Dreadful dynamics playback bug

• Dec 19, 2022 - 17:00

I've found there is a bug in playback dynamics which I as one user at least consider a serious problem.

When an instrument has been at rest for a while and is scored to come back in at the same loudness it was at before the rest, it's common practice to put in a "reminder" dynamic in parentheses. For instance, (f) tells the performer, "Yes you were already playing at f before the rests but this is just a reminder of that." This keeps the performer from being confused about whether their dynamics is supposed to change.
I've found that in MS4 with Muse Sounds, inserting a "reminder" dynamic changes the instrument's previous dynamic to a lower one; it sounds to me like mf or even mp. I attach an example; it shows that the (f) in measure 6 lowers the volume of the f in measure 5, something confirmed by looking at it with the Mixer.

(Some people may think the (f) isn't really needed here because the rest is so short, but I like to put in a reminder dynamic at the beginning of a crescendo or diminuendo to make it clear what the dynamic range should be, and at any rate, the same thing happens and is even a worse problem with longer rests.)

This most certainly did not happen in MuseScore 3, and I consider it a major problem in MuseScore 4: now I'm faced with the dilemma of either continuing to use reminder dynamics in my notation and having the playback sound really wrong, or having the playback sound right but not being able to use reminder dynamics in my notation.

I know there is a forum for reporting bugs, but I've never used to (so far as I remember) and I don't know if the policy is that possible bugs should be discussed in this forum before reporting them. Should I go to the bug reporting forum?

Edit: A workaround that seems to be effective is to put a non-parentheses dynamic on the same note where the parentheses dynamic is and then use the properties to make that non-parentheses dynamic not visible. Playback then seems to to use the not visible dynamic. I've used this only in the example below so far; I hope it works for all scores, but if it doesn't, I'll post again.

But there shouldn't have to be a work around: these dynamics should work the same way they have always worked in MS3. I think this is a really flagrant bug.

Attachment Size
dynamicsbug.mscz 104.68 KB

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