Sustain Pedal doesn't come through

• Jul 17, 2020 - 02:32

Hello everyone,
My primary skill is piano, and I would like to use MuseScore 3 to play along with scores/fragments of scores etc. My MIDI piano works well for note entry. However, I haven't been able to use the piano's sustain pedal, i.e., when I play, all the notes are there, but when I press the pedal, it is not heard. There must be something I don't know. Any help would be appreciated.
Thank you,
Ringolivio


Comments

In reply to by Ringolivio

MuseScore is not (yet) a full-fledged sequencer design for real-time performance. So far its MIDI input features are more geared toward inputting a score than actually playing live. Better to use a different program that is intended for that purpose.

MuseScore 4 will move more towards that type of functionality, so perhaps this become supported then. But as it is, we don't support pedal or most other details not directly relevant to note input.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Greetings Marc,

Appreciate your long standing contributions to the forums here. I see you've been on here for a while - maybe you're one of the designers/major contributors. I just started this program for about 3 months and it's come leaps and bounds since the early days of sample programs.

My questions for you are as follows:

What are the near future goals for MuseScore 4 this year (2024) in regards to updates?

Specifically:

1) what is being developed on real-time sequencer front (I've seen a lot of contributors defending it's lack of integration in the program and I'm not looking for a defense why it hasn't been incorporated in the past so much as what can we do as users to help it be developed in the near future)

2) somewhat related to question 1, will (or does) the external sustain pedals be incorporated into the program so that people can use them to automatically (or a hybrid input of some sort) when applied and it will add the notation when applied?

I've taken a look at the other forums and the handbook and all I see is:

1) the real-time metronome (the closest feature currently to a real-time sequences that converts midi keyboards into the actual music notation - albeit clunky and def hurts the create process as most need to write a first draft keeping it free flowing and this option is not that) and then
2) there is a real-time (foot pedal) but I can't figure out if it is designed to work with an external midi sustain pedal or does it do something else??). I couldn't find anything on the forum other than this on the issue and I couldn't find anything on the handbook for MuseScore 4 giving the note input to the current set up (only MuseScore 3 and older).

Appreciate your work and commitment in these forums. I mean no disrespect with these questions. Having the product available at next to no cost and a community to discuss the inner workings is amazing! Thank you

In reply to by calebdillman7

I am indeed a long-time volunteer developer on this project, but I don't have any special insights into the future plans of the core team. I can say that the general impression I get is that real-time MIDI input isn't a huge priority for anyone at the moment, but if some other volunteer developer steps forward to design and implement a facility for it, it would presumably be welcomed as are other community contributions.

I can also say the the real-time foot-pedal / manual input method works as documented - it advances the cursor by the duration specified on the toolbar. So it's a way to "tap in" the desired rhythms. With sufficient practice, one could probably get almost as fast as this as direct computer keyboard entry, but it's a practical impossibility for it to ever be more efficient. I can enter a whole note in a tiny fraction of a second the usual way, but having to tap in the rhythm - or worse, wait for four beats to pass in real-time - is always slower. So it's more about providing additional options than any actual improvement.

Some MIDI keyboards generate a signal for pedal etc. but MuseScore doesn't catch it.
Some keyboards don't generate a MIDI-out signal for pedal and it only affects their internal playback.

In reply to by nassimemokhta

It's not really clear what you're asking. Are you saying you are writing your own computer program and you want to understand how to code it to understand pedal> For more information on MIDI, I would recommend a web search for that topic specifically, and probably there are forums dedicated to that topic. but this site is really about MuseScore. To add a pedal marking to your score in MuseScore, use the Lines palette, and see the Handbook for more information.

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