Release of MuseScore 4.2 and new guitar sounds!

• Dec 18, 2023 - 13:19

We are delighted to announce the release of MuseScore 4.2, a milestone update for guitarists that includes an extensive new system for guitar bends, with beautiful engraving and highly realistic playback. 4.2 also brings other significant features for everyone, including valuable improvements for scores with multiple parts, and much more.

This update is accompanied by the release of another free instrument pack in the Muse Sounds collection: Muse Guitars, Vol. 1. This pack contains steel and nylon six-string acoustic guitars, two electric guitars, and an electric bass. You can find it in Muse Hub alongside the existing choral and orchestral Muse Sounds.

(Please note that updating to MuseScore 4.2 is required to fully utilise all the capabilities of Muse Sounds Guitars Vol. 1).

Watch the release video

How to get MuseScore 4.2 and Muse Guitars, Vol. 1

I already have MuseScore 4

If you already have MuseScore 4 or 4.1 then you’ll see a message about the 4.2 update next time you launch the app. If you don’t see the message, go to Help > Check for update, or download the app manually instead.

To get the new sounds, you’ll need to use the Muse Hub utility (Windows and Mac) or Muse Sounds Manager (Linux). You can download this from musehub.com if you don’t have it already. Muse Hub can also be used to update or install MuseScore.

I’m new to MuseScore 4

Head over to the Download page to see the available options.

  • Windows and macOS: The main download option gives you the Muse Hub utility, which you can use to install MuseScore and Muse Sounds, including the guitar sounds. There's also the option to download MuseScore without Muse Hub if you prefer.

  • Linux: The main download option will just give you MuseScore; you’ll also need to download and install Muse Sounds Manager if you want to get the new sounds.

You can find additional builds on our GitHub Releases page, including a portable Windows EXE, as well as AppImages for 32- and 64-bit ARM Linux. Please note that Muse Sounds Manager is not currently available for ARM Linux.

A note for Linux users

On Linux only, Muse Hub has been renamed Muse Sounds Manager to better describe its purpose and capabilities on that platform. Muse Sounds Manager is now available as an RPM package in addition to the DEB package. A recent update removed the need for a root daemon, so it now prompts for root privileges only when required to install packages to a system folder.

New features in MuseScore 4.2

Guitar

Parts

  • Better synchronisation between the score and the parts
  • Ability to exclude certain elements from the score or the parts

Playback

  • Ability to choose specific sounds within a SoundFont
  • Harp pedal diagrams now affect glissando playback
  • Microtonal accidentals now affect note playback
  • New "a tempo" and "primo tempo" palette elements that return playback to earlier tempi (thanks to community contributor Remi Thebault)

Engraving

  • Support for arpeggios spanning voices
  • Options to place ties ‘inside’ or ‘outside’ of notes and chords
  • A multitude of refinements to key signatures, time signatures and parts (thanks to community contributor Samuel Mikláš).
  • Various other fixes (see list)

Accessibility

Import/export

  • Support for MEI (Music Encoding Initiative) format (thanks to community contributors Laurent Pugin and Klaus Rettinghaus).
  • Various MusicXML fixes and improvements

Cloud/publish

  • Ability to update existing audio on Audio.com
  • Option to publish to MuseScore.com and Audio.com at the same time
  • Optional list view for scores on the Home tab, which shows more details than the default grid view
  • Ability to open scores from MuseScore.com directly in MuseScore (no need to manually download and save the file)

Please note that scores created or saved in MuseScore 4.2 cannot be opened in previous versions of MuseScore, including MuseScore 4 and 4.1. Please use File > Export > MusicXML if you need to share a score with somebody who is not able to upgrade to 4.2.

Community members

Special thanks to all community members who contributed code to this release.

▸ All community contributors
Contributor Changes Insertions Deletions Files (total) Files (unique) Commits
lpugin 97655 91773 5882 691 193 179
Jojo-Schmitz 75081 61212 13869 233 171 96
rettinghaus 10768 9244 1524 180 131 44
TuanLa1972 5240 4821 419 30 30 1
iveshenry18 4990 4985 5 15 13 3
sammik 2041 1296 745 146 91 70
lyrra 660 580 80 12 12 2
lvinken 385 355 30 6 6 1
Da-Viper 376 192 184 10 9 2
mmeyn 361 92 269 25 23 7
rtbo 341 283 58 44 21 16
HemantAntony 340 249 91 16 31 5
Nekotizimo 304 157 147 27 16 11
adazem009 278 166 112 9 9 4
bluebear94 273 179 94 28 20 9
theofficialgman 179 97 82 18 7 15
22justinl 115 108 7 25 17 5
Gootector 90 45 45 23 18 11
SafalChapagain 84 56 28 5 3 2
zanaviska 77 69 8 69 69 1
iwoithe 76 47 29 11 14 7
MaxiSchwindler 67 63 4 10 10 2
asattely 62 52 10 4 4 3
konradglas 60 50 10 10 5 6
handrok 54 31 23 10 9 5
softcat477 48 30 18 3 3 1
octopols 30 19 11 5 5 3
doronbehar 21 12 9 2 2 1
MarcSabatella 15 3 12 4 5 2
bakajikara 14 7 7 2 35 1
VanSHOE 12 11 1 2 2 1
AntonioBL 12 7 5 3 2 2
manolo 10 6 4 1 1 1
citron0xa9 10 8 2 2 2 1
laarmen 9 8 1 1 1 1
daijingz 9 9 0 3 3 1
worldwideweary 9 4 5 2 2 2
michaelsiepmann 7 7 0 1 1 1
LukaDaushvili 5 2 3 3 1 3
Blargian 5 3 2 2 1 2
pandu-12345 4 2 2 1 1 1
kiselev-dv 4 2 2 2 2 2
matthewpetch 4 2 2 2 1 2
NinjaNas 4 2 2 2 2 2
Bohdanator 4 1 3 1 1 1
andrewdupper 4 2 2 1 1 1
frnkwang 3 3 0 1 1 1
deswinteil 2 1 1 1 1 1
SiboVG 2 2 0 2 1 2
hodori0719 1 1 0 1 1 1
chunga2020 0 0 0 1 1 1

Statistics are calculated from contributions to the release branch (4.0.2) minus contributions to the previous release branch (4.1.1).

Comments

• Dec 28, 2023 - 16:29

FWIW, there are already several reports on GitHub of various different but presumably at least somewhat related problems with glissando. So if your issue sounds like one of these, there is probably no need to open a new one unless @bradleykunda thinks it is warranted. But if you are seeing something different from one of these, definitely do open a new issue. Here are some of the existing reports:

No playback for glissando on mallet percussion - https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/issues/20685
No playback for glissando on tied notes - https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/issues/20570
Incorrect timing of portamento (Muse Sounds only) - https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/issues/20611

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• Dec 19, 2023 - 21:30

The advance of guitar music notation is really great news! How are the guitar-specific settings accessed (non-standard tunings and such)?

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• Dec 28, 2023 - 14:20

Have you tried adding a ukulele yet?
I just gave this a go, and MuseScore seems to recognise it as a 4-string instrument, and provides the alternate tuning elements accordingly:
Screenshot 2023-12-28 at 3.16.56 pm.png
Certainly I don't see any reason why we shouldn't extend support for this feature to instruments of all available numbers of strings. I'm sure this wouldn't be difficult to do. It would be helpful if this could be raised by someone here as a feature request over on GitHub (if it hasn't already been done).

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• Jan 11, 2024 - 15:27

Not a simple way to have both installed, but on Linux you can run both AppImages, and on Windows you can use the portable versions. On the other hand, having both installed won't really help in any obvious way I can think of in terms of moving scores. Just export to MusicXML from 4.2 so you can import into 4.1. Having both will help with actually comparing the sounds, of course.

But let's back up a step. Difference in the sound of instruments is almost certainly a Muse Sounds thing, not a MuseScore thing. So it probably won't sound any different between 4.1 and 4.2.

If you have a specific score where you believe there was a recent change for the worse, please be sure to report this so it can be investigated. If you have recorded evidence of how it sounds before and can definitely show it's different now, then go directly to GitHuib and open an issue. if it's just a hunch and you need confirmation there really is a difference, start a new thread on the support forum here on musescore.org. Either way, attach your score and describe the problem in more detail.

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• Dec 28, 2023 - 14:23

It would be extremely useful for us if you could help us fix whatever is causing the crash.
If you were able to figure out how to reproduce it, please raise it as an issue on our GitHub repo (if you haven't already done so). Screen recordings showing the steps taken are always very valuable!
FWIW, crash reports get triaged at the top of our list of bugs to fix, unless they occur in only very niche circumstances (in which case we often have to prioritise other fixes over them, depending on how severe and critical the problems are). Your case sounds like it's potentially not niche, so we'd really like to hear about it so we can try to fix it!
Thank you!

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• Dec 28, 2023 - 16:37

I know the original problem Jack was seeing is already reported on GitHub - see https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/issues/20620 - and it already has a pending fix for 4.2.1.

But Jack - I believe you also mentioned some sort of crash involving a plugin? Note that as mentioned in the beta announcement previously, it's a known issue that certain plugins will have issues on macOS specifically and need to be tweaked due to a bug in the Qt libraries that MuseScore relies on. See https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/issues/20620. That's not new with 4.2, but it could be you hadn't used this particular plugin with 4.1 and thus hadn't noticed the issue?

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• Jan 4, 2024 - 22:44

I have been trying to open a file I made in version 4.1.1 I made a 3 guitar and one bass arrangement of voices of spring. I wasn't done yet. a lot of octaves to change and many small issues to polish as this is the first thing I've arranged ever. And then the update happened. and I can't open the file. crashes every single time I try. all the other files I have work just fine though.

Attachment Size
Voices of Spring Stiles.mscz 98.79 KB

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• Dec 21, 2023 - 07:21

4.2 has a game-breaking bug when applying ties between notes that blacks out a significant portion of the screen in continuous mode and is being treated as a "visual-only bug"

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• Dec 23, 2023 - 01:17

This is amazing on so many levels. It's not often you see new releases of any software with actual helpful updates. But this has so many! This is incredible! Thank you to all who contributed

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• Dec 27, 2023 - 18:53

Would love if the guitar sounds could include the low B in the next pack - as a player/composer of primarily 7-string guitars, this is a pretty big barrier and I will likely have to use the previous sound fonts for playback.

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• Dec 28, 2023 - 13:37

MS > Options to place ties ‘inside’ or ‘outside’ of notes and chords...

Great, but how do you actually choose one or the other? I keep seeing references to this new option, but nothing yet on how to actually use it.

For example, I've just added a tie to these A's:

ms_tie_fix.png

...that'd obviously look better between (inside) the notes, rather than outside and rather unusually far below them (though I realize you can zoom in and hand-adjust). I assumed we could now select a tie, and "Inside/Outside" would appear on the Properties palette, but no.

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• Dec 28, 2023 - 14:03

The tie on that A (assuming treble clef) definitely shouldn't be that far from the noteheads, and isn't for me if I enter that same passage. Something else may be going on here to cause that - best to start a new thread and attach your score so we can check it out.

But, it would be quite wrong to place the ties inside those single notes - that's just not how ties are meant to be drawn. The option to place them inside notes is meant for ties in chords, and it will look pretty ridiculous if you try it here. But the option is there in the Properties panel. Here it is, shown next to the way that passage actually looks by default in 4.2 for me:

Screenshot 2023-12-28 7.02.48 AM.png

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• Dec 28, 2023 - 20:13

I was hopeful that the dynamics would be fixed in 4.2. That is, if you are writing for multiple voices (in my case, a string quartet), setting the violin to piano and the cello to forte doesn't work. The cello remains at a piano dynamic. It looks like this still doesn't work.

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• Dec 28, 2023 - 20:50

? That definitely shouldn't happen - each instrument does have its own dynamics. If you have a score where this appears to not work as expected, please start a new thread and attach your score there and say which measure is not playing as you expect. If others can reproduce the issue in your score, then you can open an issue on GitHub so the developers can begin investigating.

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• Jan 3, 2024 - 05:01

Thanks to all! I've been a user for 10 plus years and best version / release ever. I gave it a whirl tonight on a simple piano part and it all just worked. I did all the entry on a computer KB which is my norm and the screen responded as expected all the time. Nice. I've also used the MusicXML from MS to Dorico and back again, not perfect, but real useable. Keep up the good work.

-Ted

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• Jan 3, 2024 - 07:57

Please asap fix the problem where Grand Staff instruments can only have 1 dynamic and not 2 different dynamics for each staff!

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• Jan 3, 2024 - 22:35

Agree, but it does not seem to be on the radar currently . Is is deliberately done by design and to me it’s a showstopper.
“We made a great new car, much nicer than the old one, but left out the steering wheel by design”.
Regressions is not software “development” in my view.
I’ll wait for 4.6.2…

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• Jan 5, 2024 - 02:03

If you need different volume levels per staff, use velocity adjustments, not dynamics - that’s normally the better way anyhow. Although per-staff dynamivs will be coming back soon as well, along with all-new per-voice dynamics, and an all-new and much more powerful, flexible, and easy way to apply velocity adjustments as needed.

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• Jan 4, 2024 - 07:48

I recently downloaded MuseScore 4.2 and the MuseSounds Guitar Vol. 1, but the MuseSounds Guitar seems to not work well for me. It only plays the Acoustic Steel String option while the others (Nylon String, all Electric Guitars, and Bass Guitars) don't play a thing. The mute button is not pressed on the mixer, they just get no sound at all. Is there anything I can do to fix it? Do I need to re-download the update and sound option again? Thanks.

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• Jan 4, 2024 - 13:32

Hard to say, but be sure to restart MuseScore after the download, then go to Diagnostic / Muse Sample / Check Muse Sampler to verify you are on at least 0.5. If not, something went wrong during the download of Muse Guitars, so go back to Muse Hub and check for updates manually within the setting window.

If you continue to have trouble after ensuring you have Muse Sampler 0.5, it's probably something specific to your score, so start a new thread in the Support forum and attach your score there. Then we can understand and assist better.

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