How to mid change instrument without changing the staff name

• Feb 10, 2019 - 17:44

So I want my staff to be mallet percussion
and I want to mid change instrument(Glock., Vib. etc) by using Change Instrument text
but when I change it the whole staff's name will be change
is there any way i can fix this ?

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Comments

If it is not meant to indicate a true instrument change, then don't use Change Instrument, just use the Mixer to change the sound. Although changing from Glockenspeil to Vibraphone is a true instrument change and really 8should* appear as such in the score. Still if you prefer not to, the Mixer is the way to go.

While we're at "change instrument" subject, it seems to me that changing instrument in mid-staff does not allow the full list of instruments (assuming, as is my case, that the synthesizer has more than one soundfont loaded). The list that appears for me to change the instrument is rather short, not including any of my customized instruments, within my sf2 loaded file. I can normally set any of them, though, for the full staff, but not mid-staff. Is this a real limitation, presently? Of course, I can always create another staff and use it from the changing point on, for the new instrument. But that means one more staff in the system.

In reply to by luizcrodrigues

SF2 isn't a list of instruments, it is a list of sounds. The list of instruments is huge and is exactly the same for new instruments as for instrument changes. But neither is affected by the sounds you have loaded. Is there a particular instrument (as opposed to sound) you are having trouble finding? Maybe you need to change from "Common" to "All" using the drop down at the top of the instruments list to find something you are missing? Or use the search box?

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

It looks like I didn't make my point clearly. When I use F10 to select an instrument for a staff from the mixer, I have a complete list of all presets (to use the correct term) both in MuseScore_General.sf3 and my LCR.sf2. That's one thing and works fine. But when I try to change an instrument, mid-staff, in the "Select Instrument" list that pops up from the "Change Instrument" text, I don't find, for example, my "Trombone 3" preset, included in my sf2 loaded file, like I find when I use the mixer (F10). Even if I set to "All", instead of "Common". So it looks to me that the mixer list (huge) and the "Change Instrument" list (also huge, but no that much) are not the same. I thought they should be exactly the same. Unless I'm doing something wrong. Clearly, the mixer list includes ALL presets from ALL loaded soundfont files. That doesn't seem to be true for the "Change Instrument" list.

In reply to by luizcrodrigues

BTW, the soundfont format is an organized collection of samples (yes, sounds), but also instruments (made of samples) and presets (made of instruments). What I use in MuseScore are the presets. For example, I have a preset called "Electric Archtop Guitar" in my sf2 file, with a guitar sound I couldn't find in any other preset of any soundfont file. For that one, I started from zero, creating the samples from personal recordings and then used Viena editor to build the instruments and the presets.

In reply to by luizcrodrigues

As I said, instruments and sounds are different things. You might have a sound called "Trombone 3", but the instrument is simply Trombone. There is no instrument called "Trombone 3". So if you wish to switch an instrument from something else to "Trombone", use the instrument change text, and use the Change Instrument command to change the instrument to "Trombone". Or, if it is already a "Trombon" instrument and you just want to change the sound, add the text but don't do the "Change Instrument". Then go to View Mixer and change the sound to "Trombone 3" for that instrument.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Sure, but that takes me back to what I said above: changing the sound from within the mixer (which lists all presets, including Trombone 3) will change that sound for ALL the staff, not just from the "Change Instrument" point on.
So, I guess the solution here is to have a separate staff for each sound (preset) I intend to use in the score, even if it is for just a few measures. That will take care of it.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

I tried it, as you suggested and it worked all right. So, problem solved. Thank you, Marc, for the correct information, and for reminding me that sub-channels exist. I read through the handbook (version 3) and it is well described. One question, though: the number of sub-channels for each channel seems to be fixed, depending on the instrument assigned to the channel. Am I getting it right?

In reply to by luizcrodrigues

While I'm still looking into this: reading again the handbook, on the mixer chapter, I noticed that the nomenclature there is somewhat different than the one we are using here: the handbook calls the channel as "part tracks", and what we are calling "sub-channels" the handbook calls "channel tracks". Here is the original handbook description:
...
MuseScore creates one 'part track' for each staff in your score. These part tracks can be further subdivided into 'channel tracks' corepsonding to the different sounds used within the staff. While many staves will only use a single channel track, others will have multiple due to using an instrument that can play more than once sound (such as a violin which can play in arco, tremolo or pizzicato voices), or due to a Mid-staff instrument changes. These extra channel tracks can be shown or hidden by clicking the arrow button on the top of the track control.
...
Note: the typo (corepsonding) is not mine...

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