Note Entry Playback duration

• Jan 15, 2014 - 04:35

I have a composition that I am working on that is driving me crazy. First I have been saving the work regularly, but today, when things started misbehaving, I decided to relaunch MuseScore. So I saved the file, closed the composition, and then closed the app. When I opened the application and composition back up, I had a file that was about 2 days old. Not good.

But that's not what's driving me crazy. One of the things that caused me to close the file and the app was that all of a sudden, the duration of the notes being played back to me became unacceptably long - haven't timed them, but it seems to be in the neighborhood of 1-2 seconds. I looked in the preferences/note entry tab, and the playback duration was set at 300ms - that works out to be .3 of a second. I tried different values, and none of them seemed to be significantly better, until I tried 20ms, which got me a chirp of a note. Values higher than 20 go back to 2 seconds.

I tried the reset preferences button, and the value was set back to 300ms, but the actual time was still in the 1-2 second range still.

I tried opening a new composition just picking defaults from the new options, and then tried to enter some notes. The duration of the playback of the notes as I entered them are back at what they should be, and the preference file is set at 300ms duration.

I have closed the application, rebooted the computer, and still have the same problem. Its very frustrating, as the duration of the playback is often longer than the time it takes me to enter the next note.

I am assuming its something in the file that I am working on, but have no idea where to look next. Anyone have any suggestions? Report this as a bug?

Thanks in advance.


Comments

In reply to by xavierjazz

The problem is on Note entry, not playback, so, as I understand it, tempo markings are not relevant. Last tempo indication was Moderato - 112 BPM. Also, I didn't mention it, but response time during note entry is also slow. Is there a size limit on the file that causes performance to degrade?

I am running Windows 7, and Muse 1.3. I have 4GB of memory, and it's about 70% utilized, according to the Task Manager - 2.75GB at the moment, with Muse loaded, and the composition open.

I will try to attach the file to this document. Its a transcription of a Sousa work for a Brass choir. Currently has 192 measures, with 13 parts.

Not sure if this was related, but just before I started having problems, I tried to move in the score, and playback started. I stopped it, but it started again when I tried to move the score again. This happened a couple of times in a row.

Attachment Size
Dwellers 2 The White Man.mscz 36.72 KB

In reply to by tbdbitl

There is no arbitrary size limit, but it is true that the larger the score, the more sluggish MuseScore becomes. That's because every note you enter requires MuseScore to re-layout the entire score.

That said, my very low-end Windows 7 laptop has no problems with your score, and indeed, I regularly work on ones that are as larger or larger. And the fact that it works normally for you if you turn the duration setting down seems evidence that this is not general slowness we are talking about but rather something more specific.

It's worth submitting a bug report on only if you find the same (or worse) happens using a nightly build of 2.0 - see Download menu at right of this page, But either way, seems you would want to find a workaround for now. Have you tried Revert to factory settings ? Known incompatibilities ?

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

I am now happily retired, but in my previous existence, I worked in Tech Support for a large company. What appears to be happening to me is what we used to refer to as "Software Rot". It's not serious - just happens when you least expect it, and goes away almost as fast.

That's exactly what happened here. Late last night, while working on my composition, I became aware that the annoying delay was gone. I set the playback duration back to the default 300ms, and guess what? It worked like the developers intended in the first place.

I am reluctant to file a bug report, since it is now working as designed (or as some cynics might say - working as coded - there's a difference; think about it if you don't get it.) Seriously, it is working as expected, and fortunately I can't recreate it. What did I do? Beats me. I just added another 32 or so measures, along with appropriate music. Didn't intentionally change anything, but who knows what I did without realizing it.

So, it's fixed. I'm a happy camper. And more important, I appreciate all of the responses I got back from the members here. Thanks for taking the time to respond.

Jerry

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