Musescore 4: Where have all the ...MIDI controls... gone?

• Aug 21, 2022 - 10:19

In the MuseScore 3 mixer, there were a few MIDI and other things one could do for each staff/track - see the read rectangles:
Musescore3Mixer.JPG

Where have they gone in MuseScore 4?:

Musescore4Mixer.JPG

  • I'd need at least the MIDI channel urgently ... Thanks!

H.M.


Comments

see https://musescore.org/en/node/334200
>>we have not been able to carry over the systems for mapping and prioritising sounds from MS3.
I'm anxiously looking forward too, my speculation would be devs are building new "track/channel" system from scratch, it'd be interesting to see how the new logic would tackle things like 3 individual VST tom drums plus others fitting into one drumset or how violin and viola shares one pizz sound.
peek into codes for uptodate developement https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/
>>urgently
why not use v3? afaik all that on the right like reverb chorus has not been working anyway. am i correct?

In reply to by msfp

>urgently
>>why not use v3?
Because v3 has huge problems with its long "reset event sequences" (see https://musescore.org/en/node/334438); v4 seems to be much better:
* If I play BRM music's great score of Sousa's Lambs March with v3 on my computer, the intro is completely garbled, because the MIDI engine seems to play catch-up with the events that overwhelm it (two CPU cores are running at their limit).
* In v4, the same score plays flawlessly on my computer, with the CPUs more or less idling along.
Thus, I wanted to compare MIDI playing in some more detail - but for this, I need some more finegrained control over what goes to which MIDI channel.

Incidentally, the musical playback of the Sousa score is quite a lot worse in v4 than in v3 - I want to give feedback on this also; just not finding enough time right now.

H.M.

In reply to by msfp

Hello everybody!

Taking advantage of this topic, I would like to know what the synthesizer would look like in MuseScore 4 so that we can change instruments as we currently do. Will it be possible to enjoy all sound fonts that are not native to MuseScore in version 4? All plugins available on the site that work correctly in MuseScore 3, work or would they work normally in version 4?

Thank you friends!

In reply to by mjbartemusica1

Changing instruments is done fromStaff/Part Properties just as it always has. The Synthesizer window isn't for changing instruments, but instead, for changing soundfonts. In MuseScore 4, it's pretty unlikely anyone will still want to use soundfonts because the new Muse Sounds library will be so much better than any soundfont could ever hope to become - that's what we keep hearing, anyhow, and I'm choosing to believe it! But, if after using MsueSounds you still find find a need for an older soundfont also - perhaps for a less common instrument only available in some specialty soundfont - you'll be able to select soundfonts via the Mixer.

Plugins are still a work in progress. The initial release of MuseScore 4 will only support a limited set of plugins, but that should be addressed soon after.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Hello Marc!

Thank you so much for your wise guidance! Improved sounds are great news, so we no longer have to look for sound sources.
From what I understand, the Muse Sounds feature will only be available after the official release of "MuseScore 4", am I right?

Regarding plugins, I understand that MuseScore 4 would already have the features of many existing plugins. That is, the work of many plugins would be aggregated in the tools to MuseScore 4, is that it?

Big hug friend!

In reply to by mjbartemusica1

Muse Sounds should be available before the actual release of MuseScore 4 - it should be available in the beta, expected very soon (within the next few weeks). But it won't work with older versions of MsueScore - so, you wouldn't be able to use it with MuseScore 3. It's just a totally different technology from soundfonts.

Regarding plugins, which opens specifically are you interested in? I don't know that there are any new features in MuseScore 4 that would replace things that used to require plugins, except one very big one: "Tempo Changes" will no longer be needed, because "rit" and "accel" will be supported directly.

In reply to by mjbartemusica1

Of these, new retrograde is one of the plugins that will be provided by default and will hopefully work by the time 4.0 releases. Tempostretch shouldn't be needed as much now that rit and accel are supported directly, even though I realize that is more about tempo changes than tempo stretch. The functionality of batch convert is also achievable with a shell script / batch file. For the others, you will probably need to wait for 4.1 or some other future release to be able to use them. Note that at least some of what prunestack doies, is done more easily by Tools / Explode.

In reply to by mjbartemusica1

Actually as far as I can tell batch-convert works in MuseScore 4 as is, even if it isn't fully adjusted (some of the more obscure/newer file formats are missing or too much/wrong).

It does require a score to be open though, unlike MuseScore 3 and 2 (but like in MuseScore 1), seems the requiresScore: false setting is ignored/not working

In reply to by yardbirddc

I'll third this motion. Depending on what plugin I'm using in my DAW, I either want the instruments in a piece to be outputting to consecutive MIDI channels or all to channel 1. While it's easy enough to edit the MIDI in my DAW (Reaper) after importing it, it would be more convenient to set that up front in MuseScore.

On a related note, the exported MIDI still contains initial CC codes for things like Volume and Pan Position. I always delete these in my DAW after import since they interfere with whatever patch I've loaded in my VST and it would be nice if there were an option to eliminate the output of those CC codes on MIDI export.

Finally, the exported MIDI for many instruments uses CC "Breath" for no apparent reason. That is, even if I have a part (e.g. Violin) that has a constant dynamic throughout the piece, the exported MIDI has many CC events for "Breath" all at the same value as the (constant) velocity of the notes, but not a 1:1 CC to Note event ratio, so I'm not sure what triggers the need to output the CC events. In any case, VST plugins vary wildly for what controls expression and dynamics and these exported events are not very helpful and I always remove them in my DAW. Again, it would be nice if there were an option to eliminate the output of these from the exported MIDI.

In reply to by thomaswb

for MS3 , i've no experience in MS4
sidetrack re: exported .mid , not the DAW realtime linkage issue OP mentioned

> ... CC "Breath"... even if I have a part (e.g. Violin) that has a constant dynamic
You propably know already
dev handbook instruments.xml, SND
CC2=breath, the synth use velocity and CC2 to make loudness variation for some hairpins and dynamics symbols such as sfz, fp

>... CC events ... I always remove them... if there were an option to eliminate ...
you can turn off SND in staff prop or override them / change CC number in synthesizer>dynamics tabs
i'm not sure but you could try out options to see if you could remove redundant CC2 in exported .mid

>... an option to eliminate ...
i used a midi router FX in REAPER to filter CC instead of manually removing

In reply to by msfp

...CC2=breath, the synth use velocity and CC2 to make loudness variation for some hairpins and dynamics symbols such as sfz, fp.
Understood, but this is why I think the export to MIDI process should allow more control over what MIDI gets exported. CC events necessary for the Synth/Playback Engine within MuseScore are likely not needed or incorrect for whatever the exported MIDI will be used for.

... you can turn off SND in staff prop or override them / change CC number in synthesizer>dynamics tabs...
With the new Playback Engine and MuseSounds for MuseScore 4 these options appear to have gone away.

Now that one can use any (or most) VST3i plugins in the new Playback Engine, it becomes even more important to allow for customization of the CC codes being used for dynamics for both in-app playback as well as export.

... I used a midi router FX in REAPER to filter CC instead of manually removing.
Good idea -- I guess this hadn't yet risen to the level of pain for me that I've done that.

Is there an update on this issue? as far as I can see latest version 4.2.1 is still missing MIDI controls in MIXER on anywhere else (or I couldn't find it).

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