Playback Working Awfully

• Dec 17, 2022 - 03:19

I just downloaded MuseScore 4, and the playback lags so much that it's impossible to listen to anything. When this happens, the whole software freezes.

This sometimes happened to me some time ago with MuseScore 3, too. Could anyone tell me if this is a problem caused by my computer or if it's actually something that's happening frequently to other people?

Please, if anyone could respond to me, I would really appreciate I, because the playback has improved so much in MuseScore, and I would love to listen to it in my scores...

Thanks.


Comments

In reply to by jeetee

thank you for your reply. Not quite sure if I get the difference betwen "sound font" and "playback engine". I have lots of music made with MS3 and in MS4 they just sound horrible. The playback is too sloppy (I guess it has to do with the "realistic" simulation, but what if I just want my old good sounds and my old good playback?

In reply to by al brin

Soundfont is a collection of (recorded) audio samples for individual notes and instruments packed together with some additional data hints on how to stretch these across a certain pitch range.

The Playback Engine is the thing that translates Music Notation into a range of playback instructions. Those instructions in turn are then processed by a synthesizer which loads up samples (for example from a soundfont) and manipulates them into the required playback audio according to the playback instructions it got.

So the flow is in essence:
Sheet Music ==== (Playback Engine) ===> playback instructions ==== (Synthesizer + samples) ===> Audio

In reply to by jeetee

Thanks Jeetee!
What are those additional data hints on how to stretch these across a certain pitch range and where/how can we use or activate them ? It may explain why all high notes above E5 are silent with the Tenor sax from the new Woodwinds SoundFonts.

In reply to by Philou04

You don't access them, the soundfont/library creator sets them. To keep their soundfont small they can for example choose to only have a real sample for every 5 half tones; they then set parameters for the gaps saying "use this other note sample, but modulate it like so".

The sample ranges for the Muse Sounds indeed are on the limited end currently; if you look at the github issue list there's no way that the developers of those Sounds aren't aware of that :-p. They might choose to indeed implement something like sample stretching as well, or perhaps even go back to the studio to record some more samples.

Side note: Muse Sounds are not Soundfonts (a specific packaging format for samples), nor a VST, but a new technology alltogether.

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