Stacattisimo is so quiet on strings, why?

• Sep 23, 2019 - 06:23

I have a score that proves my point here, that being an incomplete arrangement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata no. 1 in F minor, with just the first movement so far being fully arranged. But I noticed while I was listening to it that I get 3 different gradations of loudness save the accent markings and dynamics. Those being:

1) Default Legato sound - Loudest(at written dynamic level)
2) Staccato - Quieter(if at piano, it sounds pianissimo)
3) Staccatissimo - Quietest(if at piano, it sounds pianississimo)

I don't get this issue with the piano instrument, just the strings. It really ruins the sonata to have staccattissimo notes at fortissimo and have it play back not even at forte just because I arranged it for string quartet.

While yes, there naturally is a creschendo built into the bowing mechanism, that creschendo is quite quick, way quicker than the quickest staccato possible. So Beethoven's staccatissimo ending chords should be very easily played back at fortissimo. But they aren't, they are at mezzo-forte. I know this is a well known issue with the Musescore General HQ soundfont or whatever that's called, which is the new default soundfont for Musescore 3.

And of course the violins are the most affected by this issue, but I am noticing it even in the cello and viola which are less affected than the violins. But this Beethoven sonata score just proves my point that it is a serious issue. Speaking of which, here is the score:

Attachment Size
Piano Sonata no. 1 in F minor.mscz 36.98 KB

Comments

The sound set there for vor Violin is 'Slow Violin Expr.' this sound has a too slow/long attack for Staccato, (the sound hasn't fully ramped up when the staccato/staccatissimo ends it), so change to 'Violin Expr.'
Likewise for the other strings

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

I didn't know I could change the sound that is set for a given instrument. I suppose that requires me to go into the mixer, right and then save the score with the newly set sound?

I will change the sound set for each of the 4 instruments in my score so that I don't get the issue of the ending chords sounding mezzo forte when they are supposed to sound fortissimo. Thanks for the quick response.

In reply to by Caters

Yes, via the Mixer.
ISTR that we changed the default sound settings for the string quartet template some time ago to those sounds, guess your score is even older or hasn't been created from that template?
Ahh, no, I think that was the strings sections for the orchestra templates

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