SF2 Soundfont is inconsistent when it comes to dynamics in certain situations.

• Jan 28, 2022 - 01:24

I recently discovered some Marimba, Crotales, and Vibraphone soundfonts that sound pretty awesome, or at least better than the default Musescore sounds. The Marimba has worked fine, but the Vibraphone and Crotales have some issues when playing back in the whole score. Enclosed is the score I am currently working out of.
DrumlineTemplate.mscz
PDF of score, measures 5, 6, and 8 have the issue for me.
DrumlineTemplate.pdf
Unfortunately, I cannot include mp3 playback of the issue because that is not supported in the forums.
The issue I encounter is during playback in the main score; the Crotales and Vibraphones just vanish in sound in certain measures, while everything else is fine. When I click on a chord, it plays it back fine; if I start from the measure that cuts out, it's fine. If I play the individual part or just the metals, it's fine. I wish I knew what was causing this problem. Help me out?

Edit: I would include the sf2's but they are too large.

Comments

• Feb 6, 2022 - 17:20

While I don't have any of the marching fonts that can really play your score, I have experienced something similar. I think it has to do with the way recorded sounds play back as opposed to the way live sounds mix together. Sometimes overtones, harmonics, and various frequencies cancel things out.
Does the same thing happen with default sounds? If not it doesn't mean that the new fonts are bad. just different.

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• Feb 7, 2022 - 03:31

For files not supported by this forum directly, just upload to your favorite cloud service and add a link here.

More important than that would be precise steps to reproduce the problem - what exactly we need to click or press and what exactly we should listen to (which note in which measure in which staff) in order to perceive the problem.

As it is, I'm guessing you have a mismatch in your single note dynamics settings. Asd liong as you stick with the default soundfont, everything works right out of the box, but if you start experimenting with different soundfonts, it ends up being up to you to figure out which support single note dynamics and which do not, or if they require non-default settings in View / Synthesizer / Dynamics.

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• Feb 7, 2022 - 05:42

Hi Marc,
Running some tests with a solo vibraphone using the vibraphone soundfont reveals that all dynamics are functioning normally, same with the crotales. All of the higher notes (above middle c) vanish to my ear in the measures started in the original post. In parts with only metals or starting from the bars where they disappear, it plays back normally. Attached is a google drive with the crotales and vibraphone soundfont (where the issue lies) and the marimba soundfont for good measure. There is also an mp3 with the issue.

I am going to attempt to be as specific as possible:
I have these soundfonts organized beneath the Musescore HQ Pack in the order of Marimba, Crotales, and Vibraphone. There is a sine wave soundfont and a piano soundfont, but I don't think they are relevant at the moment. I am using a 2021 M1 Max Macbook Pro with 64 GB of Ram and a 10 core processor. Let me know if you need anything else.

Drive: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1QXbOdm2-NeWjnKkoUihCp7wYO3ut5lq…

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