MuseScore 4 Update: Announcing our Beta Release!

• Oct 18, 2022 - 10:45

Hey everyone,

Today, we are delighted to announce the Beta release of MuseScore 4! The links below are for our new Muse Hub installer application, which can be used to install and update MuseScore and download / install our new orchestral plugin Muse Sounds. See the bottom of this post for more information and help with Muse Hub installation.


Note: For the beta release, MuseScore must be installed using the Hub for Muse Sounds to work

https://www.musehub.com/


Linux users will need to install MuseScore 4 separately. Here are the links to install the beta release directly:

Linux - https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/releases/download/v4.0_beta/Muse…


Please note that the Muse Hub is not yet working with screen readers. For those wanting to download a version of MS4 directly, please use these builds. Please note that these builds do not work with Muse Sounds.

Windows - https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/releases/download/v4.0_beta/Muse…
Mac - https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/releases/download/v4.0_beta/Muse…


Known Issues for MuseScore:

  • We have tested the Muse Hub on various Linux distros but are expecting issues with others. For those experiencing problems with any aspect of the Muse Hub on Linux, please log your issues on the MuseScore GitHub: https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/issues

  • There are some remaining performance issues with Muse Sounds. For example, with larger scores, playback may sometimes take a few moments to 'catch up' after you press the play button. You may also experience lag and dropouts. If so, please first try going to preferences > I/O and setting the buffer size to 2048. If you still experience problems, please log your issues on Github (link below).

  • When saving a score privately to MuseScore.com, it can sometimes get marked as a public score

  • When using Muse Sounds, audio feedback during note input can often be marred by delays, stuttering or repeats. This does not occur during playback

  • Some instruments are mapped incorrectly to Muse Sounds. Bear in mind that Muse Sounds does not cover the entire instrument list anyway, so many niche instruments will simply revert to MS Basic.

  • Piano pedal markings are not producing sustain effects reliably for Soundfont, VST and Muse Sounds


MS4.jpeg

Features added in Beta

  • Our new orchestral plugin, Muse Sounds
  • Saving to cloud on MuseScore.com is now working
  • An improved system for publishing to MuseScore.com
  • A simple toggle for switching between playback profiles (MS Basic and MuseSounds)

Tutorials


What else is in MuseScore 4?

An entirely new interface
- 400 new icons
- customisable colours
- A new Home tab which includes recent scores, plugins and video tutorials
- A new, friendlier onboarding process


An engraving overhaul
- New system for horizontal spacing
- New system for slurs and ties
- New system for beaming and cross-staff beaming
- New, heavily revised version of Leland and Leland text
- System objects can appear on more than one system (although this is currently only available on certain templates)
- Hundreds of other smaller fixes and optimisations for lyrics, articulation placement, tremolo marks and general positioning
- For a more comprehensive explanation of the engraving changes in MS4, please see this document. https://musescore.org/en/node/330793


Multiple workflow improvements
- The Properties panel (formerly the inspector) is now much more responsive, easier to understand and filled with lots of useful options
- The capabilities of the note input bar have been expanded and the toolbar itself is now much easier to customise
- Customisable 'Tempo Lines', (accel, rit, etc.) that work with playback
- Scrollbars on the score
- Parts are easier to discover, edit and alter (using the new 'Instruments' panel)
- The experience of setting up a new score has been simplified to be more welcoming to new users
- Improved instrument definitions
- A new tuplets toggle
- New articulation buttons
- A new toggle for cross staff beaming


A new mixer

Mixer.jpeg


VST instruments and effects support
- Please note that we will be building additional tools, like automation and MIDI mapping in later releases, once MS4 is out


Accessibility improvements
- A new keyboard navigation system that follows best practices to allow users to quickly move around the interface
- Improved screen reader support (in particular, we really need people to test and provide feedback on this)
- An editable high contrast mode


Reporting issues


About playback

The largest changes we have made have been to playback - a technical investment we decided to make now. It is the sole reason why the timeline of MuseScore 4 was extended beyond 2021. Once you hear Muse Sounds, you'll understand :)

  • The audio engine in MuseScore 4 is completely new
  • There is an entirely new playback events system, which can produce much finer and detailed instructions. These translate to both MIDI and also MIDI 2.0 (which will be advantageous once MIDI 2.0 libraries and products start to become available). The advantages of this system will be properly realised once our new orchestral library, Muse Sounds is ready (in the Beta release).
  • It is also worth mentioning that we have not been able to carry over the systems for mapping and prioritising sounds from MS3. There are two reasons for this: the first is that it is quite technically incompatible with our new system. More importantly, it is not a universal system that could also work with VST. As a result, our highest priority for MuseScore 4.1 is to reintroduce universal systems to allow users to assign sounds to articulations and text instructions. We will also be adding other types of standard VSTi capabilities too, including key switches and automation.
  • We anticipate that there will still be issues with various different VST plugins. We would greatly appreciate it if you would submit any issues you find
  • Please note that when first loading MS4, there is an option to download Muse Sounds. This option will not work until the Beta release

Incompatible features we will re-introduce in later releases

  • There are other features that have not played nicely with our new systems at all, and which will need to be replaced in later releases, namely: the plugin creator (which we want to rewrite completely as a priority), the score comparison tool and the 'Documents side-by-side' feature.

Muse Hub Troubleshooting

  • If you find that the downloads aren't starting:
  • You may need to reinstall the helper application. Right click on the HUB logo and choose "reinstall helper". You may then need to restart the hub itself as well.
  • Make sure you're connected to the internet and have access to the web
  • If Muse Hub fails to start
  • Check your version of macOS or Windows
  • Check you have permission to run apps on your OS
  • Check macOS Gatekeeper security settings to ensure that you are allowed to run apps from the App Store and Identified Developers.
  • On Windows, you may need admin permissions to install the Hub depending on your security policy

To uninstall the Hub

  • On macOS, trash the application from your Applications folder
  • On Windows, use the Apps & Features page from Windows Settings to uninstall the Hub
  • On Linux, use Software Manager to uninstall the Hub.

Known Issues with the hub

  • Changing language requires a restart of the app
  • You may experience slow download speeds as few Hubs will be online initially. We are adding additional web seeds to help speed up testing.
  • MuseScore must be restarted to detect newly installed Muse Sounds and MuseFX
  • Language translations are machine translated; there may be translation errors that need correction.
  • Project files downloaded from the inspiration page have a machine-generated filename

Comments

Wow, I am so impressed by Musesound. I thought it would be a marginal improvement from MSBasic cuz y'all don't have huge teams and MS4 was already very ambitious, but WOW. I am literally blown away.

Yikes!
I nearly "lost it" as I read that first sentence!

Anyhow, your lunch story seemed "fishy".
More to the truth would have been:
"Last night, Vasily took the beta out for dinner..."
:-)

this is. UNREAL ....proud 2 be a musescore die hard rn cause i rly believe this is putting musescore above and beyond it's competitors in almost everyway!!! great job u guys its UNBELIEVABLE how good this update is

Very nice! Some feedback/questions:

  1. Love the little UI improvements everywhere (particularly the "Loading Audio Samples" progress bar), and the hub is great. A standalone .AppImage that doesn't need a background service would be appreciated if possible.
  2. Because creating a new score now opens a new window, it takes approximately 5 seconds of nothing appearing for anything to actually start happening (I opened about 4 new windows in frustration before I realised what was going on). Could this dialog be shown in the current window, then a new window opened once the score is actually created?
  3. How do you select different sounds inside a soundfont?
    • If I have a guitar and want to explore which type sounds best, I can no longer scroll through the list of all sounds and pick one - I have to change the instrument, which doesn't even work for something like the "Synth Bass", which has 4 different variations.
    • This is particularly irritating on Linux now that VST3 support has been pushed back.
  4. Pressing "Home" during a score doesn't seek back to the start.
  5. What is the license for Muse Sounds? "Best of all, Muse Strings is completely FREE for you to use in your compositions." is a bit legally vague. Are we allowed to use Muse Sounds in other programs?
  6. Thank you for fixing up F11 to actually enter full screen.
  7. Playhead smooth scrolling is not pleasant. #10985
  8. It seems that the + shortcut has been assigned to multiple actions #13893

Not sure if all of these are bugs or not, so I haven't opened Github issues for some of these.

In reply to by llui85

I'll just keep my response as quick as possible
1. Thanks
2. Yes, this is a known issue
3. We have had to simplify this system in order to be able to build a unified system for soundfont / VST and Muse Sounds in future. I do think it's worth seeing if there's anything we can do quickly, although it may not arrive until the next version after 4.0. One way or the other, MS4 will be a lot more flexible than 3. We have had a lot of rebuilding to do to get here
4. Not sure I understand this point. Are you not referring to the 'Home' tab on the top left of the app?
5. Muse Sounds is a proprietary plugin itself but (like just about any other sampler, VSTi out there) your productions made with it are your own. We initially wanted it to be a VST but that specific technology had too many limitations for notation (especially because it is a realtime format). For this reason, it will not work in any other DAW / notation app until they build specific support for it. We are also building support for it across multiple other apps in our ecosystem. MuseScore is just the first.
6. Cool
7. Thanks for pointing to the GitHub issue
8. Thanks for pointing to the GitHub issue

In reply to by Tantacrul

Thanks for responding!

3) Of course, I completely understand. I may end up waiting until 4.1 until upgrading, as there's some Linux specific stuff that won't be fixed until we move to Qt 6.
4) Ah no, this is the "Home" keyboard button, which seems to have different behaviour than MU3 (it no longer seeks back to the start of the score, just moves the score view).
5) Although Muse Sounds is understandably closed-source, are 3rd-party applications allowed to "just use" Muse Sounds if they can implement it themselves, or would this be some sort of agreement to be negotiated with Muse?
- Is there any chance of MuseSampler (not including the samples themselves) becoming open-source? Main reason being that it's a bit "yucky" having a proprietary library for all this, especially for linux distros (e.g Ubuntu, Debian), and given the nature of MuseSampler, it could well be a viable replacement for Zerberus. I understand there is currently a fair bit of code sharing with Staffpad?
- Could a developer right now link into MuseSamplerCoreLib (the proprietary shared library that Musescore uses to interface with Muse Sounds) and add support now? (assuming that they don't redistribute the samples themselves and leave the actual distribution to the Hub).

Sorry for yet another long post full of questions on your weekend :)

In reply to by llui85

Home is not meant to change the selection (which in turn is what sets the playback start point), only to reposition the score view. Ctrl+Home is probably what you should be pressing if the goal is to actual reposition and select the first element of the score. This is no different than MU3.

I'm very impressed! Thank you for all the hard work put into this.

I've had a couple of issues but I found the fixes for them, so in case anyone else is having trouble (I'm on Windows 10):
- after installing some of the new MuseSounds they weren't appearing in MS4 at all as an option in the mixer. I had to uninstall MS4 via Windows "add/remove programs " and then re-install MS4 through the MuseHub. The new sounds worked then.
- the new MuseSounds also need to be enabled within MS4! Go to View > Playback Settings to turn them on.

In reply to by LeftHandedGuitarist

I'm very interested in the problem you had where you needed to switch to the Muse Sounds profile manually. If you could possibly uninstall MS4, then reinstall it with the Hub again. They try a new score again.

If you are still having this issue, can you log it on GitHub and mention your OS and any other specifics. I'd like us to squash any instance of this happening :)

https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/issues

In reply to by Tantacrul

This happens to me as well. I will re install and hope the sounds automatically map to Muse sounds on a new project. BTW- will XML imports also defer to Muse Sounds? I tried importing something from Dorico and I had to manually assign instruments to MUSE Sounds in the mixer.

Thanks and keep up the great work (Shosty rocks too btw).

In reply to by LeftHandedGuitarist

I'm also unable to get MuseSounds to work on my system.

I've tried uninstalling MS4 and reinstalling from MuseHub as you suggested and while the program starts and appears to work just fine I am unable to select MuseSounds at all - it just doesn't appear in the Mixer where it ought to. If I look under View|Playback Setup it says MuseScore Basic is Active and Muse Sounds is Inactive and clicking on MuseSounds doesn't change anything.

I've downloaded all the MuseSounds sections from MuseHub and they are all showing as ticked, (and 13.5GB of data is on my hard drive in C:\ProgramData\MuseHub\Downloads) but MuseSounds just doesn't want to appear in the program on my system (Windows 10).

Very annoying, because I've really been looking forward to hearing the new sounds.

Anyone have any suggestions as to what else I might try?

In reply to by MarkWWW

MarkWWW, I had this same issue and uninstalling and reinstalling MS4 and MuseHub did not fix it. However, I eventually got it to work on my machine running Windows 11 following these steps.

  1. Uninstall Musescore 4 and MuseHub
  2. Uninstall previously downloaded Muse Sounds
    • Win+R to open Run
    • Then type %ProgramData%
    • Find the MuseHub folder and Shift+Delete to delete the folder permanently.
  3. Delete the MuseHub installer from the download folder (no idea if this is necessary but I did it anyways)
  4. Restart the computer
  5. Reinstall MuseHub
  6. Install MuseScore 4 and Muse Sounds through the MuseHub.

I hope this solution works for you! I would also like to make a note that while initially, I was not able to get MuseSounds to work, all the MuseEffects seemed to work from the get-go. Also, I believe this issue may stem from the fact I had previously had MS4 nightlies and Alphas installed, and for MuseSounds to work they need to be installed after MS4 is installed from MuseHub, but this is just a guess and I am no expert.

I also posted this issue to GitHub https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/issues/13952

In reply to by AwsomeTyper

AwesomeTyper Many thanks for your suggestion. It has solved the problem for me, and I am now able to hear MuseSounds in all its glory. Yippee!

Hard to know why deleting the MuseHub folder from %ProgramData% is necessary and just deleting and re-installing MuseHub and MS4 wasn't sufficient, but that was the case for me too.

I've also posted this to the two threads in GitHub

Thanks again

In reply to by AwsomeTyper

I'm on Windows 10. Still not working for me. I have deinstalled 4ß several times. I've removed the folder. I didn't find MuseHub in Systemsteuerung (Control Center?) but Einstellungen (Settings App) showed up MuseHub. I was able to uninstall it. Restarted the computer and Reinstalled MuseHub, the sounds and the beta. But still MuseSounds is greyed out. Basic sounds are working, though. I did not choose the default location for the downloaded sounds, space on C: is always rare. Could that be the reason?
.musedll folder shows some *.resume files - is that normal or does it point to a problem?

In reply to by SlyDr

Just gave it another try. Uninstalled and deleted the folder as described above. This time I did not change the sound installation folder and left it to default. Surprisingly MuseHub installed it to the former custom folder, nevertheless. There have to be some registry settings not undone during deinstallation process.
Download had been very quick but situation is unchanged. I can't use the new sonds.

In reply to by SlyDr

Finally I made one more attempt. I deleted all Musescore4 and MuseHub occurencies in Windows Registry after deinstallation, folder delete and restart. Then I reinstalled MuseHub und then Musescore4. Surprisingly the Installation for Muesscore complained about not finding a Musescore instance on my computer. I've got the current version 3 in a custom location that works like a charm. But I can't imagine that MuseScore4 beta needs the path to the former version.
Do I have to reinstall version 3 to the default folder to be able to install version 4 beta?

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In reply to by SlyDr

Yes. You must let the HUB install MU4 and the sounds to the default locations. No, you don't need MU3. I have the Beta MU4, the latest nightly MU4 and MU3 all installed without problem. Indeed now you might need a good registry cleaner. And delete and start over.

Thank you for always posting good comments. Now I can use MuseScore 4 in part just before it was released. You can try an orchestra plug-in called "Muse Sound," so I'll give it a try.

Thanks for all the goodies!

I have a question: Is muse-hub closed source? I run Manjaro Linux (Arch-based) and before I try installing a .deb file I'd like to know if the source code is available for me to build it natively on Manjaro. I wouldn't be expecting any support with that, of course! :-)

TIA,
TL

Having a problem at the moment trying to download Woodwinds and Choirs. Everything else is ok, and downloaded with no problems. I've restarted and re-installed muse-hub to no avail.

I will try again later, this is a heads up for anyone with the same issue.

Debian based distro MXDE-EFL.

Hub issue in Windows. I have Win11 laptop connected to a larger monitor. The laptop sets itself to be the main display and by default has 150% zoom for text, icons etc. It makes Musehub too tall for the screen and the top is cut off - no menus are accessible. There may be some Windows mouse/key jujitsu to move the Musehub window but I haven't found it.

Two ways around it: get rid of the zoom, which makes the icons really small, or set the large monitor as "main display". The whole hub is now accessible.

And why did Vasily wait till night to take the beta out for lunch? Poor thing must have been starving :-)

Hi, this is awesome I just have 2 quick things.
1. Do you have to manually switch every instrument to musesounds or can you just enable it by default or switch them all automatically
2. Muse sounds interpretation of the slur marking distorts the rhythm heavily, elongating the first note. There's also a lot of odd balance things by default. I primarily work with wind ensemble and just found it odd. Once I fine tuned balance it sounded really good though

I use MuseScore since 2017 and I've tried many soundfonts and SFZs before and none of them had a nice legato and realistic sounds like the new Muse Sounds.

Absolutely loved Muse Sounds, specially solo strings!

"The delegate executed asynchronously through TimeoutPolicy did not complete within the timeout."
Anyone else getting that?
error.png

Is there somewhere I can give someone some money for this? It feels like I should give someone some money for this. I pay £8.50 for chilli and salt king prawns, there's no way I should get all this software for free.

In reply to by GoldmanT

If you've got money to spare, I've got a roof that could do with an update ;-)

Joking aside, the Muse Group does not take donations, but if you want some money to flow their way (and they do sponsor the in-house team of contributors) then you could consider a subscription on the .com site.

In reply to by GoldmanT

I mean, as a member of the internal team, I should obviously NOT get any donations, since I'm paid by Muse. However, if you did get a subscription to MuseScore.com, then that makes me look just a little bit better, which keeps me in my job!

If you want to donate to the community contributors, I'm not certain how you'd do that. I don't believe there is any existing mechanism for it.

In reply to by GoldmanT

That is pretty much true.

.com and .org offer two separate products. The notation editor offered on .org is an open project, with lots of volunteering involved. Currently the release procedure and scheduling is handled mostly by an in-house team which Muse Group "voluntarily" contributes to the development of the software.

I'm running Mac OS 10.15.7, and the MuseHub installer won't open (message says OS 11.5 or later needed). I know Musescore 4 won't be running on some older OS versions, but from the earlier post I thought 10.14 onwards would be supported. Has this now changed?

"There are some remaining performance issues with Muse Sounds. For example, for larger scores, playback may sometimes take a few moments to 'catch up' after you press the play button. You may also experience various different kinds of lag and dropouts. If you experience this, please go to preferences > I/O and set the buffer size to 2048. Please log all issues you experience on Github (link below). Our focus before the public release will be on performance optimisation."

Well, I´ve had to set the buffer at 2048 to playback a mini score (3 measures) and even without using Muse Sounds. Anyway, great job!

How to find/apply new sounds?

I just re-installed Musescore (beta) and download via Muse Hub strings/brass and opened orchestral score (os Win. 10), but sound is still the same (replace instrument panel offers the same library as Alpha).
New sounds did download, but remained hidden (not to be found in downloads file, nor integrated in Muse score- size difference should be substantial).

In reply to by Chabrol

I noticed that too. I've tested the strings on an orchestral arrangement of mine that has a lot o pianos, mfs, ffs, crescendos, etc. Well, I'm really surprised that almost every dynamic I wrote IS working. Except for the string runs that are getting too loud in a quiet passage for instance. Over all, I know It is not perfect yet but I think we just have to wait for these issues to be fixed to perfection.

I have two issues with the new MuseHub:

  1. I cannot quit it on OSX without opening the Activity Monitor and abort the process. Why is there no option to simply quit the MuseHub?

  2. Whilst I was able to set a different folder to install the Muse Sounds in, it does not work because it's an external HD, where I store all my Sound Files, Loops, VSTs and whatnot. MuseHub is not even asking if I would allow it access to an external HD. So unless that is not solved, I won't be able to use the new sounds. And no, installing them on the internal SSD is no option. It's too small and nearly full, hence the external SSD.

Is there some way I can install Muse Hub in Manjaro? An user commented above that he would switch to a Debian based distro, but I can't do that. Manjaro is my only OS. Can anyone here help me with this?

Hey! I have a problem with the playback.
When i set the audio device to windows realtek, the reproduction bar moves but i have no audio feedback, when I set my audio interface as audio device the bar doesnt move and i have no audio feedback.
Any idea what could it be?
anyway, the beta looks awesome and its incredible how the program evolved from version 2 when i started using it!

I appreciate your great support for Linux users!
I have been using Musescore since around 2015, and it is amazing to see how much it has grown in this time. Thank you for what you do!!

I'll admit my gut reaction for a separate "hub" application was "Oh no....". But then I thought on it and realized this is the best way to keep the proprietary software separate from the opensource program. And I whole heatedly agree. Will keep Musescore4 itself lean, focused, and open source.

I see the linux package for the hub isn't an appimage but a deb package. Will it eventually be an appimage or is this not possible? If not can we get an rpm package?

[EDIT] I've manually extracted the deb package and manually installed the files on Fedora 36. Seemed pretty straight forward. I fired up the server in the background and launched the hub client. I was then able to download the MuseSounds instruments. Thing is I tried the linux appimage linked above and it appears that MuseSounds is inactive as an instrument. Was this an oversight or is it not liking something with my setup? I noted it downloaded the instruments in the default location /srv/muse-hub/downloads/Instruments

In reply to by Joshua Pettus

I was going to ask now to install the .deb on Fedora, but I've figured out. So here are the steps in anyone else needs them:
- open a terminal in the "Muse_Hub_Linux" directory containing "muse-hub.deb"
- run "ar x muse-hub.deb data.tar.xz" to extract the compressed data from the .deb
- extract the new file "data.tar.xz", which appears alongside "muse-hub.deb". The directory should now contain "muse-hub.deb", "data.tar.xz", and the "data" directory which contains everything we need.
- navigate to "data/opt/muse-hub/" and run "sudo ./Muse.Service" (it has to be running to use muse hub)
- navigate to "data/usr/share/applications/" and copy "muse-hub.desktop" into your "~/.local/share/applications/" directory
- run the application, which should now show up alongside other applications

For a prettier icon, edit the "muse-hub.desktop" you moved to "~/.local/share/applications/" so that the Icon entry points to the image filepath. Eg: "Icon=/home/max/Muse_Hub_Linux/data/usr/share/icons/hicolor/256x256/apps/muse-hub.png"

For convenience you may want to change the Exec line of "muse-hub.desktop" to point to a custom .sh file which runs both the service and the application.

In reply to by Max Pearce Basman

They made some kind of change and It has since been working for me. First you actually have to move the binaries and everything into the proper location on your system (not your home directory). Just move everything in the data folder into the place where it would go on your system. Second you have to have everything install in the default location. (Again not your home directory)

In reply to by Joshua Pettus

Update: I redownloaded/installed MuseHub after hearing about the MuseScore Release Candidate, and it seems all these problems have since been resolved. Leaving it up for posterity

Since you emphasized strongly that that they shouldn't be in the home directory, where should the files go? I don't know all the locations for binaries and where default location to install everything from is.

I ask because I was initially able to download and use Muse Sounds, but recently have been getting a flurry of

Unable to download Muse Choir
Something went wrong, please try again later Something went wrong, please try again later
ID: a1531f7f-6b8d-45ee-81d5-942a329994c4 
Type: Instrument

type error messages for each sound I had downloaded (I assume an attempt an an update that didn't work) whenever I open MuseHub. The original sounds I had downloaded work fine, but I'm guessing they haven't benefited from the bugfixes and improvements since the original beta release.

"You may need to reinstall the helper application. Right click on the HUB logo ..."
Win10 user here. Right clicking the logo does nothing for me. The first time I installed the app, I was able to start the download. Then I realized it's downloading to my C drive and paused the download to change the location to another drive. Didn't like that, wouldn't download anything. I uninstalled Hub and reinstalled, set the correct download folder this time, tried again. Now I can't get any download to start. Not sure what else to try.

In reply to by jeetee

Didn't make a difference. I tried multiple times, with hard resets just to make sure nothing's left in memory. Then I removed all MuseScore or MuseHub related entries from the registry for good measure, tried re-installing after that. Now I keep getting the delegate timeout message (someone else posted a screenshot of it above) for everything. Did I brick the hub somehow?

Now I regret attempting to change the default download directory in the first place. :(

Right, so far for me the MuseHub is not to work with. Too many issues, so I deleted it, emptied the trash and restarted my MacBook.

Even after restarting I still have a process on root level running, called com.muse.museservice. I cannot abort it. Why is it there and how to I get rid of it? I don't find that funny to be honest, that even after uninstalling and deleting everything, this still shows up in the activity monitor:

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We welcome Beta of MuseScore 4 and the Muse Sounds!
I would like to ask, regarding the Muse Sounds, if there is any list of techniques available by category or type of instrument (e.g. for bowed strings: pizz. col legno tratto or battuto, sul pont., sul tasto...)
I tried to write something elementary for violin and the ability to change techniques is only provided through "text" (by default) in Master Pallet.
It would be very helpful if I knew what techniques are available for each instrument and how to activate them through a text.

Thank you for your time.

I installed muse 4 via Hub and the new sound libraries. The change from version 3.6 is significant. Of course I have seen some functionality problems, such as playback which is not smooth. Some settings, such as the background color, are not saved. I choose a paper color but it doesn't stay loaded. I am really in awe of the work done and I must say that I use MuseScore to make scores for large orchestras. Thank you Muse ...

In reply to by jofamusic

I installed MS4 on my PC with W10 Pro at the first time everything worked perfectly. I uninstalled the alpha2 version of MS4 and reinstalled MS4 from MuseHub. I have installed all the sounds except the choirs. Could not connect to the server. I did some rehearsals with scores for large orchestra, mapping the sounds with the new libraries. I must say that everything worked perfectly or almost. It still doesn't give me the full confidence to work hard on it. I await the next realeases. Now I write my scores with version 3.6. Thanks everyone and good music.

Thank you so much, this looks amazing! Will this work on ARM? I'm running Linux on an Android phone vía Andronix. So far have not been able to make this work... :(

In reply to by Sadiel Cuentas

In principle, since MuseScore is open source, it should be possible for someone to compile it for ARM, although most likely it will require quite a bit of work to set up all the necessary tools (and to compile Qt as well). Very possibly it will make more sense to cross-compile - run the build on an Intel system, but set the destination architecture to ARM.

Muse Hub is not open source, so it won't be possible for anyone else to compile that. But, you can run it on another Linux system, use it to download Muse Sounds, then simply copy the /srv/muse-hub folder over to the destination. I tested this yesterday (not using ARM of course) and it does appear to work.

In reply to by Sadiel Cuentas

I have used a recent version of Musescore (3.6 and higher) on Andronix using Void Linux / Arch Linux. (The ARM Appimage I could find didn't want to run on my Android phone and the Debian-based distributions only have a debian package of Musescore 3.2).
So if you have some patience Musescore 4 might also come available for one of these two Linux distributions.

In reply to by Chabrol

As far as I know, tuning adjustments (along with velocity adjustments) are still being worked on.

The piano keyboard is entirely redesigned (as is much of the interface), and I'm not sure if showing notes during playback is currently planned or not. Best to head over to GitHub and search the issues there to find previous discussions, and if you don't see it already covered, submit an issue.

Congratulations and thank you for all your work dev team.
Reviews on the sound so far are great. Pity thou I could not join coz MuseHub won't install on my laptop, wish there's a way to download manually.
For those not aware already, MuseSounds' around 15GB total. I guess my D drive would fit if I exclude woodwind download as adviced by Mr Sabatella
musehubwin10support.PNG

As much as forward to trying the beta version—and giving Muse Sounds a spin—the Muse Hub is not working for me at all. (I'm running two computers, both with Mac 12.6.1 and with permission to run apps, etc., and the issues have been identical.) Here's a rundown of the issues:

• I can't install the helper. I have no idea why. I've tried on more than one network, and it always says I can't connect.
• There is no option I can find to reinstall the helper. When I right-click on the Hub logo, the only option is to quit.
• Hub is not recognized as an app, so I can't force quit or restart. When the spinning pinwheel of death shows up—which is every time—my only options are to wait or restart the computer.

I may try to download the beta version directly, but as this won't let me try Muse Sounds, I can't say I'm looking forward to it as much as I hoped. Any suggestions (or commiseration) are welcome.

In reply to by chrismassa1

Very appreciative of all the work that has gone into MS4 but am also having major issues with Muse Hub on my Mac machine too (Mac OS 12.5). Whilst I have managed to install the Hub, I am finding it virtually unusable because it is crashing after every action. I have some how installed MuseScore 4 beta, I am unable to install any sounds or really use the hub at all. The 'Get' button is unresponsive (if I get that far), icons for the different packages aren't loading either, so am not sure what I'm selecting without opening it first. Will try my Windows machine later and see if it's any better.

EDIT: will file the issue in github too

The new version looks great and I can´t wait to get the final version, but there are a lot of bugs that need to be fixed:

  1. MS basic instruments sound worse than previous version instruments, needs improvement.
  2. The new muse libraries don't work properly, musescore 4.0 crashes when I select them in the mixer. Also, if I can play these libraries, they sound distorted and then Musescore 4.0 closes
  3. The playback has some trouble detecting the correct dynamics.
  4. In MuseHub there should be an option to uninstall the sound libraries (rather than having to go to the directory and delete the files manually).

In reply to by jverdudelvas

Hello! As mentioned in the announcement, please use GitHub to report issues. And please submit separate issues for each problem, with more detailed info. like, which specific notes in which instrument you feel sound different in MU4 than MU3 (note, MU3 provided reverb by default, that might be all you are noticing). For the crash, be sure to attach your score to the issue report on GitHub and give precise steps to reproduce the crash. Also be sure to attach score and precise to reproduce the problem with respect to dynamics.

To uninstall sounds in Muse Hub, press Alt while clicking the button. It's not the easiest to discover, but, a tooltip does appear letting you know this when you hover. I'd prefer something a bit more obvious.

Seem to be getting a lot of these type warnings from MalwareBytes - can anybody shed on light on these types of warning regarding Muse.Service.exe
Malwarebytes
www.malwarebytes.com

-Log Details-
Protection Event Date: 28/10/2022
Protection Event Time: 14:07

-System Information-
OS: Windows 11 (Build 22623.875)
CPU: x64
File System: NTFS
User: System

-Blocked Website Details-
Malicious Website: 1
, C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Muse.MuseHub_0.9.6.484_x64__rb9pth70m6nz6\Muse.Service.exe, Blocked, -1, -1, 0.0.0, ,

-Website Data-
Category: Compromised
Domain:
IP Address: 143.244.42.103
Port: 6881
Type: Inbound
File: C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Muse.MuseHub_0.9.6.484_x64__rb9pth70m6nz6\Muse.Service.exe

Hello,
somewhere (here?) Marc Sabatella posted a terminal command to restart the helper for MuseHub. I can't find it anymore. What was this command?
Greetings, Pentatonus

I couldn't believe the beta was canceled... and then I couldn't believe how absolutely marvelous Muse Sounds, well, sounds!!

Good heavens! I am so happy and proud to be a user of Musescore! I've dreamed of this kind of marvel since the early installments of Musescore 3, and now, it's a reality.

My greatest respect for everyone involved in the creation of this wonderful piece of software, as well as these beautiful, tear-jerking, sounds (get wrecked, Noteperformer!—ahem, sorry... too excited)... !!!

Is that intro now an example of what they call a Celtic sense of humour? I must say, it's even darker than a South African one, and seeing that most of our jokes are about our failing power grid and us being in the dark, that's quite difficult to achieve...

Hey. I have successfully downloaded Muse Brass and Muse Woodwinds. However, I wanted to download Muse Percussion (the final Muse Sound I wanted to download) but when the download had about 1 minute left, it started increasing in the time it took for the rest of the download.

From watching MuseScore Café, there is an issue at first where the download may say that it will take 1600 weeks, however Marc said that it takes time for Muse Hub to recognise the download. My situation however, is flipped.

If anyone could help me, that would be great.

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Hello, I know that this is a beta and there will be issues. But a friend of mine had come across an issue. In which while trying to download to his internal drive labeled A he was having hard time. Musehub kept crashing. It is known that it could download to the C drive which is the standard drive that he has with a computer. He states that he hasn't been getting any errors and musehub crashes or completely drops the download. If you need further information I will get some.

First off, I absolutely love the Muse Sounds! They're so good!

I was just wondering if there was a way to add plug in the Musescore Drumline plugin into Musescore 4.

Tried installing from hub/uninstalling several times... MS4 simply won't open (mac). Originally kept crashing every time I tried, now it just bounces once from the dock and the dot below the app doesn't even appear to signify it's open/opening. Anyone else experiencing this/know a fix?

I don't know if it's a bug but I can't find the way to put the notename "Si" (B in Catalan or Spanish) at the notehead

I also can't find the way to activate scrollview in the continuous view.

In reply to by pere

The notename settings are in the Properties panel (click Show more to display them). But, as with MU3, they use English-style names (so, Ti instead of Si).

The continuous view control is at the bottom now. If you mean "smooth pan" option for playback, that is not yet implemented for MU4.

In reply to by pere

Hmm, for me that produces Ti also, Maybe it depends on the language you have installed? And perhaps that particular language hasn't been translated yet for MuseScore 4? Best to start a new thread in the Development and Technology Preview (or Translation) forum to discuss this, so this discussion can stay focused on the beta announcement itself.

This update is amazing, so grateful for all of the hard work gone into this! MuseHub works really well and I’m loving the new muse sounds libraries.

I have a random question about a guitar overlay view. I’m wondering after the official launch of MS4 is there a plan to include a guitar overlay and input option for guitar tabs in a later update?

Thanks again for MS4, I think it’s a real game changer!

This is more feedback than an issue, per se, which is why it's here instead of GitHub.

While much of Muse Sounds is terrific, I will express some disappointment with the string and choir sounds. Both have attacks that are quite slow, so while they might sound good at slow tempi, they end up sounding very odd and choppy when things pick up speed. Here's hoping that they represent a work-in-progress rather than a finished product.

Okay, I'm playing around with the Beta of MuseScore 4, and I'm coming up against various things that are not working how I'd expect. If these are development issues, I'm happy to (try to) post to GitHub, but if they are things that I'm simply doing wrong, I'd appreciate the correction.

Issue #1: The numeric keypad is not selecting note values.

Okay, I'm playing around with the Beta of MuseScore 4, and I'm coming up against various things that are not working how I'd expect. If these are development issues, I'm happy to (try to) post to GitHub, but if they are things that I'm simply doing wrong, I'd appreciate the correction.

Issue #2: I'm accustomed to using Opt+Space (I'm using Mac 12.6.1) to insert a space in lyrics. This is helpful for putting a space between the verse number and the first word of lyrics (I find a lack of space here pretty unattractive), and it's EXTREMELY helpful when notating chant. But this keyboard command seems to have no effect. Has this command moved, or this a bug... or has it been done away with?

First of all, congratulations to the development team. That was one long wait for us MS3 users!
Installing MS4 beta and MuseSounds with MSHub went fine for me on my Mac. However, it replaced wholesale my MS3 installation without any question. I believe an installer should at least ask what to do when encountering an already installed version, i.e:
- keep it alongside the new one
- remove it
What is the proper way to have both MS3 and MS4 installed on a Mac ?
I think it is especially important that MS3 can remain installed during all the pre-release versions of MS4, in order for testers to properly report issues and create testcases related to migration from MS3 to MS4.

As it turns out, I have encountered quite a few major migration issues that I would like to report. For example:
- Parts-related: I have a quartet with parts open (main + 4 other tabs) that was saved with MS3. When I open it in MS4, then open parts tabs are sort-of duplicated (open tabs are main + 8 other tabs), and the actions available for these four new parts (Duplicate) are different from the actions available for the previously open parts (Duplicate/Rename/Delete). I want to get rid of the newly created ones, as it is the former ones that retain all the edition work I did in the individual parts.
- Sounds: I tested the woodwind sounds, and yes they are much more realistic (wow!). However, except for sustained notes, there are some very noticeable artefacts on all kinds of note transitions, botched rythms, and notes that simply do not play (e.g for Bb clarinet anything F6 and above, whereas the standard range goes to C7). To the point that I prefer reverting to the previous synthetizer-like sound to having a realistic clarinettist butcher the music.

I am more than happy to spend time creating testcases and reporting all I can, but for that I need to be able to switch between MS3 and MS4, even if both versions cannot run concurrently.

In reply to by prigault

Are you sure it removed MU3? That shouldn't happen and no one else has reported an issue like that as far as I know. But if you are sure that happened, then this and any other issues you find should be reported on GitHub as requested in the announcement, so the developers can investigate. Meanwhile, you certainly be able to reinstall MU3. Both versions can run concurrently.

It's known that there are duplicate parts when opening MU3 scores, BTW, so no need to report that. Similarly, it's known that the ranges of some instruments are limited, and there are also known issues with rhythm. So before reporting any issues on GitHub, best to do a quick search to see if it's already known.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Happened to me as well. I simply reinstalled MS3 - MU4 isn't really ready for serious work yet. And MS3 lives happily next to MU4 and MuseHub in my applications folder. I do have to specify MS3 if I open a .mscz file from Finder: default app to open has been set to MU4.
ETA: I really don't see this as a show-stopper. It's really trivial to download and re-install MS3: all my settings (preferences) for MS3 had been preserved.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

After reinstalling MU3, I have now both MS3 and MS4, but now MuseHub fails to start, giving the following error message each time:
Unable to connect to Helper. Please contact Support.
Unable to update helper settings: The operation couldn’t be completed.
(com_muse_museservice.RemoteHelperError error 0.)
Reinstalling MuseHub from the disk image (by dropping it into Applications) does not resolve the issue.

PLEASE add the capability to save as earlier versions of MuseScore. While I like a lot of the new features of MuseScore 4—and while I love the engravement improvements—the playback is in such a rough state that it's impractical for me to use it as my main notation software. Unfortunately, since I can't save scores I've been working on as MuseScore 3.6, I'm forced to either continue working in MuseScore 4 (as I said, impractical) or export as XML, which also leaves a lot to be desired. Thanks!

In reply to by chrismassa1

Unfortunately that is just not practical. Too much has changed to support anything more tha MusicXML export as a method of editing scores in earlier versions. But also, keep in mind this is just beta, bugs are to be expected and will be fixed. The whole point is to allow people to text; these builds are nit intended for real work. So definitely feel free continue your testing in 4.0, but if you have important work to do, it should be done 3.6.2, until 4.0 is released and feels am stable.

I love the Beta Release, but hopefully, there will be a fix for glitched measures. What I mean by glitched measures, is that if I completed a measure, it was fine when I was putting the notes into the measure, but when I want to fix something on that measure (e.g. a beam, fixing an incorrect note), it makes MuseScore 4 freeze and then crashes. When I try to fix the measure again on that specific part where I'm going to edit, it freezes and crashes again, even when I'm trying to delete the measure. I don't think it happened on MuseScore 3, but it first happened on measure/bar 81 of the re-transcribing I'm doing of La Campenella by Liszt when I was trying to fix some things on that measure, it freezes then crashes. Hope this gets fixed soon.

Congratulations on your great work! I'd like to make a suggestion, though. It would be nice if you could include some instruments useful for composing and arranging jazz music, especially upright bass, horns, and brushes would also be nice.

First : Thanks a lot !
My computer for music is still running win 7, anybody has an idea if there is a way to get the soundpack without using the hub ? (wont install on older version of windows) I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one using an older OS as a workstation

In reply to by akseli84

In theory, you could download it on a modern computer, then figure out which files you actually need - certainly the folder contains the sounds, but also the DLL for MuseSampler (the player for the sounds) and other files too. I don't think anyone has figured out for sure yet exactly what's needed, but someone will eventually.

Thanks for all your work, MU4 looks (and sounds) great :)

Could you share a bit of insight regarding the sentence "Bear in mind that Muse Sounds does not cover the entire instrument list anyway, so many niche instruments will simply revert to MS Basic."?
Are the instruments currently available with Muse Sounds the final list or will any further instruments be added later. In particular: Will Guitar/Ukulele sounds be included in Muse Sounds?

Regarding the new handbook: I have very poor night vision and thus it's very difficult for me to read text in dark screenshots. Now, that wouldn't be a problem, if the rest was dark as well. I can always invert colors (ctrl+opt+cmd+8 on macOs, ctrl+win+c on windows (if color filter is set to invert colors)).
However, while the screenshots use a dark interface the note sheets are light-themed and the surrounding text documentation is also in light theme which after color inversion become undecipherable for me. So basically, to be able to read the handbook, I have to invert colors every few seconds which is a bit annoying.
I would assume that everyone who can read dark-themed screenshots can also read dark-themed text (light-themed respectively. Thus, I would like to suggest using a consistent theme for the documentation. (i.e. light-themed text + light-themed screenshots or dark-themed text with dark-themed screenshots)
I have been using MU for some time now, so I guess I won't have to to look up much in the documentation (and probably it's possible to tinker with the websites css to make everything dark and then invert everything), but not everyone will be able to do that.

In reply to by takatuka

As far as I know, it's expected more instruments will be added over time, perhaps even by third parties since the the plan last I heard is to publish the specs for this.

Regarding the Handbook - yes, I understand this must be difficult. Unfotunately there is no easy way to provide both sets of screenshots depending on your preference. Maybe though there is a way through custom CSS to simply set your browser to invert text? I haven't really experimented with how users might be able to add custom CSS to their browsers, but in theory that was one of the selling points of CSS back when it was first introduced.

FWIW, I plan to use light screenshots in my own Mastering MuseScore tutorials and online course.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Thanks, Marc :)

Regarding the CSS: In Chrome-based browsers it works like this: (in all other browsers it's similar, it also works the same way on most websites):
- right-click on page, select "inspect element": A new developer view opens on the right.
- scroll to the top and select "body" from the HTML code
- set background-color: #000000; and color: white; (see attached screenshot)

This way I can adjust the text. A user setting at the musescore account would be more accessible for non-developers. The screenshots with day-theme score and night-theme app cannot be changed by the user. Then again, most people have normal eye sight and don't struggle with having a mixed theme even within a single gif. (e.g. https://musescore.org/sites/musescore.org/files/2022-02/instruments-pan… )

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So you know, It looks like MS4 can be compiled just fine on a RasperryPi 400 in the current version of PiOS 64bit. It took me a few tries as it will run out of ram with just 4 gigs, but it is doable. I only had to pay attention to the errors at runtime in command line and then add a few new qml modules . This is of course while MS4 still uses QT5, once you guys move to QT6 it will be a bit tougher I'm sure.

Hello! First of all, it's a real pleasure to hear this famous MuseSound! Nevertheless, I would like to point out a problem which I hope is personal.
Indeed, wanting to rework my orchestral scores from Musescore 3 on Musescore 4, I could notice that Musescore 4 closed itself when too much information had to be read and played by the software. Whether it is for Kontakt or MuseSound VSTs, the problem persists.
I don't know if the information was found on GitHub or on this forum but I wanted to share this information.
Thank you, and have a nice day !

Thank you for adding scrollbars to Musescore!! Fantastic work. We've been requesting this feature for so many years. Very happy to get to work in Musescore 4 with these.

I'm sorry, but on the Beta I can't find the possibility to add a file management toolbar (save, save as, print, etc...) or customize it; something has changed from MS3?

Such a great update from musescore 3
I found a bug where if you try to put a time signature, musescore 4 just crashes

Anyone else have trouble with repeat endings? At least on imported MS3 scores, MS4 often just plays both endings, but the second ending takes up the following bar, leading to the whole playback being 1 bar behind for each of these repeats.

The way dynamics work on MS4 is really weird too, to the extent that the first note of all scores invariably fails to play. Oftentimes I get crescendos and diminuendos without them being notated when I'm looking for more terraced dynamics. What's going on here?

Furthermore, I am unable to load any score with movement dividers into MS4.

Anyway, I hope Musescore fixes these issues before the official release.

Muse Sounds is great, and I could install the first beta version and Muse hub easily.
My problem now is that Muse Sounds doesn't work now that I updated something using Muse Hub, and I've been uninstalling MuseScore 4 trying to fix it, but now the download isn't starting. When I open up Muse Hub, no matter how many times I download it, it always goes somewhat out of frame on my computer. Therefore, I cannot right click the logo and reinstall the helper application to see if it will fix it. It cuts off right above the MuseScore, Audacity, and Staffpad applications.

Still glad that the beta release is here, I still love MuseScore 4, but the things that bother me are the sound lag/glitchiness, freezing, and crashing. There are a bit more, but overall, it's still awesome, The thing that bothers me on Muse Hub is the Helper Server Service not connecting when it says it's not running. But overall, things have been fine. There will still be bugs because it's still in beta, but those will most likely be fixed later on. Can't wait for the stable release.

In reply to by Loudan Welkinstein

I don't know when you got the beta release but there was a reasonably significant update to it on Friday last week. You can get them by reopening the Hub and downloading any updates offered to you. We have not solved all the glitches and lag yet but some particular issues have been resolved relating to playback.

In reply to by Tantacrul

I think it was when I first saw this announcement because I go on MuseScore and the website daily and check the announcements to see if anything new came up that was about MuseScore 4, The first time I saw this was on the 19th-20th and got it straight away. I've gotten all the Muse Sounds and the FX with it, but when I try to update MuseScore, it just says an Unable message (this was before the helper thing). When I try to connect to the Helper Service, it doesn't connect, it actually stops Muse Hub from responding. Should I uninstall and then re-install it?

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