No audio - soundfont issue maybe?

• May 5, 2021 - 03:13

I am having an issue with sound playback. Both View > Mixer and View > Synthesizer are grayed out.

I am running MuseScore 3.6.2.548020600 on Mac OS 11.3.1 (20E241).

After reading various forum posts, I have tried the folowing:

  • Confirmed that the default MuseScore soundfont file is in ~/Documents/MuseScore3/SoundFonts/
  • Tried loading new soundfont files by "Open With..." Musescore.
  • Restarted mac, zapped PRAM
  • Uninstalled and re-installed MuseScore (using an app called TrashME, which gets rid of random Library files, etc.)

Here is a link to a video of me going through some of the steps above. https://youtu.be/27Aym7s1hV4

As you will see, View > Synthesizer and View > Mixer remain grayed out.

Any thoughts or guidance you can give will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks very much, Tim

Comments

• May 5, 2021 - 13:21

Yes, thank you. I have already worked through the eight steps on that page you linked to --

  1. This is the problem - View > Synthesizer menu item is grayed out and can not be selected (same with Mixer, though all other items under View can be selected)

  2. Yes, tried restore to factory settings. I also tried downloading and installing an entirely new instance of MuseScore. neither helped

  3. I tried downloading and installing several more sound font files under that link. I can successfully "Open With... MuseScore" from the Finder and they get put into MuseScores Sountfonts folder. But still since I can't View > Synthesizer, they are impossible to select. or to set as default

  4. I'm on a Mac. System sound works just fine, and I'm also running Ableton Live, Reason, and Logic successfully for recording and playback. (***--> Could MuseScore be conflicting with one of those applications somehow?)

  5. Yes, tried this

  6. N/A - not on windows

  7. N/A - no Touch Bar. Though it is a good point and I did confirm that the volume is up and not accidentally muted via the keyboard buttons :-)

  8. Now I'm here....

I appreciate the detailed suggestions in the article you linked. Unfortunately I have run through all of those options. Not sure if you saw the video I linked to - I think that also illustrates some of the things I have tried.

Like I was saying, the break seemed to happen after installing 3.6. MuseScore is a great notation application - really hoping to be able to get sound playback to work again. Very much appreciate your help.

Best regards, Tim

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• May 5, 2021 - 16:37

Yes, I have a Windows 10 virtual machine running in Parallels Desktop on my Mac. MuseScore works just fine in that environment, strangely enough.

It does feel like a rather big kludge to have to fire up a virtual machine to use MuseScore. Any more thoughts on how to get the native Mac version to work?

One thought - I have Reason, Logic, and Ableton also all installed on my Mac. Is it possible that one of these applications is somehow interfering with MuseScore's ability to produce sound? I'm not running these concurrently mind you - only Muse Score open.

Appreciate any other thoughts or suggestions. And if the best answer for now is to run in a virtual machine, I suppose I can live with that...

Thanks very much

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