MuseScore Studio 4.4 is now available!

• Aug 27, 2024 - 00:58

We are delighted to announce the release of MuseScore Studio 4.4.

This version includes support for the long awaited Muse Drumline, a free sound library from Muse Sounds. It also contains a wealth of new engraving features, as well as numerous performance improvements and bug fixes, making it the biggest update to the app since version 4.0.

Watch the release video

How to get MuseScore Studio 4.4 and Muse Drumline

I’m new to MuseScore Studio

Head over to the Download page to see the available options.

  • Windows & macOS
    • The main download option gives you the Muse Hub utility, which you can use to install MuseScore Studio and Muse Sounds, including Muse Drumline.
    • There's also the option to download MuseScore Studio without Muse Hub if you prefer, but you'll need Muse Hub if you want to use Muse Sounds.
  • Linux
    • The main download option will just give you MuseScore Studio. You’ll also need to download and install Muse Sounds Manager if you want to use Muse Sounds.
    • Please note that Muse Drumline is not yet available for Linux but we're working to address this as quickly as possible.

You can find additional builds on our GitHub Releases page, including a portable Windows EXE, as well as AppImages for 32-bit and 64-bit ARM Linux. (Muse Sounds Manager is not currently available for ARM Linux.)

I already have MuseScore Studio (version 4 onwards)

You’ll see a message about the 4.4 update next time you launch the app. If you don’t see the message, go to Help > Check for update, or download the app manually instead.

To get the latest Muse Sounds, you’ll need to install the recently refreshed Muse Hub on Windows or macOS, or Muse Sounds Manager on Linux. You can download these from musehub.com. If you already have an old version of Muse Hub installed, it's best to uninstall it first before you install the new version. Please note that Muse Drumline is not yet available for Linux but we're working to address this as quickly as possible.

New features in 4.4

Percussion

  • New percussion collections: Muse Drumline, plus a Muse Sounds version of Tapspace's VDL (comprising two separate collections: Virtual Drumline and Virtual Percussion), available in the new Muse Hub
  • Optional migration for scores created with the MuseScore 3 Drumline extension
  • Sticking is now centered on the notehead and aligned to a common baseline across the system
  • Sticking is able to trigger different samples for more nuanced playback (Muse Sounds only)

Guitar

  • New style options for fretboard diagrams, including ability to add fingerings
  • Improved alignment and interactions for ghost/dead notes in tablature staves

Dynamics

  • More flexible anchor positioning; now you can have a crescendo start and end part way through a note!
  • Proper centering between staves for grand staff instruments
  • Snapping to other dynamics while dragging and resizing
  • New style options to control default positioning
  • Assignment to specific staves & voices for playback (depends on sound technology used) and engraving
  • Expressive playback; not just volume modulation (depends on sound technology used)

Accidentals

  • Layout system completely rewritten
  • SMuFL cut-outs used for elegant and compact layout in chords
  • New style options for further customization

Beams

  • French-style!
  • Better vertical spacing for cross-staff beams
  • Option to set cross-staff beams above, below, or between the grand staff

Text

  • Multi-line copyright text
  • New options for showing/hiding instrument labels
  • Increased use of SMuFL symbols within text for pedal markings, ottavas, codas/segno markings, and tuplet numbers

Explode & implode

  • Dynamics and text annotations are copied with voice assignment
  • Grace notes are are copied when exploding measures

Other engraving

  • Frames are now scalable with staff size
  • New option for separating layout of similarly-stemmed voices
  • Thickness of slurs and ties can now be set independently
  • Grace note slashes can now be toggled on or off in Properties
  • Many other improvements, including MusicXML improvements (see detailed summary)

Mixer

  • Hidden instruments can now be muted/soloed

Performance

  • Reduced note-input latency when using a MIDI keyboard
  • Lower minimum buffer sizes (128 samples on macOS; 512 on Windows)
  • Faster audio exports

Qt 6

  • Better scrolling & support for touch gestures
  • Native support for Apple Silicon

Please note: Plugins must be updated for Qt 6 or they won't appear in the Home screen or Plugins menu in MuseScore Studio 4.4. Plugin developers, please see #21659 for details, and these commits for the required changes.

Wayland display protocol (Linux)

  • Resolved issue with bundled Wayland libraries in the AppImage
  • Resolved positioning issue with popups, menus and tooltips
  • Run with QT_QPA_PLATFORM=wayland to force Wayland to be used

And more!

See the release notes and completed tasks in the 4.4 project for the full list of changes.

Comments

• Aug 27, 2024 - 17:24

What is the timeline for Muse Drumline for Linux? Also thank you to all the developers that have worked on making MuseScore become one of the best notation softwares currently available.

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• Aug 27, 2024 - 19:54

I suspect it's unintended that, on MacOS, the file name for the MuseScore Studio 4.4 app is:

     MuseScore 4 2.app

Looking forward to seeing 4.4's improvements and trying the new features!

scorster

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• Aug 27, 2024 - 22:22

Currently unable to add a payment method to Muse Hub to purchase VDL.

"Failed to create setup intent! Error: Unexpected error."
API issues?

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• Aug 28, 2024 - 06:46

I just want to ask for one thing, can you improve the experience for users in Chinese mainland? The use of musehub in Chinese mainland is very unsatisfactory.

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• Aug 28, 2024 - 08:23

The new anchor positioning for dynamics & playback is a welcomed addition! also, I really note huge improvements in stability. Great work!

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• Aug 29, 2024 - 03:57

I didn't receive an update notification when I open MuseScore 4.3 - when I click "check for updates" it tells me I'm up to date (on 4.3). I don't know if it's just my end, or maybe most users of MuseScore aren't getting notified of the update to 4.4?

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• Aug 30, 2024 - 18:16

The announcement does not say or imply the automatic update facility has been enabled - on the contrary, it explains exactly how to get the new version. Delay implies a change from the original or usual schedule. Again, every single release of MuseScore ever has done the exact same thing - there is no delay whatsoever, since everything is exactly according to the usual schedule. So yes, it wouldn't have hurt to add a statement clarifying that this release works exactly like every other release and that, yes, the way to get the update is to follow the directions given and not try to improvise by following some other process. But it's moot now, though, as the autoupdate does now seem to be in effect.

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• Aug 29, 2024 - 16:16

Will Virtual Percussion add the ability of Musescore to play buzz rolls? At present various percussive techniques cannot be produced by the application, and before spending money on fancy sounds I'd love to be able to produce the sound of basic skillsets.

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• Aug 29, 2024 - 19:36

I don’t think that is Chinese - I think it’s just a non-alphabetic font. Seeems whichever font you had configured might no longer exist on your system, or might be incompatible with the Qt 6 libraries MuseScore relies on. Try Help / Revert to
factory settings (last item in Help menu, which is second to last menu overall). or yoh could try to find Format / Style / Appearance and change the font directly.

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• Aug 29, 2024 - 20:18

Under the expanded release notes, I saw this under the Playback enhancements: "Support for Muse Sounds choral libraries, including lyric text to trigger different phoneme samples."

I'm using the Muse Sounds Muse Choir but don't see any way to attach specific phonemes to my lyric text. Is there more documentation for how to do this somewhere or does this just mean that developers for Muse Sounds choral libraries could implement the ability to read lyric text to adjust phonemes?

Does any such choral library exist currently?

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• Aug 29, 2024 - 21:03

Muse Choir only supports ah, oh, and mm, but the feature where this triggers from lyrics isn't working yet, should be in 4.4.1

I believe there are third party libraries that support additional sounds - Voxos? - but I don't think it's anything like full text-to-speech. Would be happy to be wrong about that though.

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• Aug 30, 2024 - 02:02

I'm pretty sure this is broken as of this realease, but file (path) containing unicode characters are now unable to be opened by double clicking the file itself. Workaround is to drag and drop the file into an open instance of MuseScore app

It says "Cannot read file _______

This file does not exist or cannot be accessed at the moment"

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• Aug 30, 2024 - 16:51

I posted to report the issue. You've been posting to just complain and $hit talk.

Do you want a refund or something? This is free product created and maintained by volunteer workers. You have absolutely zero right to complain about it.

Learn to appreciate their work and stop complaining. Better yet, go take your "business" somewhere else.

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• Aug 30, 2024 - 06:36

请问musesocre4.4挂载康泰克音源后如何在musesocre4.4里面修改那个由康泰克挂载音源的音符的力度，我今天挂载康泰克的The Orchestra Complete 3管风琴音源，发现无论我是修改他单个声音力度还是给他挂载ppff之类的标记都无法修改他播放系统的力度

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• Aug 30, 2024 - 09:46

Google Translate offers this translation from Chinese:
"How can I modify the note dynamics of the Contec sound source in musesocre 4.4? I installed the Contec The Orchestra Complete 3 organ sound source today and found that no matter I modify the single sound dynamics or add ppff or other tags to it, I cannot modify the dynamics of its playback system."

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• Aug 30, 2024 - 10:01

It is quite unfortunate that after the update I can no longer open my files and it is in complete gibberish codes. Now I have to revert back to 4.3.2 and skip this version. Anyone having the same issue?

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• Aug 30, 2024 - 21:40

Hmm, sounds like you are having some sort of trouble learning to use MuseScore, but it isn't clear what specifically you are struggling with. I recommend starting a new thread in the Support forum and describe your difficulty in more detail, then we can understand and assist better.

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• Aug 31, 2024 - 01:49

It has been nice to see the new update but I find something I think it should be good to fix in a next update or at least, if someone knows how to fix it, I would thank you.

1) Panoramic view deletes the title, composer and other text elements when you use it, or may be it doesn't delete it at all, but is not showing them. It should be nice to keep the same elements in vertical and horizontal view!

2) It should be nice to add a feature to generate chord fretboards, especially for sharps/flat tones such like Bb, Eb, Db, Ab, major, minor, etc. That they are not by default in the palette. Cause it can really take a lot of time to create custom fretboards instead of picking standard options. This is a nightmare when transcribing to be honest, where saving time is a priority.

3) For some reason, custom templates delete pictures/logos and composer/title information every time you use it, it seems like a bug or something maybe I'm not doing good, maybe, but whenever I open one of my custom templates, they're not showing the logo picture, or some of the tiles I chose.

4) Playback has a small delay. If you use the New Muse sounds library, i.e. piano, you will notice when you hit the play button, it sounds like the first second of sound is missing, like if doesn't load at all. I don't know if this is a problem due a configuration or something.

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• Aug 31, 2024 - 01:59

It's by design that continuous view doesn't display frames, because there would be no obvious place to put them since they appear between systems and there is only one system

It's also by design that templates preserve the structure of your score but not it's content.

A fuller palette of fret diagrams - and a possible way to generate them via transposition - is currently being looked at. Meanwhile, I encourage you to ask on the Support forum and you may find someone has already created a custom palette they would share.

The small delay with Muse Sounds is unfortunate but not new.

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• Aug 31, 2024 - 16:15

As explained, most of what you describe is by design, meaning it’s supposed to work that way. If you have a special reason to wish different behavior, best to start a new thread in the support or feature request forums to discuss your ideas in more depth. If you do t get much response, there’s a good indication that others don’t yet see the value of your idea, and explaining it better could help. Or it could be that you simply need to learn to use the software as already designed. In any case, again, that’s a discussion to have elsewhere.

Also as explained the fretboard diagram enhancements are already being looked at.

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• Sep 2, 2024 - 00:02

I'm having an issue since I updated. Day before doing the update all my files worked fine, after update I can only open like 1 or 2 of my files, all others won't open from the folders they are located in. "Can't read C:\users....... file" "This file doesn't exist or is unavailable at the moment".

When I try to open them through musescore itself when it shows new and recent scores you have worked on, it does work, which is good, but a little bit inconvenient with the amount of scores I've got.

Any solution?
Opening it through new and recent scores tab and then re saving it to the folder doesn't fix it.
Also tried using the repair assistant, this also didn't work.
Opening it through a zip file works as well, but like I said before, it still won't work if I re save it to the original folder.

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• Sep 2, 2024 - 00:20

So I've figured out that it does work when I run musescore as administrator, but I shouldn't have to do this of course. Anyone got any idea why this is since new update and how to fix this maybe? For some reason musescore isn't allowed to read my folders all of a sudden

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• Sep 2, 2024 - 20:38

Why has the figured bass been altered in this update? I used to be able to add a roman numeral analysis and create my figured bass along with my roman numeral. The figured now looks hideous as it doesn't change size. It look especially bad for a 6/4 chord. Is there an alternate way to write figured bass now?

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• Sep 2, 2024 - 21:37

Installed the latest update, but when I started the program, I only got a blank screen and nothing further happened. I could only open the task manager and kill the program.
Even a restart of the computer didn't help. So I went back to version 4.3.2, installed and started fine.
Don't know why version 4,4 doesn't work on my computer. It's a Dell pentium quadcore with 16GB RAM.

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• Sep 4, 2024 - 18:02

Hello
I downloaded muse score 4.4
It installed in the normal way.
When I launch it all I get is a white blank screen and no launch.
I am running windows 10
and the program should launch.
Can anybody comment on this problem with a view to solving it.
Thank you
Maestro Ashford
Brendan

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• Sep 4, 2024 - 21:18

Glitches in sound are normally due to a mismatch in sample rates between MuseScore Studio and your audio device. MuseScore Studio needs to be able to set your device to 44.1 kHz, and if the device or your OS has locked that possibility out, you get glitches and/or wrong pitch & speed. So see if you can find the settings for your audio device and set it to 44.1 kHz manually.

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• Sep 4, 2024 - 21:07

After updating to 4.4, Musescore won't open for me at all. The screen is gray and nothing happens. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling it, but it didn't work. I don't know what's going on but I have a project I need to do and I can't use Musescore.

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• Sep 7, 2024 - 22:38

I was so excited for this update! Unfortunately, after updating, decrescendos are cutting off very abruptly. I can set the end dynamic impossibly low, but it won't fade out cleanly anymore like it (kind of) did in 4.3. Dynamics on many Muse Sounds instruments make dramatic jumps between mezzo-piano and mezzo-forte, and dynamics on the first solo violin make no sense at all — pianissimo and mezzo-forte sound the same, but piano is quieter than both.

I would love to see an improvement on those playback features, because the update has made all my existing scores sound worse off than they did before. The MuseScore team has always been great about listening to their users, and I hope they can help solve this issue quickly!

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• Sep 7, 2024 - 23:21

Have you opened an issue to report this yet? If it affects only Muse Sounds, do so through Muse Hub. But if it also affects soundfonts or VST instruments, the issue is within MuseScore Studio itself, so report it via GitHub. Either way, be sure to attach the score with the problem and say exactly which measures in which instruments aren’t playing as you expect.

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• Dec 13, 2024 - 17:11

My 4th attempt to move from Musescore 3 to Musescore 4 ... the same disappointment at the end
Most of the previous obstacles have disappeared, true, but now I just discovered the Musecore 3 plugins have not been converted. And I am a big user of Expand Chord Symbols plugin, I like the way this plugin creates the chords notes according to a given rhythm.
On the plus side, not much for my utilization, sounds are nicer true (but you got to pay for most of them) and I use Musescore to accompany me, as a backing track, so the sounds of Musescore 3 are good enough.
I guess it means I will again revert back to Musescore 3 ....

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• Dec 13, 2024 - 17:15

That's too bad, because the free sounds in MU4 aremuch better than in MU3, so you're really missing out on you're backing tracks. What did the author of that plugin say when you asked him to spend a few minutes updating it? If they refuse, and no one else is willing to spend the time, you could certainly still use MU3 to enter the chords and run the plugin, then use the vastly improved playback and engraving of MU4 to generate the recordings and sheet music.

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• Dec 13, 2024 - 17:21

About the sounds—you could say that they are better in some respects, but they are still a huge pain to use. If I primarily used MS still, I would likely get high quality Soundfonts or vsts to use instead, or even just use MS basic. Other than the guitar, keyboards, and drumline. But yes, Muse Sounds are much more realistic.

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• Dec 13, 2024 - 20:13

For the vast majority of scores they sound utterly incredible right out of the box - far superior to the default output of any music notation that has ever existed in history. However, it is certainly true that for some scores at least, the solo violin 1 sound is too “romantic”. So, you simply pick the solo violin 2 variant instead, or add the “classic phrasing” sound flag.

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• Dec 13, 2024 - 20:28

I usually do that. Nevertheless I feel like both violins (solo and section) are always slidy and out of time. It works for free but I don’t prefer it. As an owner of NotePerformer, I prefer even its simple sound library when it comes with cleanness and realistic playback.

The samples though—👌. It just needs some changes in programming. I know not to complain to the MuseScore staff about this—I should go to the Muse Hub forums. I just was pointing out what people might be seeing in the sounds.

Don’t think I don’t appreciate Muse Group’s work. Yet, everybody I talk to seems utterly ignorant of these issues—on all sites. Even fellow users on Musescore.com.

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• Dec 13, 2024 - 20:08

No advantages except vastly superior playback and engraving, plus tons of new user-requested features - all of which reflect an extremely user-focused strategy! Not sure where you got the idea that providing a vastly superior update to a tool for free is somehow only a strategy to make money. But if they happen to also be able to increase usage of their paid services while providing all of these incredible improvements for free, so much the better! More revenue for the company means they can continue providing even more fantastic improvements that benefit everyone.

BTW, it’s also not generally true that you’d need to adjust your scores to use them in MU4 - most will sound and look much better right out of the box, no adjustment required. But it is true that if you made lots manual adjustments - like, to work around the limitations and defiencies of MU3 - you might need to revisit some of those.

Anyhow if you find you can get by with the less professional playback and engraving of MU3, that’s great too!

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• Dec 13, 2024 - 20:24

To be clear, no one is telling anyone they shouldn’t complain about anything - just that this MuseScore Studio release announcement is not a very appropriate place to complain that a third party volunteer developer hasn’t acted fast enough to also provide you with his own updates. There isn’t anything the MuseScore team can do about that. But even for things they can do - like fix bugs in the MuseScore Studio software itself, or add new features to it - release announcements aren’t the place to raise these issues. That’s what the issue tracker on GitHub is for. Or better, first ask for help on one of the other forums here to be sure there isn’t a simple solution already that you are overlooking, and once there is consensus that there is indeed a bug or missing feature, then open the issue on GitHub. But again, a release announcement isn’t the place for those sorts of discussions. See instead the Support forum.

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