SATB modifications to instruments.xml
I'm a fairly experienced Musescorer, using v3.4.2 on a Mac running OS 10.15.5. I prefer using the English Horn sound for playback on vocals instead of Choir Aahs, so I wanted to make this the default playback instrument for any score employing vocals. I made a local copy of "instruments.xml" and successfully edited it so that, when I make a new score with e.g. just a Soprano line, it plays back with E.Hrn (the change also worked for all other single voices, as well as Women and Men). However, when I make a new score with SATB+Piano, SATB a cappella, etc., the voices default to Choir Aahs playback (unless I change them in Mixer). I can't find any other place in "instruments.xml" where vocals are listed, nor any "SATB..." instruments. Any thoughts or help greatly appreciated- thank you!
Comments
Change that template then
Rather than actually modifying the pre-installed template - which will be lost on update - better to simply save your own modified template, to your own Templates folder.
In reply to Rather than actually… by Marc Sabatella
Thanks to both of you for this idea- making my own template is a good idea, and I may do that for a standard SATB+Piano score. However, there are so many kinds of scores I make/use involving voices (e.g. different combinations of voices, voices a cappella, voices with piano, voices with organ) that it's prohibitive to make modified templates for of all these. Making one modified template (e.g. SATB+Piano) and then adapting it for each new specific score is less work, but still not as direct as changing the default playback sound for all voices in instruments.xml. I'm curious why this approach worked perfectly for individual voice scores, but not for "SATB+___" scores. Any insights as to why this only worked in some contexts? Thanks again!
In reply to Thanks to both of you for… by jenningsr76
Because templates include their own copy of the relevant instrument info.
BTW, I wasn't recommending custom templates instead of using a custom instruments.xml, but rather in addition to. The custom instruments.xml would give you the desired result on the scores where you use Choose Instruments, the custom templates would replace (for your purposes) the ones you might otherwise have selected from the list.
In reply to Because templates include… by Marc Sabatella
Thanks for this explanation (and advice), Marc-- that makes sense.