Instrument doubling

• Dec 16, 2009 - 06:43

I would like to see instrument doubling implemented the same way as instrument muting (see mid-staff change in user manual). It would be helpful for scores that require players to change instruments (e.g., a tenor sax for a soprano sax) to be able to make these changes in the score playback as well as in the score. In the score is no problem. But v0.9.5 has no means of changing actual instruments as well as instrument properties.


Comments

In reply to by trombonechamp

Not all these issues can be fixed during this cycle. Some of these (such as linked parts) may take two or three cycles to complete. The purpose was to put these feature requests and bugs in context for developers that have better C++ skills than myself, and to let users know that we agree that these issues are important.

In reply to by chen lung

That's pretty common indeed, although more so when it's two of the same instrument. It looks like perhaps the trunk is set up to potentially allow different voices to use different instruments, although I haven't played with it to see if it actually works. It looks like you probably have to have already set things up in your instruments.xml definitions. However, it definitely works to *change* instruments using the new "Change Instrument" text elements.

In reply to by gavin.oddy

Youdo need thenightlybuilds for this. But I don't know that these arestable enough for real use. I'd recommend the workaround suggesed here - use separate staves, and with the Hide Empty Staves option, it will just just like the part changed in mid stream.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Hi, and thanks for the response. It's not that I want to change anything midway, it's the instrument text at the beginning of the score I'd like to change. There are three reasons:
1. When I import scores (typically via pdf to mxl to musescore) they are all called "Instrument" or similar and I'd like to be able to rename them.
2. There are instrument names I'd like to use that aren't in the predefined set of instruments (e.g. we use "Treble" not "Boy Soprano"), and some old names (e.g. "Cantus").
3. I'd like to be able to abbreviate the instrument names and give them suffixes (e.g. "A1" and "A2" for first and second alto).
So all I really need is a way of changing the text. I was wondering if I could do this by creating new instruments (or changing text used for existing ones) by editing the Instrument xml files...?

In reply to by gavin.oddy

Oh, that's totally different than what is being discussed her,e but quite easy. in 1.1. Just right click the staff or its name and select Staff Properties. You can edit both he full name that appears onethe first system as the abbreviated name that appears on subsequent systems.

Anonymous
May 29, 2011 - 16:59

I need a vocalist to play Alto Sax at the beginning of a piece. Sadly, it takes up too much room to put both in the score. If there is any way to have it change the sound mid-piece, I could have it. I can change transpositions, so it would be wonderful to have a sax sound out of it.

I don't know if this is what you meant, but I fairly often (mostly in older pieces) see staves on a score that have Voice 1 playing piccolo and Voice 2 playing flute, for example. Sometimes V1 is flute and V2 is oboe. Often auxiliary percussion is all on the same staff.

I guess what I'm trying to say is . . . On playback, could it be made so that individual voices have different instruments? And maybe with Staff Text you could make an individual note or phrase a certain instrument and change back? (If this is exactly what you meant, sorry . . .)

(I also just realized this thread died forever ago . . . :P)

In reply to by iHasCheese

Already possible in the nightly builds, meaning, will probably be in the next major release, still a ways off. But you can install the nightly builds for yourself to play within the mean time Just keep in mind realize up front that this is experimental code still under development See http://musescore.org/en/handbook/comparison-stable-prerelease-and-night….

But I don't know that you can have different voices have different sounds - the feature I remember seeing is to change sounds mid-stream.

Should we file an issue for this?

I don't know how this would be implemented - perhaps there would be local controls of 'Stave Properties'?

Does MusicXML accommodate it?

In reply to by chen lung

This is already implemented - it is the "InstrumentChange" text type. Add an element of that type from the palette, right click, select "Change Instrument", and select the instrument you want the playback to switch to. Doesn't seem to affect transposition, though, which it should. That is, the transposition used when "Concert Pitch" is turned off should reflect the transposition required by the new instrument. Not sure if there is some other way to make that happen that I am not aware of or if this is something that needs to be fixed.

Or maybe you meant the separate issue you brought up of having different sounds for different voices?

In reply to by chen lung

What do you mean by "show an example of this"? You mean, post a score that uses this feature? It's simple to reproduce. Exactly as I said. Drag the text that says "Instrument" from the text palette to a spot in your score, right click, select "Change Instrument", select a different instrument from the instrument dialog, hit OK. I can't show it doing the transposition because it doesn't - yet. Yes, I guess ideally you'd be able to change staff type as well as transposition, although I can't think of any real life situations where this would come handy. But needing the transposition to change would be universal - every time you changed instrument to Bb trumpet, you'd need Bb transposition (written a major second higher than sounding).

The instrument doubling is a must, it's a deal breakers for some of my colleagues.
I find the solution of having two different stuff, and hide empty ones to be the best solution.
Wish the "Instrument" in the text will also do the transposition, but until then, writing them as two different instruments, and hiding empty stuff will work.
Did anybody figured out a different method?

Do you still have an unanswered question? Please log in first to post your question.