Playback surge
I have a score where my Bass 1 and Bass 2 parts split and merge several times.
I use Instrument Change to assist with the scoring, and by and large this is ok.
But I have a problem with the playback at bar 138 of the attached score. The bass 1 part becomes much louder than any of the other parts.
Any clues as to what I'm doing wrong?
Sorry for the size of the attachment - I attempted to provide an extract but Musescore went haywire when I tried to split the score up. Grey Mare's Tail 400.00 JL suggs 2 complete.mscz
Comments
Not sure why you're using an instrument change there - doesn't really make sense since the sound isn't changing. But, if you add an instrument change, you now a new mixer subchannel, and it's up to you to set its volume appropriately. You have the same note doubled on two different staves, so indeed, it's going to be louder (and have the usual audio weirdness that always results from playing the same exact synthesized note twice at the same time) unless you adjust.
In reply to Not sure why you're using an… by Marc Sabatella
Forget for a moment the example I sent.
In general I'm using an instrument change when moving from 2 bass parts to one, or from 1 bass part to 2. This happily causes staves to be abbreviated B1, B2 or B as required. This is the only reason for using the instrument change, and on a separate forum, this indeed was what was suggested.
So for example, I have a choir with 4 basses. When we move from staves B1 (2 basses) and B2 (2 basses) having notes, to stave B (4 basses), the sound gets suddenly softer. And vice versa, when I move from B to B1+B2, the sound gets suddenly louder.
You suggested using channels. Looking at the help on line, it isn't clear what exactly to do to achieve this and I'd be glad of an example.
In reply to Forget for a moment the… by Ali Wood
OK, that's fine then, if the goal is to change names, that is indeed one way. The other - one I'd normally recommend as being simpler and less likely to get you into trouble - would be to simply use separate staves and the hide empty staves option.
Anyhow, as mentioned, certainly, it's perfect normal that if you have two staves both playing a given note, it's going to be louder than if you have only one. MuseScore doesn't understand that only half as many people are singing on each staff and that the total volume should be the same. You'd need to reduce the volume of the B1 and B2 staves in the mixer.
In reply to OK, that's fine then, if the… by Marc Sabatella
There's no "B" in the mixer. only B1 and B2.
So when the Change Instrument occurs to "B", I guess it uses B1? So a wholesale reduction of volume in B1 would not work, neither that of B2. I guess I might have to try hiding empty staves again, but seem to remember that that caused probs.
In reply to There's no "B" in the mixer… by Ali Wood
There is one mixer channel per main instrument in the score (i.e., what's listed in Edit / Instruments. Any instrument changes will show up as "subchannels" within the main instrument channel. You need to expand the channel strip for the instrument containing the changes to show all the subchannels. Then you need to work left to right to figure out which subchannel corresponds to which change. Since they are all using the same sound - not at all the normal use case for instrument changes, which are intended for actual changes of instrument, like saxophone to flute - it's going to be hard. That's one very major downside of using this much more complicated method to try to trick MuseScore into doing something that hide empty staves was designed to and achieves much more easily.
Definitely, unless you have some really unusual special reason to resort to using instrument changes, much better to just use hide empty staves.