Decrescendo hairpin not working anymore? (MuseScore 3.5.2)

• Nov 14, 2020 - 15:31
Reported version
3.5
Type
Functional
Frequency
Once
Severity
S3 - Major
Reproducibility
Always
Status
active
Regression
Yes
Workaround
Yes
Project

Apparently, decrescendo hairpins don't work anymore in my MuseScore version, which is 3.5.1 on Fedora 32. They definitely used to work, as I used them extensively in my work (e.g., https://musescore.com/lminiero/the-wind-and-the-lake), but don't now. I tried opening scores where they worked in the past (just to verify it was not me doing something wrong with the score), and I could confirm they don't work in those old scores either.

I'm attaching an example that definitely doesn't work for me. It's a sustained note that starts as mezzoforte (velocity 80), and I added a decrescendo hairpin with a velocity change of 80: it should become 0 at the end, and so slowly fade out to silence, but the volume never changes at all.

Attachment Size
hairpin-test.mscz 5.67 KB

Comments

You score works on my Windows 10 system in 3.5.2. What sound do you have assigned in the mixer? It sounds like you probably changed the first sound font in the synthesizer and you no longer have an expressive (expr.) sound assigned as default.

The only soundfount in the Synthetizer section is the default MuseScore_general.sf3 one, and the instruments in the mixer are the defaults as well (the example I attached was edited out of a project generated by the wizard).

I think you might be onto something regarding the Mixer, though. When I select the instrument to use for the three different strings articulations, I don't see the "1st violins Expr, 2nd violins, etc.", but just "Dry strings" vs. "Slow strings". Not sure if the soundfont Fedora is shipping for MuseScore is different from the one that should be there.

Ok, I think I found out the root of the issue. The MuseScore_general.sf3 shipped with 3.3 was quite larger than the one shipped with 3.5: I know because they're both still on my laptop, in the /usr/share/mscore-3.3/ and /usr/share/mscore-3.5/ folders respectively.

$ ll /usr/share/mscore-3.3/sound/MuseScore_General.sf3
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 39893918 Dec 29 2019 /usr/share/mscore-3.3/sound/MuseScore_General.sf3
$ ll /usr/share/mscore-3.5/sound/MuseScore_General.sf3
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 23712790 Oct 16 23:14 /usr/share/mscore-3.5/sound/MuseScore_General.sf3

The latter is what is copied to /usr/share/soundfonts, which is the folder MuseScore uses by default, and that one is indeed missing the Expr. versions of instruments. Forcing the usage of the "old" sf3 file fixed hairpins for me.

Not sure why the new sf3 file is so much smaller, and who's shipping it that way (MuseScore itself, or Fedora mantainers?). I'll try to do some additional research to see what's wrong.

Someone needs to post the link to the HQ version that includes the expressive sounds so you can add that to your mixer. Actually, you might be able to click Add from the mixer and see it in your sound fonts list. It will have HQ before the .sf2 or .sf3.

I know there's sf2 (uncompressed) and sf3 (ogg) versions of the soundfont, but I wasn't aware there was a HQ and a non-HQ version of both. The only file I've ever seen on Fedora was MuseScore_General.sf3, and apparently the 3.3 rpm shipped the HQ sf3 you're talking about, while the 3.5 rpm may be shipping the non-HQ I guess. I'll stick to the 3.3 version then, since it does work for me, but there may be a packaging issue to notify Fedora mantainers about: I was looking at the .spec file to see if I could spot what's wrong, but haven't found anything yet.

Frequency Many Once
Workaround No Yes

The HQ one can get downloaded via Help > Resource Center
However, even the non-HQ soundfont of the newer MuseScore releases does dupport Single Note Dynamics (and has those 'expr.' sounds). But whether Fedora has a packinging problem or not is something we here at musescore.org have no influence over.
You you use the AppImage from https://musescore.org/en/download though