Soundfont being weird

• Jan 13, 2021 - 03:01

I just installed a soundfont for an alto sax and when I add the soundfont to the synthesizer it adds the sound to every single instrument that I have in a score. It is a decently big score so going through and changing every single instrument back to its original sound is very time consuming. Is there a way that I can stop it from adding the sound to everything and have it to where it only adds it to an instrument specifically when I manually place it? Also, it made musescore crash every single time I would click anything in the synthesizer except for the X

This is the link to the place I downloaded the soundfont:

freesoundvault.com/sounds/horns/


Comments

Once you add a new SoundFont to a score that has notes that already refer to a different SoundFont (but that has matching bank/patch numbers), you're liable to have issues over the sound that is played: MuseScore only knows about bank/patch numbers: so when you combine SoundFonts in a single score, you get a kind of 'merged' virtual master SoundFont in the Mixer window, and from what I can tell, MuseScore picks up the first one in your Synthesizer list (in your case the alto sax), and ignores any corresponding bank/patch scores with similar ID (e.g. bank 0, patch 23). Perhaps try re-ordering the SoundFonts in the Synthesizer window, placing your newer Horns SoundFont lower down. This would keep your original SoundFont patches as they were, then you could select the Alto Sax instrument changes where you require them. This is just an idea, others in the forum may be able to suggest a solution that will work for you.

In reply to by Lofo

You're spot on.
MuseScore refers to a sound by the bank/patch number of the n-th index soundfont in the synthesizer list. If you thus add a soundfont to that list (on top) that index now points to a different soundfont.
If no entry for the bank/patch can be found within the referred soundfont, then it defaults to the first entry in that soundfont.

So when you add your soundfont, better add it to the bottom of the list to prevent it affecting already assigned sounds. Also don't forget to "save to score" your synth settings.

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