Deleting and re-positioning staves - imported midi transcription
Am new to this, so please forgive the obvious ignorance in my question.
I have used an old Cakewalk/Scorewriter program before, but not this one.
Trying Musescore for the first time, I have experienced the following difficulties:
1. I cannot view all the channels, so cannot select from them and must just open the whole lot. Please can you help with commands that will adjust the screen so that I can make selections before opening? I will attach a screenshot to this request. 
2. Having opened all, I see that the elements that I want (for playing piano) are primarily in two tracks named "piano" and "violins" (although there is some material in a couple of other tracks that I might want to re-incorporate). The piano has the bass at the top and the treble at the bottom.
Please help me to reverse that order in the most efficient way, so that I have treble at the top and bass at the bottom.
I will then want to take some elements of violins and others and modify what is in the individual bars of that piano set. I am looking to use this midi transcription as a basis for producing a version of what it offers, merged to my liking, and print sheet music from it so that I can play it on my acoustic piano.
Comments
It sounds like your piano is actually two instruments rather than one instrument with a grand staff. If you press I you can confirm this. If I'm correct you can add a staff (not linked!) to the piano with a treble clef in the instruments dialog so you can copy and paste the notes from the bass clef where they belong.
Once the piano is straight you will do some copy and pasting to get all the notes on the piano the way you want. https://musescore.org/en/handbook/voices may be useful in helping with this.
In reply to It sounds like your piano is… by mike320
Thanks very much Mike. I don't recall where I sourced the midi file, but of course they're usually compiled aren't they?
You said press 1 - is that from the numbers 1 2 3 4 at the top r/h side? It will take me a long time to familiarise myself with this program I think.
Please could you also tell me how to enable viewing of the section at the bottom that allows selection of the voices that one wants to see? I can't move it by dragging or clicking and I just can't see anything other than its top line which is a real frustration. This is really important to me because it's too circuitous to load the whole thing and delete from that point in the exercise.
I am using Musescore in an endeavour to work out whether to just buy Scorewriter 5 because I'm used to it. My needs are quite simple - transcribe midi files into sheet music and edit it; write scores myself some time. I'd like to be able to input using pdfs but I don't know how to do this or what programs do it.
Some of them will convert .wav and .mp3 but they seem very expensive.
There's a point at which my skills or preparedness to devote the time learning run out and I wonder whether sticking with something relatively simple (and free) is the better course. The imperative for me is to play more and maintain piano skills rather than delve into computer programs, but I need to be able to fiddle with things nonetheless. You clearly know a lot about these programs. How do you think Musescore compares with Scorewriter?
Thanks very much
Leni
In reply to Thanks very much Mike. I… by lenip
Generally, it's easier to help if you attach your actual score, not just a picture of it.
When Mike suggested pressing "I", that's the letter "I", first letter of the word "Instruments". That's one way of displaying the Instruments dialog (the other is to use the menu: Edit / Instruments). That would allow you to verify how whether the piano is one instrument with two staves or two instruments with one staff each. It's also where you'd rearrange the staves.
I don't understand what you mean about "the section at the bottom that allows selection of the voices that one wants to see". I am not aware of any such control. If you just mean you want to scroll to the bottom of your score, use your mouse wheel or equivalent touch gesture (eg, two-finger swipe). Or maybe you mean you want to hide (or delete) some staves? That is also in the "Instruments" window.
As for comparing MuseScore to ScoreWriter, I haven't used ScoreWriter, so I can't comment, except to say that based on the info on the web site, it looks much more limited than MuseScore. Still, if it meets your needs, no one is forcing you to switch :-). Regardless of what program you use MIDI import is not a very accurate / efficient way of creating readable sheet music - way too much guesswork is required for the results to be very usable. But MuseScore does better than average. PDF import is considerably less efficient and accurate.
In reply to Generally, it's easier to… by Marc Sabatella
Thank you both very much, Marc and Mike. I found the items you commented on. I had been trying to move the midi import panel by grabbing (same manner as moving the score pages along) - I did not realise that I had to look for a grab point at the margins.
I have now been able to re-order the presentation and put the piano treble at the top and the piano bass at the bottom. No fuss now that I can access the midi import panel easily.
Now I can try adding notes in to it.
I can't thank you enough. It's really good that you and others like you are out there, willing to help. Good on you.
Cheerio
Leni
In reply to Thanks very much Mike. I… by lenip
Sorry, I usually use the lower case i to ensure it doesn't look like an l (small L) or 1. This is on the keyboard and will open the instruments dialog.
I'm more familiar with the function of using MuseScore for notation rather than midi. I'm not 100% sure what you want for the view, but you can move your mouse to the top of the midi box and it will change to a combination up & down arrow that will allow you to resize it. There are scroll bars that will allow you to see what has moved off the screen to the right (including voices) or below the visible channels.
The voices link was for the likely case where you will need to play multiple rhythms, like a quarter and two eighth notes, with the same hand on the piano.
The only notation program I've used is MuseScore, so I can't compare it to other programs. Every new program will have a learning curve due to how it is different from another ones. A little effort in reading the manual will go a long way toward improving your impression of the program. From what I have seen in these forums, MuseScore is as capable as any commercial notation program and with practice you will be able to do what you want with it. It will import Midi files with many options and writing new music as easy with it. The biggest bonus is that the price is right.
The forum is usually very active, but you have posted at the time of day it is least active - American prime time. Most of the people who spend a lot of time on this forum are in Europe and they seem to usually start stirring around 11 PM eastern time. Some time after that I expect you will get better specific answers than I am able to give you concerning midi import.
In reply to Sorry, I usually use the… by mike320
Thank you both very much, Mike and Marc. I found the items you commented on. I had been trying to move the midi import panel by grabbing (same manner as moving the score pages along) - I did not realise that I had to look for a grab point at the margins.
I have now been able to re-order the presentation and put the piano treble at the top and the piano bass at the bottom. No fuss now that I can access the midi import panel easily.
Now I can try adding notes in to it.
I can't thank you enough. It's really good that you and others like you are out there, willing to help. Good on you.
Cheerio
Leni
I, too, would like to know how to unlink staves. Attached is a file that has three violin staves linked. I would like to unlink the three staves. When I look at the "Instruments", I can see the option to "Add" another linked stave, but no option for unlinking. Seems like this should be a very basic function.
In reply to I, too, would like to know… by Hobart524
There isn't no way to link existing staves, so there is none to unlink either.
There isn't no way to move existing staves to another instriment, so there is none to move out either.
Add a not linked staff, or a new instrument, copy/paste notes etc. from linked staff to that new one, then delete the linked one.
In reply to Add a not linked staff, copy… by Jojo-Schmitz
The staves are not linked . But you have one single instrument (violin) with two added staves.
As said, add two new violins in Instruments dialog, "I" shortcut" -> copy-paste second staff in new second violin, and third staff in new third violin.
Then delete the "original" staff 2 and 3.
Result: 1Star of the County Down.mscz
In reply to The staves are not linked … by cadiz1
Thank you! That'll work!