Drum Editor in new update (3.4.1.25011) MacOS 10.14.6

• Jan 25, 2020 - 17:33

I'm in the middle of a project where I'm doing a lot with the drum kit editor.

I just upgraded to the latest version and the drum editor behaves completely differently than it did before. And it's not just that it's "different." It's got some serious problems. If I hi-light a note or rest, click on note input mode, then select a drum from the palette at the bottom of the screen, it changes the note/rest that is hi-lited to whatever was previously selected without me clicking to place a note. And if I don't have something hi-lited, I don't have a drum palette. So this is totally working against me. At first, felt like it was just randomly changing things under my mouse until I figured out what was really happening. It also seems to be very confused about which voice to place the notes in and the rests end up in places that don't make sense to me either. But this might all be related to it automatically choosing to install a note using the previously selected drum note when all I did was pick a new drum note from the palette at the bottom of the screen.

There's NOTHING in the release notes that said anything about any changes to the drum editor. I desperately want to revert to the previous stable release but can't figure out how to find it on the website. It was an awkward editor but this new one is virtually impossible to deal with.

And no, I don't have a MIDI input device. So I can't change my method of note input.

MacOS=10.14.6, Musescore=3.4.1.25011


Comments

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

Hmm... Possibly. But after I wrote the note, I found that it almost always wants to add a kick drum no matter what I've selected. Is it possible to turn off "Apply palette elements with a single click" and see if that fixes my issue?

Also, IS there a way to revert to the previous stable release?

In reply to by tomn3ss

I'm not sure what you mean about it always adding a kick drum, it should always add whatever you click in the palette. I haven't found a case where that isn't true. The only issue I see is that it is somewhat harder to add a second note to the same chord as an existing one - you need to use the keyboard shortcut for that instead of the palette. Actually, it also works to "drag" from the palette, in kind of an interesting way: start to drag from the palette, then just let go of the mouse. Nothing will happen, because we don't actually do drag & drop from the drum palette. But, you'll have successfully changed the icon, and that will be reflected in the mouse cursor, so now you can click in the score to add the note.

If you have a case where a kick drum is being added even though you've clicked a different drum, though, that's a bug I cannot reproduce. We'd need you to attach your score and more precise instructions to reproduce.

Actually, this is the single biggest things in the release notes - part of the "Single click improvements". I guess you were accustomed to using the old-style method of drum input where you first click the palette, then click in the score. That was never very efficient, it was always faster to just double-click the palette. Now, you can get that faster method without the need to double-click. But you will indeed need to adjust to that method.

I think, though, I see what you mean about one particular use case having fallen through the cracks. Let me know if I have this right: you have a situation where you want to enter two drum notes in the same voice, same beat. So you click the palette to enter the first note, then move the cursor back and click the palette to enter the second. Instead of adding it to the "chord", it replaces the first note. I'd have expected that Shift+click might change that to adding, but that doesn't seem to be the case either. So you need to use a keyboard shortcut to create the chord (eg, Shift+A to add a snare hit).

This does indeed seem an unfortunate regression. Working within the system - where we want to encourage you to just single-click the palette rather than constantly moving back and forth between palette and score - what do you think would make the most sense? I'm thinking making it so single click adds to chord by default, you need Shift to override this. That's the same way clicking within the score, so it makes sense, and it makes the more common operation the more easily discoverable one. Does that make sense to you?

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

In my mind, the drum editor was a completely different interface and I didn't anticipate the "single click improvements" to have such a dramatic effect.

I think I have two different problems occurring at once. One is that I used to be able to choose a drum from the palette and it didn't do anything to the score until I clicked something in place ("single click improvement"). But secondly, and this appears to be a bug, is that when I select something, a change occurs on the score and what actually happens makes no sense in relation to what I selected. I do, in fact, have a problem creating "chords" but even worse than that, is I can, say, have a closed hi-hat hi-lited, select a crash cymbal, and it overwrites my closed hi-hat as a kick drum or a low tom or something. I thought it was inputting "previously selected" items, then I thought it was just kick drum, now I'm thinking it's more random than that.

I have to admit that I don't tend to do things in Musescore in the ways that are considered "the most efficient" because I'll watch tutorials, see how it's done, and find that it's streamlined for almost a "dictation" method of streaming the notes into the score. It's very horizontal and my mode of thinking is more vertical so all the "efficient" methods work against me. As a result, I end up powering my way through in whatever way I can find that works for me, and developing a flow that's reasonably satisfying. And no matter how backwards my methods might be, and how frustrated I might occasionally get, it's always easier in virtually every version of Musescore than in Finale which seemed to me to be almost impossible to use.

All that said, I'll try some of the methods above and see if I can develop a new flow. However, I can't make any sense of why it's installing the wrong drum when I make a selection. There doesn't seem to be any underlying logic to that whatsoever.

In reply to by tomn3ss

To be honest, probably no one had drum input in mind when designing the single-click changes. It's mostly about the standard palette - for adding articulations, dynamics, etc. That one was never designed for single-click to begin with - it was either drag&drop or double-click. So nothing was lost in changing double to single. For percussion, we have longer supported two different methods of entry - click palette then click score, or double-click palette, and this change does indeed more or less invalidate the first.

For now, then, the simplest way to get close to the method you were accustomed to is to replace "single click" with "slight drag" (even a couple of millimeters will do, to have the same effect single-click used to). This is what I might recommend for building "chords". But I do suspect for ordinary entry - not building chords - you'll find the new single-click method a big improvement over what you were doing before. A ton less effort than constantly moving back and forth between palette and score.

Regarding the kick drum thing, again, I can't reproduce any sort of problem like that, so we'd need a score and precise steps to investigate.

In reply to by tomn3ss

As I said, it actually works very well (as a workaround, not a real solution) to do an "aborted drag": click the icon you want to select, start to drag it, then let go. nothing with happen except the icon gets selected, exactly as single-click alone used to do. Or, as I said, use keyboard shortcut: Shift+letter continues to add to chord as it always has.

I doubt we'd implement an option to support both types of palette interaction, either we back out this change for drums or fix it to work better for this particular use case.

I figured out how to demonstrate the "random drum" problem. And this is using the musescore standard drum kit.

Position the cursor in a blank drum measure and select. Go into note input mode. Click on "Acoustic Snare" and it draws a "Kick Drum" while sounding a snare. Click on the staff after that and it places "acoustic snare" notes. Then select the symbol in the ninth position (on my system, it shows as a bunch of unreadable characters but it should sound like a hi-hat closed by pedal). It draws a closed hi-hat (on top of the staff instead of the bottom) but makes the proper sound. Clicking on the score produces the correct symbol after that. Select "crash cymbal" and it draws a "low-mid tom" while making a crash cymbal noise. Etc. Etc.

It tends to pick the drum that is in the list two positions previous as a "single click improvement." This isn't true 100% of the time. Sometimes it picks something else - a previous selection maybe, or maybe something completely at random.

In reply to by tomn3ss

Sorry, I just can't reproduce, and suspect it might have do with your specific drum set definition. The fact that the ninth element isn't clearly labeled "Pedal Hi-Hat" as it should be by default also suggests this. Can you please attach a score that demonstrates these problems?

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

I took my original score and reloaded the Muse Standard Drumkit which did nothing. I created a new drum staff and it had the "Pedal Hi Hat" instead of the weirdness. I copied the original drum part over to the new one. Although it has the different loaded drum kit, it still has the problem of selecting the wrong drum. So I made a copy of the original score, loaded in the copy, trimmed it down to the first couple measures, and confirmed I still have the issue. But it's in a much more manageable size now.

Attachment Size
DrumIssue.mscz 24.13 KB

In reply to by tomn3ss

OK, I can confirm the issue using this drumset definition. I have no idea what is going on, but FWIW, same exact issue happens in 3.3.4 if you use the double-click method. Somehow the drum definition is messed up, but not in a way I can see. Would you mind submitting an official bug report on this, using Help / Report a Bug from within MuseScore? Set "Severity" to "Major" and leave other fields at their defaults. Attach the score there and describe the problem, pretty simple really, something like

1) select the measure 3, drum part
2) N for note input mode
3) click the second icon - acoustic bass drum

Result: a different note is entered.

In reply to by tomn3ss

Thanks! But, see below...

By "double-click method" I mean what I described previously - prior to 3.4, the recommend method entering drum notes by mouse was to double-click the palette icon. This did exactly the same thing that single-clicking does in 3.4 - bug and all. That is, it enters the note into the score directly, no need to move your mouse over the score and click a second time. The method you have been using - click palette then move mouse then click score - was always the least-recommended method, although to be sure it had its uses. Anyhow, you actually would have encountered this bug even in 3.3 or earlier had you been using the double-click method.

However, while I couldn't originally remember any similar reports, a search of the issue tracker turned up this one, which turns out to be exactly the problem: #291522: Double-click on drum palette produces wrong note when transposing instrument at top of score and concert pitch off. So I'm actually closing yours as a duplicate (sorry!) and raising the priority of the original. Meanwhile, workaround is, turn on Concert Pitch while adding your drum notes!

In reply to by CactusKing

It's not out of the question, but realistically, that might not be so simple, not sure if it's easy to separate the behavior of the drum palette from the others. but if it is possible, I might suggest not even making it an option, just reverting the change for drum palette only.

Still, there are other relatively quick fixes I could imagine, like making right click do the old single-click behavior. Or Shift+click, or Ctrl+click.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

"...making right click do the old single-click behavior. Or Shift+click, or Ctrl+click."
Isnt this just adding another layer of complexity to the old single/double click system?
A perk of having single click not place a note (the old system) is that you can preview the drum sound without putting it on the score. And you could still use the instant place method by double clicking. The old method just works.

In reply to by CactusKing

Good point about the preview, but right-click would do that too, would it not?

To be clear though: the single click system is not "the old system". There are around half a dozen ways to enter drum notes into a score, that was only one of them - the least efficient, least recommended in general. The other "old methods" continue to work as always. Only this one particular method is currently not available, but could be easily reinstated via right-click or whatever.

Or maybe the feedback from enough users will be it is worth trying to revert the changes for the drum palette only. Will be good to hear from more users.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Right click currently has the same effect as left click but yeah it could be made to work I'm sure.
The single click system may not have been the only system, or the most efficient. But it was the most intuitive, and the one me and my friends generally use. I believe this change in the drums to be a side effect of the general input-method updates and not something that users actually want. But that could be just me, I'm interested in how others feel about it.

In reply to by CactusKing

To be clear: it is definitely an unintended side effect. The change was designed for the main palettes, which didn't do anything in particular on single click before. Drum palettes were affected because they share the same code. As I said, not sure how feasible it is to revert the change for drums only, but it is definitely worth considering all alternative.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

I totally agree with the idea of disabling the useless need for double-clicking palettes, I understand how hard it could be to deal with this side effect on drums entry. I thank Marc very much for the replace "single click" with "slight drag" idea!
I would like to share my modest opinion about how I think it is important, for a software like Musescore, to have the ability of allowing anyone to use their own habits, likely to be coming from another software, rather than looking for establishing the more efficient entry method of all. I think it is the case and I use this as an argument when advising my collegues to give a try to Musescore again - what they didn't do for years, most of the time.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

The workaround indeed works for now, awkward as it may be.

Meanwhile, we have a tentative fix that reverts the drum palette to its old behavior. So hopefully there will be another update in the next few days to address this and a couple of other things discovered right after release.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

I have had similar issues trying to 'chord' percussion entries. I also have another drumkit issue. I usually put the kit near the bottom of instruments. I noticed that in some scores, when I go to the 'N' to choose a sound, it plays a different drum sound. However, once I place the note, and 'sound' it, it plays the proper tone. Now, if I move the drumkit to the top of a score, then it works fine...what the? I use a Mac. see the example uploaded below...

Attachment Size
muse drumset issue (Ver.4).mscz 26.36 KB

Coming from another thread, here's my comment and proposal for a good compromise:

I usually use a mix between keyboard and mouse entry. The mouse mostly for just listening to the sound of a specific cymbal or tom to decide, which one I'd like to use or when there's a lot going on in the drums and I want to specifically set one note. Now, with the single-click, it messes with the whole bar when editing in detail and listening to the sounds is way too complicated/annoying.

My proposal:

Left-click: Single-click-entry as it is in the latest version
Right-click: selecting the wanted note to listen to it and set it at a specific spot as in the "old" version

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