how to add a "hidden" part
I have a part with two instruments, "A" and "B". How can I make only "A" display in playback and appear in PDF export, yet both "A" and "B" sound in playback and sound in an MP3 export?
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Use menu item: Edit -> Instruments... and untick 'Visible' for the instrument you wish to hide.
In reply to Use menu item: Edit ->… by Jm6stringer
I believe this will also make the instrument invisible in the main score, which may or may not be OK. I do believe this is currently the only option though.
There is another option. Create a part with only the visible instrument. Open the mixer and remove the check at the top that says to only play the part. Click the Green S circles only for the two instruments you want to hear.
But when I uncheck the "visible" box in the instruments window for instrument "B", the instrument "B" stays visible in part "A". Huh? It appears the unchecking the "visible" attribute doesn't trickle over into the parts. What am I doing wrong? Using version 3.5.2.
In reply to But when I uncheck the … by Gene Gaunt
I new there were problems with unchecking "Visible" but didn't remember what it was and I was on my way to bed last night so I didn't check.
Using my suggestion for the mixer is slightly better because it does what you want. Problem is that it will make the entire score have those instruments playing.
And I'm finding more things that don't trickle over into the parts, e.g., unchecking the "View -> Show Invisible" and "View -> Show Frames" boxes doesn't trickle over. Maybe I have a basic misunderstand of what "parts" are?
Here's what I want to do: I have a traditional choral folio in SATB & piano accompaniment. I want to create eight files: four PDFs of just their part on paper; and four MP3s of just their part along with the piano accompaniment in the background. I would like to do all of this in one or two fell swoops using parts. Any suggestions?
In reply to And I'm finding more things… by Gene Gaunt
I think the easiest way today is to create 4 parts with voice and piano. Select each part and use "Save as" to create a new score with only that part. Open each part and uncheck "Visible" in the instruments list and use those for your PDFs and MP3s. Maintenance isn't automatic but you can replace a part if you make a change by selecting it and using "Save as" once again. You will need to make the piano invisible again though.
FYI, there is already a bug report for this at #64626: Allow making staff invisible staff in excerpt/part and I added this discussion to it.
In reply to And I'm finding more things… by Gene Gaunt
The score is for the conductor, the parts are for individual players / singers. You normally expect the basic notes and other visible instructions like dynamic markings etc to be the same for the score and parts. but you also expect the formatting to be different - potentially different paper sizes or orientations, different staff sizes, different number of measures per system, different numbers of systems per page, etc. And manual adjustments made to avoid collisions between elements also won't make sense to carry over, since the specific elements present will differ. And so on. So basically, content is linked, formatting is not.
Playback really has nothing to do with any of this. Playback is not why the parts feature exists, it's all about printing individual parts to give to players to read. But yes, generally speaking, you can easily generate PDF's and MP3's from the parts. You don't need to mess with the settings in the View menu; they have nothing to do with what will export to the PDF or the MP3. In particular, invisible elements and frames never appear in PDF's - they are there for on screen display only, to aid in editing.
Thanks so much for you expert wisdom; what you say makes sense, now that you explain the bigger picture from your side. Let me explain my big picture and maybe you can help orient me better.
We (the chorus) have twenty songs to prepare for the concert. First I create twenty MuseScore files, and enter all the notes. Done. Then for each song, for each part (SATB), I want to use Windows 10 game screen capture to make a video of MuseScore playback of the part, complete with the blue shade cursor stepping through the song, note by note. I want the video to display just the part, but have the video sound both the part and the piano accompaniment. Then I will distribute the videos to the SATB section leaders (i.e. the prima donnas with the best voices and sight reading skills) and ask that they sing along to their part's video, karaoke style, and record themselves into an MP3 file, and return the MP3s to me. Then I will use an editor to synchronize and merge their singing MP3s with my MuseScore export MP3s.
Ultimately, I will give each chorister two things for each song in the concert: a PDF of their part, and an MP3 of their section leader singing their part, with the piano accompaniment.
To make this happen, I could run twelve exports for each of the twenty song. But that's ridiculous. 12 x 20 = 240 exports. Not going there.
Hmm, does a concept of "album" exist in MuseScore? If so, I suppose I could make four albums, one for each part SATB, and then run two exports for each part (once for the PDFs, once for the MP3s). Hmm. 2 x 4 = 8 exports. I like that a lot better than 240 exports.
Is there a way that MuseScore can re-assemble twenty MuseScore files into four albums (one each for SATB) ?
Thanks so much for your help.
In reply to Thanks so much for you… by Gene Gaunt
I'm not understanding the 12 exports for each song. You're already doing a video, why do you need any export at all? At most, maybe just the one combined MP3 of the whole score? What am I missing?
To create the video the shows just the part but playing the whole score, generate but don't export) the parts in the score, and uncheck "Play part only" in the Mixer when viewing a part. That option remains checked as you visit the other parts.
Albums existed once before but had problems and were removed; they will come back greatly improved in MuseScore 4.