Development vs Production
I am embarrassed to even bring this issue up, but there is no way around it.
As I'm sure everyone does, I keep the latest version of MuseScore on my system (laptop
as well as desktop) for development purposes. Then, when I have a score the way I want
it to be heard, I upload it to MuseScore for the general community to hear.
My problem is this: When I uploaded my scores I assumed (yes, I know, assume = makes
an ass of you and me) they would sound the same listening to them from the Web Site as
they did in my development systems. I decided, for the FIRST TIME EVER, to hear what my
scores sound like on the Web Site. I was shocked by how bad all four of my pieces sounded.
The strings were close to being right, but the brass and woodwinds were downright
awful, sounded like I was hearing them down a long hollow tube. Instrument volumes
seemed almost random and each score had an overall bad production quality it.
Its a wonder to me that I have any listen count at all.
I have no clue what's going on here. I must have some fundamental misunderstanding
about how MuseScore works. How can one spend so much time developing a score
and then have it turn out so badly on the Web Site?
Can anyone shed any light on this?
Swedster
Comments
Obviously you are using a different soundfont on your production system.
To ensure compatibility with MuseScore.com you should be using TimGM6mb I think.
Also bear in mind MuseScore is for score engraving not music production.
Playback has been a low priority up to now as score engraving issues needed to be corrected.
There will be improvements to playback in MuseScore 2, but there is still a long way to go to catch up to the Big Two commercial providers - but then, they've been in development longer than us.
In reply to Obviously you are using a by ChurchOrganist
A quick check shows that I do have TimGM6mb.sf installed. So, If I write a score using
that font and that font is the Musescore default, should it not sound the same online?
For some reason that does not appear to be the case.
You lost me on "score engraving" - what is score engraving?
Thx
Swedmuse
In reply to Sound Fonts by Swedster
Engraving is synonymous with notating, implying finished product. :)
In reply to Sound Fonts by Swedster
When you say you have TimGM6mb "installed", do you mean, you found it on your file system? If so, that doens't mean that is the soundfont MuseScore is actually *using*. Be sure to go to Display / Synthesizer to check that this is the soundfont actually being used.
If so, then we'd need you to post the score you you are having problems with in order to understand more.
The point of the engraving versus "music production" distinction is that the purpose of MuseScore is to help you create a printed score (or electronically viewed equivalent). So most of the features and development work is focused on helping create the best possible printed score with the least possible effort. The fact MuseScore also happens to have a limited playback facility is only a secondary purpose and is a much lower priority for development work.
In reply to When you say you have by Marc Sabatella
Hi Marc:
That is where I found the file name (under Synthesizer).
All four of my scores are already posted, just search on "Swedster".
Does not matter which you pick, they all sound bad to me.
Ok, I now understand what "score engraving" is, but I still have a big problem
understanding the context of what Musescore's intent is in the playback environment.
When I create a score and have every aspect of the instruments and how they sound
exactly as I want them to sound, when I upload the score I would expect all the
appropriate mixer settings to uploaded with the score. How else can the listener have
the experience I want them to have when they listen to what I have created?
How can Musescore (the developers) not want any listener to experience any music
the way the composer intended.
Why would they even bother having an online playback option, unless they can
translate what the composer intends as accurately as possible?
I listen to a lot of Musescore pieces, and leaving the question of style out of it, they
all sound good. By good I mean the score as a whole sounds good and seems to be
consistent, the instruments sound as you would expect them to sound - the volumes
are right and the dynamics are what you would expect for a pleasant listening experience.
There is a huge difference in playing my scores on my systems and when I hear them on
Musescore's playback. Am I the only one having this experience?
In reply to Sound Font by Swedster
The purpose of the default playback is mostly so you can check your work, make ure you haven't entered notes incorrectly. If it happens to also serve as a sort of rough demo as well until you can have the piece performed by real musicians, that's fine too. And many people are perfectly happy with this rough demo, and happy to share it on musescore.com. If your requirements for the quality of your computer-generated demos are more strict, then you should definiitely consider using a better soundfont than TimGM6mb, doing lots of manual tweakig to the results (such as in DAW software), and findng a means of sharing your music outside of musescore.com. For MuseScore 2.0, the default soundfont will already be considerably better than TimGN6mb, and there will be a number of other playback improvements as well. So I expect the default playback will meet the needs of 99% of users.
*If* you limit consideration the default playback - default soundfont, perhaps also default mixer settings although I am not sure about that - then your online scores should sound *exactly* the same as on your own computer. Aside from the case of people using soundfonts other than default, I've never heard of a case of anyone claiming to be finding otherwise. Perhaps you could post an audio file of your score as generated by computer (File / Save As) and then a link to the corresponding score on musescore.com so others can hear what sort of difference you are referring to.
I assume you installed a different soundfont on your computer - something other than the default TimGM6mb. However, musescore.com currently always plays with the default TimGM6mb soundfont. So if you want to preview how your scores will sound once uploaded, you should revert to that soundfont (see Soundfont in the Handbook).
When MuseScore 2.0 is released, it will use a different - and much better - default soundfont (currently planned to be FluidR3), and presumably msuescore.com will use that as well.
In reply to I assume you installed a by Marc Sabatella
piano sounds terrible on the default sf. much better allthough still some small room for improvement with the big 132mb piano sf. I do agree that there is a fine line between using too big of a default sf file vs low quality. For the musescore online, they should use high quality sf for rendering since that's what many people exposure to musescore for the first time. No point including a huge sf file in the install package but better default quality is good.
In reply to piano sounds terrible on the by wildpig
For MuseScore 2, the FluidR3 soundfont is actually going to be shipped in a compressed format, allowing what would otherwise be a 100+MB soundfont to require only a fraction of that space. So this seems a very good compromise.
For musescore.com, the downside of having it use a "higher quality" soundfont than the default is that if you are accustomed to the default soundfont on your computer and have tweaked the Mixer settings and so forth to get everything "just right", things might sound better in some ways with a better soundfont, but chances are the relative levels will be off, and there will be some instrument someone used because they liked the sound of it in the default soundfont that for whatever reason doesn't sound as good to them in the otherwise "better" soundfont. So I think the idea is, keep the same default to reduce (bad) surprises.
At some point, I know they were considering a feature where you could upload your own audio for your score, which would allow you to use any soundfont you like and have it sound exactly the same online. Not sure of the status of that feature, but I certainly wouldn't expect it before MsueScore 2.
http://musescore.com/help/upload#26092
Hmm it seems someone has turned the reverb completely off resulting in an incredibly dry, unlifelike sound.
I shall be opening an issue as it isn't normally like that.