Configuring Musescore to playback through Ableton Live - Lots of stutter and lag

• Nov 6, 2022 - 09:08

Hello!

I'm currently doing some big band arranging, and have the Native Instruments Session Pro Horns plugin which I typically use through Ableton Live.

I've configured the setup as per the guide here - https://musescore.org/en/node/320400

Fortuitously, the big band I arrange for has no guitar, so 16 midi channels are perfect for 5 saxes, 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, piano, bass and drums, and are configured 1 through 16 in the Musescore mixer.

I've also turned down the master volume within Musescore.

However, when I try and run playback fro Musescore, it's incredibly laggy and just crunches to a halt very quickly. If I export the Midi as files to Ableton Live, then it plays back absolutely fine, hitting no more than 15% cpu (I'm running a 2021 Macbook Pro M1, it's pretty powerful :D).

The only progams I'm running are Musescore and Ableton Live, and computer resources look fine throughout this.

Has anyone tried this using all 16 channels and made it work?


Comments

I can't answer that, but it could be interesting to try this using the MuseScore 4 beta, using the VST instruments directly within MuseScore rather than going indirectly through Ableton. I'd assume that will be smoother.

In reply to by Matthew Darwin

Hmm, I haven't seen that, and don't see any issues reported on GitHub that resemble this. So best to head over and open a new issue. Be sure to include relevant system info - what OS, which build of MuseScore (see Help / About), anything unusual about your display configuration, etc.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Sorry correction, I was installing the wrong beta version (nightly build rather than through MuseHub). I've installed and performed a cursory test this morning and got a couple of channels connected to Kontakt with success. A few bits of weirdness happening but probably cause I still had Ableton Live open and routing midi; will remove all that later and try again.

In terms of midi out from Musescore are the channels still set on the mixer in MS4 as I couldn't immediately see them, but literally only had three minutes looking at it.

In reply to by Matthew Darwin

Yes, the thing incorrectly called "beta" in the nightly page has confused more than one person, for good reason - it never should have been placed there with that name.

The actual nightly builds are actual better to use for testing than even the correct beta - more up to day. Still, only a few days worth of differences at this moment, By next week I expect the nightly will far surpass the beta though.

I haven't explored MIDI in/out features in MU4 yet, so I have no real insight there.

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