Scores uploaded to Musescore.com after a certain date do not play with any reverb

• Nov 4, 2020 - 22:46

I've been revising some of my scores and uploading the edits online. But I've noticed that whenever I upload new scores, the playback is always very dull and empty. I've come to realize that there is absolutely no reverb in the playback, which is a huge problem. I've reuploaded an exact duplicate of one of my arrangements to demonstrate this.

https://musescore.com/user/25088226/scores/6258350/s/O1zGue?share=copy_…

https://musescore.com/user/25088226/scores/6431796/s/2wZ1gX?share=copy_…

These scores are exactly identical, but the first one plays with reverb and the second one doesn't. I changed absolutely nothing between them; I literally just took the original .mcsz file and uploaded it again. I came to ask if this is a problem that's only on my end (if anyone else notices this) and if so how to fix it, or if there's a way to artificially add the reverb back in. I liked the sound of the playback on Musescore.com because reverb made it sound a lot more real, like it was actually being performed. Now, there is nothing distinguishing it from just any dull, boring MIDI playback.

Edit: I wanted to clarify that in the MuseScore 3 program, it plays just fine, there's plenty of reverb. But when I upload them online, that's where the issue starts. It's only the online player that has this issue. Also, I listened to a few other users' scores and noticed the same problem.

Comments

• Nov 4, 2020 - 23:26

I reported this Thursday on musescore.com (with no response). See https://musescore.com/bsg/test-upload-reverb and the bug report it references. I don't know if it's a site or application or "both/interaction" problem. The way to get around it is to choose and use "upload score audio" in the upload dialog (i.e., make the soundfile on your machine). But this should be figured out and fixed; it is profoundly annoying.

Reply

• Nov 4, 2020 - 23:35

Hello, Thank you for your response.

I cannot find where it says "upload score audio" in the upload dialog. I've seen this on another forum post, but it was one about a different soundfont. Is this an option that only displays on scores with a non-default soundfont? What are the steps to create the soundfile with reverb to use for the online score?

Reply

• Nov 4, 2020 - 23:45

Are you uploading from the site or from the application? It must be from the application, not from the site: It is in the first of the two dialogs, the little one.

It is possible it only appears if there are multiple soundfonts in your synthesizer (but you don't have to be using them). Perhaps find the MuseScoreHQ (high quality) font and simply put it in a non-first position in your synthesizer.

Reply

• Nov 5, 2020 - 00:37

Thanks for helping me find the solution! What I did was I downloaded a random soundfont from https://musescore.org/en/handbook/soundfonts-and-sfz-files#list and loaded it into the synthesizer. I moved the default MuseScore General soundfont to the top of the list so the default one would be used, and hit File > Save Online. Success, the "Upload score audio" box shows and the reverb is back! However, it didn't let me assign the MuseScore file to an existing score to update one I already uploaded. What I did for this was I just found the score online, downloaded the .mcsz file from Musescore.com, and loaded it without changing the name of the file. I did the same steps as earlier and it worked, it showed the "Upload score audio" and the "Update existing score" boxes!

Reply

• Nov 7, 2020 - 18:41

I'm curious if you are also experiencing any issues regarding the overlapping note issue that we've gone back and forth on so many times over the years. I uploaded a score recently and it sounds different for me on musescore.com than locally, but I haven't kept up with all the developments in this area and am not sure what I'm even supposed to expect.

Specifically, the half note "D" in the very first bar here - locally it sustains for two beats, on musescore.com it does not:

https://musescore.com/marcsabatella/autumn-fires

Unfortunately I've used so many different versions of MuseScore lately, including my own self-built development versions, I can't really be sure this is even something that others would see. But I am pretty sure you'd be noticing if it were a problem in a released version of MuseScore, or a problem in the backend that affects all scores.

Reply

• Nov 7, 2020 - 18:59

Yes, it releases the D on beat 5 since the D in the lower voice releases so it cuts off the note in both voices. Doing the steps I described above should work, since by doing so you're loading the same audio the score is using. I have indeed noticed this before and the steps seem to work.

I believe it does this because they realized that you can't sing two different notes at once and it thinks there's only one singer. It does the same thing for the drum set where, for example, if you have a closed hihat note following an open hihat, the closed note cuts off the open note, since you can't play open and closed at the same time. I'm not sure if those are related, it's just my theory. Or it could be just a bug, who knows.

Reply

• Nov 7, 2020 - 19:40

It does this because midi channels are essentially virtual keyboards -- each note is either on or off. Although keyboards have been used for polyphonic music since they were invented, they are not polyphonic instruments. A keyboard, or midi channel, cannot really handle the coincidence or crossing of "voices" without some compromise being made or something being sacrificed. In the case of midi rendering engines, overlapped notes almost always cause premature shutoff. @mirabilos (cooperating with me) fixed the desktop app itself pretty well a couple of years ago to do ingenious things, and it sounds good when you play from score, but, when you render to sound files, as the site does, the fix doesn't work completely and I don't have the skill in that code to fix it. It requires real expertise even to patch around it by silencing notes and parts of notes and having hidden "backup singer" voices.

Reply

• Nov 9, 2020 - 18:17

Thanks, but what I'm confused about is - has it been like this long or was this a recent change? It surprises me to hear a difference between how it plays on my computer (the D sustains) versus the website (the D does not). I know different versions of MuseScore have handled this differently over the years, I'm just not really up on what should be expected at this point. I am 80% sure this would have played correctly (D sustaining) in 3.5.1, 3.5.0, 3.4.2, etc, but maybe not all& 3.x releases back to 3.0. I also don't have a sense of which months it would have played as expected on musescore.com.

to me, it's a bug that it's different between MuseScore and musescore.comn, and to me the correct behavior is the MuseScore one. So I'm just trying to understand if this is a "been that way forever" bug on musescore.com, or if something broke recently.

Reply

• Nov 9, 2020 - 18:28

It was always like this in both the app and the site. Then Mirabilos, cooperating with me, fixed it (complex overlap/unison handling) in the desktop app. But not when making mp3's. The bug is not in the site, but in the making of audio-files (not just MP3). The site, of course, makes mp3's. It is not a site bug. If you make an mp3 yourself, you will hit the bug (incoherent handling of overlaps/unisons). That's why the site gets it.

Reply

• Nov 9, 2020 - 19:02

Ah, I see, thanks! I remember when the issue was fixed and that you were involved in describing the problem and a proposed solution, which is why I asked you about this specifically. I now also remember there were two different solutions proposed, although I was never too up on the details. I didn't remember who implemented the solution (thanks @mirabolis!), and I guess I just completely missed that it never worked for audio export (I assume same for WAV, FLAC, etc).

So I guess the next question is, do we understand why that's the case and have given up on fixing it? I know the audio export goes through some different code paths and often fixes like this need to be applied in multiple places, but it's usually possible.

Reply

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