is with the bass drum sounds; they are so quiet. I've never created a soundfont before, but I'm just wondering if there's a way to turn up their volume. Thanks, you're a life saver.

In reply to by mtippetts

mtippetts

Sorry for the huge delay, but it has been a long time since I've been at musescore.org (life got in the way).

The bass drum sound is bad. Actually, I'm less than satisfied with almost all of the sounds in the soundfont... but they are very easy to modify. All one needs is a decent quality WAV sample of the instrument.

If you have any handy, please share! I would be happy to update the soundfont as needed!

Sincerely,

Mike S.

In reply to by stoogedood

Thank you very much, I couldn't find any good sounds, especially bass drums and quad buzzes. I'm not mike, but I have a soundfont editing program, so if you could send them to me, I can update the soundfont and upload it to a file sharing site. If you could zip and attach them to a reply to this comment, I would appreciate it a lot. You probably would too. Then I'll post the link to the file as another reply.

In reply to by mtippetts

The easiest thing to do is to go to Display>Mixer and turn up the volume for the bass drums. (The red circle.)
You can adjust the volume with any instrument in a particular score. (I usually find myself turning the alto and tenor saxophones down.) This doesn't carry over for every score, so you'll have to change it each time you make a new song.
I hope this helps!

I don't quite understand how you notated the diddles. I have been attempting many different ways but none of them work. Can you help me on this?
Thanks

In reply to by kjc94

kjc94,

You will have to forgive me for being somewhat out of the loop, it has actually been a while since I've been to musescore.org, and I am trying to catch up myself.

The "trick", if there is any, is to write notes that are seen but not heard in one voice, and on a second voice, write the notes that are heard but not seen.

You can accomplish this using the note properties. For example, on voice 1, write out your notation as you wish for it to appear on the page. Then select each note, right click and select note properties, and manually override the velocity to "0". This will make the note appear on the sheet, but the playback will be silent (i.e., seen but not heard).

Next, activate voice 2, and write in the diddled notes that you wish to hear. Again, select those notes and right click, select properties, and "set invisible". Those notes will be heard, but not seen! Since the whole score will automatically re-size itself according to those notes (even though they are visible), you can partially correct the situation by changing the note head sizes and spacing.

This is VERY cumbersome, which is why I suggested making your own diddle template sheet. Once you have diddles worked out in a way that your are satisfied with, you can then copy and paste from your template file into your score, as needed. If I get some time, I'll drag mine out, update it for 1.0, and and post it online for your use.

Sincerely,

Mike S.

Ahh finally! Ive been waiting for this haha. It's great! It makes writing battery percussion music much more simplistic. My only concerns are about the bassdrums. I dont believe there is a unison drum option. I want to be able to create unison rhythms. Also, i find it a bit unneccessary that each drum needs a specific button. Is there a way that we could just select the type of stroke and them click the drum we want on the staff? This does apply to tenors as well. That would make things so much easier. The bass drum sounds are fine as are the rest of the drums. Thank you again for providing us with such a great addition! It really helps!

In reply to by Jtizzpercussion680

Jtizzpercussion680,

I actually made a concious decision to avoid doing unison bass drums, simply to keep it as general as possible. My line marches 4, but I've seen lines as few as 3 and as many as 7. So, I figured a unison hit would not be accurate on playback. Never mind that the current bass drum sounds are awful anyway in my opinion, but I digress.

I have found copy + paste is your best friend. If you do the unison part for a specific note value, you are done! Just select that unison hit and copy + paste to where ever you need it. I can put a score together very quickly using this technique.

If you want to tweak the program for yourself, you are certainly welcome to do so! Note heads, values, and sounds are defined in the xml file, and I can assure you it is NOT rocket science. I tooled around with html in college, and that was pretty much all the insight I needed to update the xml file.

Good Luck!

Mike S.

Anonymous
Sep 10, 2011 - 17:49

I tried what you said (Windows 7, MS 1.1) and cannot get to the directory even. HELP?

In reply to by Anonymous

LMRULZ,

First, I need to point out that I have not yet downloaded 1.1 (read: I am lazy) so I don't know if the directory structure has changed. It probably hasn't.

First off... realize that it shouldn't make any difference where you store the xml file or sf2 file, just so long as you can setup musescore to access them. I recommend you place them in the musescore directory though, so it is easy to keep track of them and not inadvertantly delete or move them.

You will have to do some exploring on your own machine to find those directories. What may be more helpful is if you do a search for any files with a *.xml extension, and with a *.sf2 extension. There should already be xml and sf2 files with your MS1.1 installation, so if you just go to the start menu and do that search, it should point you to the corresponding musescore directory. Be sure to write this directory path down so you can get there in the future!

After that... simply copy and paste the drumline xml file and sf2 file into the corresponding directory, and follow the instructions for setting up musescore to select the correct file. That should do it!

If you have any problems, please feel free to contact me directly at michael.schorsch@gmail.com.

Sincerely,

Mike S.

Hey Mike,

First of all, let me thank you for making this marching percussion section for Musescore, it has helped me alot and I love it. I seem to be having a problem in which I can't hear a difference between accented and unaccent notes. It would be greatly appreciated if you could help me with this. I have Musescore 1.1 and I have Windows XP.

In reply to by knightkeeper4

Thanks!

Rolls are a pain. I take care of double stroke rolls by using diddle (tremolo) notation. I write out the 32nd notes (or whatever other note subdivision you are looking for) on voice 2, and then set those notes to "invisible" by right clicking on them and selecting "invisible" on the pop-up menu. Its a real pain, and it takes a lot of effort, but you can make life easy on yourself by writing a template score that contains the diddles, then you can copy and paste into the working score. Rolls in traditional notation (e.g., 5 stroke rolls shown as an 1/8th note tied to the release with a little "5" over the tie) are not supported. Ditto for multiple bounce (buzz) rolls.

Sticking: Select your first note and push CTRL+L. This lets you type in lyrics... I just use the lyrics section for sticking.

Accents: to respond to an earlier request about accents, I found that the velocity of accented notes did not change until you added a dynamic marking to the score. Even then, it was a little hit and miss especially when you wanted to change the dynamic, or start adjusting the accents. So, I would set up one note by manually changing the velocity, and then (you guessed it) copy and paste that note throughout the score. I don't know if that has been rectified in v1.1, but its an old habit and I keep doing it because its what I'm comfortable with.

Ingredients for getting the best percussion product out of musescore:
1. Patience
2. Coffee
3. A willingness to experiment (hack) with the program settings
4. CTRL+C, CTRL+V

I copied over the files then opened up musescore and went to edit-preferences then tried to change the xml file it used and instrumentswithDL.xml was not one I could select. Same thing when changing the soundfont.

I was investigating a way to put this awesome work into MuseScore 1.2 or 2.0. The instruments.xml file is OK. I could add the Marching Percussion section and the 4 instruments (Snare drums, tenor drums, Bass drums and Cymbals). Unfortunatly the soundfont is huge. 22Mb while the current default one is only 6Mb.

What do you think? Is it valuable to add the instruments if they don't sound at all? It will make it easier to configure Marching band scores, you will just need to download the soundfont to make them play.

Is there any way to reduce the size of the DrumLine soundfont?

Well first off, the drumline has amazing sound! I'm very surprised with how good they sound. The only problems I have are that the bass drums are extremely quiet, which isn't all too much of a problem. The main problem I have is with the Tenor Drums. Being a tenor drummer myself, I know how to read the music and how it should sound due to relative pitch.
Pretend the drums are tuned F-A-C-E-G, from lowest drum to highest drum (how they appear on your staff). Tenors are set up 4-2-spock-1-3, with the spock not between 2 and 1; with 4 being the loest and 1 the highest. So they should be tuned F-C-G-E-A, in order from left to right on a set of tenors. In your coding, they are tuned F-A-G-E-C: the middle two-tone toms, 2 and 3 (C and A), are switched sound-wise. I've never coded or programmed this stuff, so I don't know if it would be an easy fix or not - If it's possible to fix it, would you be able to?
Thanks a bunch
~T.P

In reply to by motleydrummer97

motleydrummer97 & TP

Huh.... I'm not sure what the problem is there. What I'm hearing is that the sounds from drums 1 and 2 are backwards. Strange.

First, let's assume I'm well versed on layout of a set of quads (I am). Check the other sounds associated with those drums, and see if they are backwards as well. It may be a bug in the latest version, as I setup the soundfont way back in 9.6.3. If all the other sounds are backwards, then the soundfont can be rearranged. If not, then there is a bug in the program that is beyond my expertise.

In addition, we just reheaded the whole drumline, basses included. I have never been happy with the bass sound, and the tenors could be much better as well. I have a goal to update the soundfont this year (sometime in 2012), and I will try to incorporate the new sounds as possible. Its entirely likely that the sound mixup is just poor sample quality.

If you have any further questions, please let me know!

Mike S.

This just made my experience with musescore even better with quality battery sounds. One suggestion I have is to include one higher pitched spock/shot/glock for tenors in the sextet setup. Thanks very much!

so im like in love with this soundfont it is amazing just have some questions and comments....Is there a way you could lift the Bass line sounds? and my comment is the tenors and some writers have tenors do rim shots on each drum and i was wondering if you could do that if not i understand other than that no bugs and no problems
Thanks,
Tyler H.

In reply to by T.J.2449

T.J. 2449,

Thanks for you comments!

I'm not sure what you mean by "lift" the bass line sounds.

I am planning to update this soundfont when I get time (which I don't have). Many comments about the sample quality have not gone un-noticed, and your rim-shot question is definitely something that needs to be added.

If you have any background in recording, and have access to good quality samples, then please send them to me. It would save me a lot of time doing the recording, and that way the musescore community can share the burden of the work.

Sincerely,

Mike S.

In reply to by mschorsch

Im not an expert on recording but if i come across some drum line sounds ill for sure send them to you

And when i say lift the bass line sounds i meant make it louder. but thanks for taking time out of your day to respond to my message i really appreciate it

Sincerely
Tyler H

These Marching Percussion instruments are awesome. I use these more than anything on MuseScore.

I'm trying rewrite a part of a song for Marching Cymbals. However, The part has 2 cymbal players. High (Small) and Low (Large) cymbals. I know how to: I make the staff have 3 line and put the notes in the spaces, but I need to change the drumset and add the cymbal hits again for the second cymbal player. I'm told I need to know "General MIDI" but I'm pretty sure that's not the case here. (Note: I've only bee using MuseScore for 2 months) So is there a way to add a second cymbal to the drumset? Or is there a MIDI thing I can look at? Something like that?

In reply to by MResendes

Nagrom13197,

You don't necessarily have to "know" MIDI. But here's the quick and dirty:

The number of lines, and the types of noteheads are defined in the "instruments.xml" file. If you were so patient as to open this file in a text editor, you could scroll down to "cymbals" and see all sorts of xml code that defines how the cymbal staff should look, and what the various noteheads mean. By coordinating the MIDI soundfile with the instruments file, then you can make magic happen.

With the two parts, I understand exactly where you are coming from. My own drumline has cymbal parts split three ways (!); however, but I'm going to leave the cymbal setup as-is. When you add multiple parts, then the number of symbols in the drumset palette grows accordingly, and it gets kind of cumbersome. If you want an example of what I mean, check out the tenor palette.

In reality, the process is not rocket surgery, but it does require a lot of coffee. SO, in the meantime, what I recommend is creating a score, but adding 2 sets of cymbal staffs. That way you can assign individual parts. Will it take up more space on the page? Yes... but it will be much more intuitive to use for the new user. Depending on your cymbal players... it may make more sense to them as well. Another option is to arrange the stem position... "UP" is for player 1, "DOWN" is for player 2 (use the "X" key to reverse note stem directions). A third option is to use the lyrics space. Push CTRL+L, and you can enter "1" or "2" or whatever nomenclature fits your fancy.

Hope this helps!

Sincerely,

Mike S.

In reply to by mschorsch

Hi MIke,

I'm actually in the process of tweaking the Drumline SoundFont for Nagrom using a second set of cymbals using your samples but setting the samples at a lower pitch.

These will be mapped to the black notes of the keyboard in the same range that you have allocated white notes for the existing soundset.

This is, however a by the bye :)

I just want you to be aware of the current initiative to provide specialist SOundFonts for MuseSCore bearing in mind the multiple SOundFOnt support coming in 2.0.

If you are willing and able to provide specialist percussion samples or SoundFonts, please visit the SoundFont Forum where we will be happy to discuss your percussion requirements.

I'm also currently engaged in cross-mapping the MuseScore Instruments.xml file with the MusicXML 3.0 instrument list. If you can be of any assistance with these, then please let me have an email address so I can add you to the list of editors. You can find further information in this forum thread: New cascading instrument definition

Regards
Michael

Is there a way to move the normal snare hit above the line like in normal cadence music? This would help a lot with the music I write. Also, is there a way to make the shot have a the open circle with an x in it? One last thing. Can I make an all bass drum hit on the middle line or use the same note head as the shell in snare music for it?

I've placed the necessary files in their respective directories, I've selected the .xml and applied the soundfont and whatnot, and I'm able to add the instruments to the score. However, no matter what I try, I seem to be unable to add any notes to any of these instruments. I'm using Musescore version 1.1 on Windows 8.

Hi,
I am new to MuseScore. I downloaded these files and updated to the latest versions hoping it would improve the drum sounds. On my computer they all sound like tin cans and some are extremely faint, even when I have my speaker volume up all the way and the MuseScore Play Panel Volume all the way up. I have tried it on several computers and all are the same. Am I doing something wrong? Other instruments sound great (e.g. I love the woodwinds), it is just the drums that are all sounding like sheetmetal being hit or someone banging tin cans. It is really frustrating.

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

I installed the SoundFont described on this page (which "mschorsch" has labeled "TimGM6withDL.sf2"). I followed the tutorial and am quite certain it is working correctly. I think there is something wrong with the way my speakers are interacting with the program. Most instruments sound great. It is the drums that have the tin can or sheetmetal sounds and their volumes seem off relative to other instruments. I just installed, so all settings are per the defaults (I have tried MuseScore1.0 and now 1.3 on 4 different computers).

In reply to by ChurchOrganist

Reverb appears to be quite high by default. I have been taking it way down and sound seems to be improving some. I am quite handy with computers, but quite ignorant in music (I can play the piano and that is about it). I do not recognize any of the setting on the synthesizer page where I am playing with reverb (room size, damp, width). Is there a page that explains these settings in lay terms so I know what I am playing with? I found some pages that say the obvious: up is up and down is down and room size is room size; but they were not helpful. Why would I want them high or low and what effect does it have and why are the defaults so high if they distort the sound?

Also, I am wondering if these settings will hurt the sound of other instruments such that I want to adjust them individually using the Mixer? Anyone have a suggestion on settings and know why the reverb default would be so high if that creates such poor sound quality?

Okay, for all of you that have been complaining about the bass drum sample,I have fixed it.I replaced the samples with better quality ones.However,they aren't the best but they do get the job done.
Also,for those who wanted the tenors to have 6 drums instead of 5, I have added that as well.
Just download these two files and replace them with the old ones.To make it clearer,use these two files instead of the ones mschorsch has provided.
Soundfont:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/bu1c2o5fmg39rai/TimGM6withDL.sf2
Instrument List:
http://www.mediafire.com/view/fjend108qqeuwn7/instrumentswithDL.xml

In reply to by jazz3987

Hey guys, is there a way to get a decent sound for the basses? I went into the mixer and turned the "Rev" and "Cho" all the way down and chose the "Sound:" drop down to "MarchingBass", but there's still just a really horrible sound. And I have the volume for the bass turned all the way up and I still have a hard time hearing them. And it sounds like every beat is stressing the speakers or something. Not sure if I can explain it. Anyway, just trying to get a good sound.

Maybe it's just me and I'm really confused, but I can't seem to get multiple pitches for the tenors. It just stays on the F. Does this make sense to anyone?

This is very well made, but the lowest bass drum is giving me trouble. The lowest one is half the volume of the rest of them, maybe less. Any fix for this?

I'm not sure whether or not this forum is being checked on regularly, but I'll give it a shot. I just got the most recent version of Musescore (1.3) and am using Windows 8. I followed all of the instructions in the tutorial and have double checked that the new files (the 'withDL' files) are uploaded into Musescore. When I go to create a new file the list of instruments does include marching percussion, and does let me add the various drumline instruments. However, when I go to actually input notes, it simply refuses to do so. I'll click and click on every line/space available and I can't get a single note on the screen. Could anyone help me out here? Feel free to reply here or (for a much faster reply) use my e-mail: quadlogical@gmail.com Thank you!

Hi Mike,

This addition to musescore really is a huge help when Im writing my pieces, but i have one problem.

the playback doesnt work with these sounds.

I can play other pieces that have been made with the default sounds, but i can't hear yopur marching percussion drums. I have followed the tutorial extensively and carefully, and i changed the soundfont file from a .zip file to an .sf2 file. still no sounds.

what can i do to fix this? thanks!

In reply to by 8Keep

According to my version of MuseScore 2, they have been. When I open up the All Instruments list marching percussion shows up, but I don't get any sound. I would like to see some new marching sounds, like a unison bass hit, bass rim shots, tenor rims shots, etc., too.

I've just come across this and they have come out with a new version. Could you update it please? I would really like these sounds.

Well, thank you for this! However, I have just come across Musescore a month or two ago, and I'm finding it difficult to install these files onto Musescore. I followed your instructions as well as I could, since Musescore has been updated since then. If you could provide an update on instructions or if its the files that need updating, that'd be something I'd like to know. :P Again though, thank you for taking the time to do this, and any more assistance you can provide would be great!

In reply to by Billy Tatum

The instructions on Mike Schorsch's website are obsolete for MuseScore 2.

The Marching Percussion instruments are now part of the default Instruments.xml file and replacing it as per the instructions here stand a good chance of breaking MuseScore 2 as the Instruments file has a different file structure from that used for 1.3

Head over the the Soundfont forum to get the new version of the Marching Percussion instruments....

https://musescore.org/en/node/21722

Instructions for adding a soundfont can be found in the handbook...
https://musescore.org/en/node/36171

HTH

In reply to by ChurchOrganist

I don't believe what you say is true. My reason for that is because I was successfully able to download and move these files into the mentioned folders, and when I opened MuseScore back up, the new sounds had been added. I am using the most up-to-date version, 2.0.3, as well. It says "Marching Percussion", and is only visible when in "All Instruments", so I know it's the one I downloaded. I'm not sure what people are having trouble with, but I don't think the problem that is the download is obsolete for the new MuseScore version. I downloaded MuseScore, as well as the Marching Percussion instruments just earlier today.

Can someone help me? I have Musescore 2.0.2 and Im having trouble with the prefrences. The prefences do not say instrument list and I dont know what to do.

This seems like an awesome idea! I was trying to download this so that I could write out a new cadence out for my drumline. I followed the tutorial but it still doesn't seem to work/change anything. The category did not show up in the instrument list for me. My musescore is up to date as well... Might you have any suggestions?

In reply to by big_e809

You obviously didn't read my post just above yours!

Mike Schorsch's instructions are for MuseScore 1.x only.

Following them is likely to break your MuseScore 2.x installation.

MuseScore 2.0.3 already has these drumline instruments in the default soundfont, so there is no need to download more.

The Marching Percussion section in the instruments list is not visible in the default common instruments view. Make sure you click the button at the top and select "All instruments"

AllInstruments.png

HTH

The download worked perfectly! Just needed a small tweak to make because Drum 3 was Higher than Drum 2. So, in regards to the Tenor Drums, this is made for 5 Drums (4 + 1 Spock). My High School Drumline uses 6 drums (4 + 2 Spocks; different pitched Spocks), so I was wondering how I would go about getting a Sixth Drum for the Tenors. I'll consider any suggestions given and will appreciate any help. Thanks!

Is it possible to make the cymbals split like the bass drums? i have a 5 person cymbal line im trying to write for and i cant right now. I LOVE THIS PACK and have been using it for months now, thank you so much!

I recently attempted to download the .xml file and the SoundFont file. I was unsuccessful and have done everything to the book and every tutorial I could find. This may be because of MuseScore 2.0.3 but I doubt it.

I am really liking this sound font. It definitely exceeded my expectations with the exception of the cymbal crashes. This was the only sound I feel like missed the mark. But overall this is just what I needed.

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