Can someone create a plugin to allow an instrument track to be prelaid or delayed by a new milliseconds, to mimic real musicians?
I and several other Musescore members seek a means to delay an instrument or pre-lay it by a few milliseconds, just as a real orchestra would do when the notes are being played by actual musicians. Perhaps in the Inspector, a + ___ ms, or a - ___ ms option could be made for one note or a range of notes in a track, so that the instrument on that track would play or tell the musician to play those notes a bit before or after the other tracks in the score. This would not only truly mimic what a real orchestra does (no one plays their instruments exactly at the same time for all tracks), but would make the virtual player in Musescore 3 or 4 sound more realistic. Hopefully, a plugin to do this on one or more tracks would not be hard to create (would it)???
Comments
A plugin would be easy in MS3 because the plugin API has access to the note's start time, (it can be brought forward or delayed), but MS4 does not (yet) support this.
If you use MS3 then have a play with BSG's articulation plugin to see if your proposal actually sounds good in practise.
https://musescore.org/en/project/articulation-and-ornamentation-control
In fact that plugin may be sufficient for your use case.
In reply to A plugin would be easy in… by yonah_ag
Yonah ag: Thanks for the post. I have DockArticulation already but don't really use it because I don't really understand what it does. The other of BSG's Plugins don't exactly do what I think I am after. Trillers in particular probably won't work on single notes without adding trills, which I don't want to do. As such, since I already use Musescore 3.62 exclusively, how difficult would it be to create a plugin that will allow any instrument track to be accelerated or delayed by just a few milliseconds? Is this something you could tackle?
In reply to Yonah ag: Thanks for the… by fsgregs
As I said, it would be easy. I'll take a look at the weekend. I'm not convinced that it will help but I'm willing to be surprised.
In reply to As I said, it would be easy… by yonah_ag
Great. A plugin with slight randomization of timing around a temporal point of one or more notes sounds most like actual musicians in an orchestra would play. Thanks so much for the effort.
In reply to Great. A plugin with slight… by fsgregs
Your original request was for a +/- not a random amount. My experience with random timing changes, (a previous plugin), led me to abandoning the idea as the result was dreadful, on a par with a band of beginners who can't quite keep time together.
Have you experimented with several violins and panning?
In reply to Your original request was… by yonah_ag
Yonah: I apologize for suggesting a random amount of timing edit for the plugin. A +__ or -__ would work out just fine as well. Sorry!
I have recently tried panning different violins by different amounts, but I suffer from damn purity. Knowing that all strings tend to sit close together on stage, I have panned them all to a similar amount, placing them in the same imagined spot. Obviously, there really was no difference in the MS player playing them. They all played at the same exact time. I guess I could artificially spread each string out more by panning them far to the left or right and seeing if that makes them play at slightly different times, but I assume the MS player simply sends the sound to my left or right computer speakers, not changes their attack. Since my computer speakers are centered at my work station, I can't really see me hearing a pan spread as slightly different syncs. I'd much rather hope upon your coding skills to see if you can create a plugin that does just what we all discussed. Thanks for everything.
In reply to Yonah: I apologize for… by fsgregs
But surely the violin spread in an orchestra is very far from being an "imagined spot". Doesn't the violin section span a few metres in width and depth? (Unlike a solo guitar which is much more of a point source). I don't think that you should artificially pan them more than in real life as it might sound weird.
Anyway, Scorster has clarified how the randomness should work and it looks practical. I'll start at the weekend.
In reply to Your original request was… by yonah_ag
Hi yonah_ag
Regarding the m+/- delay/prelay plugin, if you're planning to tackle the request I'd be glad to offer feedback and test the results. Will probably have time for that in a couple of weeks.
I believe @fsgregs comment:
Great. A plugin with slight randomization of timing around a temporal point of one or more notes sounds most like actual musicians in an orchestra would play. is referring to comments I made in a related topic:
https://musescore.org/en/node/376281#comment-1284450
scorster
In reply to Hi yonah_ag If you're… by scorster
Thanks. I hadn't seen that post at the time of my reply. This sounds like another fun plugin to work on and it will be interesting to hear the results. I will definitely appreciate your testing and feedback. (It could be another joint project 🙂)
In reply to Thanks. I hadn't seen that… by yonah_ag
@yonah_ag wrote I will definitely appreciate your testing and feedback. (It could be another joint project 🙂)
Sounds good to me! I'll be there.