soundfonts

• Jan 13, 2021 - 00:04

I want to make the brass section sound smoother. How do I do that ? Where do I go?

Explanation: The brass section (esp. horns, trumpets and trombones) sounds too raw...I am not sure if I used the correct word for the description. But the sound is not smooth AT ALL and it bothers me because I use the brass section very little or if not, not at all. I cannot have a trumpet in the pieces I write because it will be the only thing that will be heard (same for the trombones). The issue with the horns is that I do not hear them AT ALL even when I have their volume at max.
NB: Yes, I have a very good hearing. Yes, I have very good earphones and I have been composing music since 2015. I started to use Musescore in May 2018. And for the pieces I plan on composing, I need to brass section to sound smoother.

I am not sure I used the right terms but let me know and I will try to explain that in a better way.

Thank you.

Pss: While we are at it, when will the unstable version of Musescore (musescore 3.6.0) will have the option to save the scores online? I am curious to know.

Comments

• Jan 13, 2021 - 00:13

The answer to 3.6 it probably within the next 24-48 hours unless something very unexpected is found. I'll leave the others to people more familiar with sound fonts.

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• Jan 13, 2021 - 08:57

To further technical comment on the pps: unstable versions will never be able to save online. But as mike indicated; the stable release for 3.6 is imminent and that one (being stable) then will be able to save online again.

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• Jan 13, 2021 - 03:55

There are a host of features in PolyPhone to edit SoundFonts and apply (a restricted) set of effects/filters. I don't know that MuseScore can help here (although MIDI messages can be sent for Voices - but the effect then depends on your playback sound card or sound tech. on your computer).

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• Jan 16, 2021 - 11:47

I'm not aware of a specific help topic (though there probably is one) as I have never used this level of message customization, however something for you to investigate:
If you edit 'Stave Properties' for a stave, then click 'Properties' you will see a 'Stave Text Properties' window from which you can change a voice to a specific channel (default is 'Normal') however I believe you need an instruments.xml that configures multiple channels to use this feature against anything other than the 'Normal' channel. Someone may correct this interpretation, as I have never investigated it, but I do believe your 'instruments.xml' file can give you additional MIDI options as long as they are set up in there.
(Correction: I have partially investigated a 'Stave Text Channel' methods that indirectly access MIDI bank/patch numbers in a file: see https://musescore.org/en/node/299189). Sorry, I'd forgotten that forum post. It's not a full MIDI controller message implementation, but perhaps MuseScore can extend the use of these MIDI messages to 'channels' with new MIDI parms beyond bank and patch?)

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• Jan 15, 2021 - 17:38

Although it's subjective and there is no way to make things perfect, the balances should actually be quite realistic for the most part. Trumpets and trombones do typically put out more sound than horns. If you have a particular score where you feel the balance is off, feel free to attach it here so we can investigate further and perhaps tweak the balances a bit more in a future update.

Meanwhile, there are lots of other soundfonts you can try instead of the default, so feel free to experiment until you find one you happen to prefer.

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