Swing Settings Not working in MP3 and MIDI Exports

• May 12, 2021 - 04:40

Sooo I have been trying to export a drum track for a funk tine (66% swing 16ths), but in mp3 and MIDI the export simply does not include this swing. I and using 3.6.2, with custom soundfonts, if that is any insight.

This may not seem like much of an issue, but it can be a huge detriment, especially when the midi is needed for a DAW project.


Comments

In order to understand and assist, we'd need you to attach the score that is giving you problems. Certainly swing exports in general, I've used it hundreds of times.

In reply to by DBD17

It's working for me in the current version - 4.3.2 - for both mp3 and MIDI. Be sure you are up to date (see Help / Check for updates) to have updated, and if you continue to have trouble, please attach the score and say where the problem is occurring. Also say what OS you are on.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Hi Marc,

Would it be possible that if one uses both "swing" and "straight" tempo markings in one project, that the software gets confused as to what to export and then reverts back to default straight settings? For this project, I used both markings to go from a swing groove, to a straight 8ths bossa nova groove. I used both the "Swing" and "Straight" tempo markings, and even edited those markings to add the word "Bossa nova" before the "Straight". Would this maybe have caused the problem? I am on Windows and on the latest version.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Hi.
Here is a +1 for this being a bug.

Swing 8'ths works great in musescore itself ( (WIP) Grace_Kelly-2024.mscz )

It seems that the swing setting is correctly interpreted by other programs when i import the midi made with export - 'full score' ( (WIP) Grace_Kelly-2024.mid ), but not when it is a single part ( (WIP) Grace_Kelly-2024-S.mid )

I am on up-to-date versions of mac OS sonoma 15.4 and musescore 4.3.2

@Marc and any others: thanks in advance for your help :-)

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Here are some scenarios where it would be more convenient to be able to export MIDI parts individually without losing the swing (all based on my experiences of using MuseScore's MIDI output in Reaper):

  1. You've written out all parts in MuseScore, but your DAW project uses a combination of exported MIDI and recordings of your own performances. In this scenario, you only want to import MIDI into your DAW for parts that you do not intend to perform yourself.
  2. After importing the MIDI files into a DAW, you decide to change a part in MuseScore. If the track layout in your DAW matches the layout of the parts in the score and you haven't manually tweaked the exported MIDI, then you can just import the change by deleting the MIDI in your DAW and reimporting all of the parts from MuseScore. But that doesn't work in the following scenarios.
  3. After importing the MIDI files into a DAW, you manually tweak some of the MIDI, e.g. to improve the dynamics or the timing. Then you change a part in MuseScore and you want to reimport this part alone into your DAW. The scenario-2 solution doesn't work in this case, because you'll lose the manual changes that you've made to the other parts.
  4. The track layout in your DAW does not match the way parts are laid out in MuseScore, so the MIDI parts won't end up in the right place if you import the whole score at once. E.g. you may have composed some of the parts directly in your DAW (meaning that they're not in your MuseScore score). Or you may want to trigger an effect based on what a part is playing (e.g. sidechain compression); setting this up may require you to create multiple tracks for that part. Or you may want to create an additional track corresponding to a subset of the parts, so that you can apply a single effect to the whole subset.

If we can't export individual parts as MIDI without losing swing, then the only solution that works in all of these scenarios is to create a set of temporary DAW tracks that the whole score can be imported into, then move the parts that we need into the right tracks (e.g. the MIDI for changed parts), and then delete the temporary tracks. This will work, but it's irritating given that there's no good reason for MuseScore to ignore swing when we export individual tracks.

In reply to by osemwaro

Indeed, it would be better if the parts worked - hopefully you have verified that an issue has been submitted on GitHub, or submitted one yourself if not.

Meanwhile, though, if you find yourself encountering one of those special cases you mentioned, you could hide/mute the instruments other than the other you are generating the “part” for, then just export the score.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Hiding/muting instruments doesn't work -- the exported MIDI score still contains all of the parts. I'm glad that I don't have to hide instruments every time I want to export a single part though, because it takes ages to respond when I hide/show a part.

I've found a fast workaround that does work though -- if I export both the whole score once, then individual parts that I export later in the same session do preserve swing (by "the same session" I mean before closing the score, not MuseScore). The issue was reported on GitHub in May. I'll add a comment about this workaround.

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