For those who utilize musescore.com...
(Caveat: I realize this post is better suited to the musescore.com site, but there doesn’t seem to be much daily activity over there, and I couldn’t find a suitable forum over there, soooo….)
For those who utilize musescore.com:
I’m new to the Musescore universe, having recently installed MS 4.
I've been listening to various compositions on Musescore.com, mostly classical (I assume these pieces have been created in some notation program and then uploaded). I’ve noticed that upon playback the actual sound of the compositions vary widely, ranging from quite good to quite unrealistic and “synthy”, as if I were listening to low quality VI’s.
Why the wide difference in playback sound? Does this depend on the virtual instruments that were used when creating the piece? I.e., if a piece was created using, say, Sibelius or Notion, and the user was using that program's soundfont, is that what I’m hearing?
Thx, Kevin J.
(ps: when I d'load these files and open them in MS 4 the sound is generally vastly improved).
Comments
Two main reasons:
1. It's possible to upload using custom soundfonts, so if they sound a lot better than the rest or use different instruments entirely, that's why.
2. If the scores you're listening to vary over a wide enough time range, you might be hearing the default soundfonts of different versions of MuseScore, which have changed a handful of times.
(I don't think there is any 'Forum' for messages on musescore.com)
I wager it's not possible to upload to the musescore.com repository anything other than a musescore file/score. Anybody can use any notation or sequencing software, then export from THAT into musescore program -- then save in musescore FORMAT, to upload.
If your MS4 installation included MuseHub & MuseSounds (and you have activated, and are using/assigning them in MS4 program), then reports are that, YES, quality of instruments is vastly better.
I for one don't yet grasp if a composition I create on my computer using alternate soundfont(s) (since you mention it) may sound better or worse or average once in the musescore repository. Where anybody can listen to them.
In reply to (I don't think there is any … by Are Jayem
There's https://musescore.com/groups/improving-musescore-com/
By definition, everything on musescore.com was created in MuseScore. Some of the pieces might have been originally created in some other program and then transferred to MuseScore via MusicXML import, but probably only a tiny minority.
So in general, you are almost always hearing MuseScore's playback. Probably 90% of differences in audio are due to different versions of MuseScore. Most of the rest are people deliberately choosing the use third party soundfonts.
However, musescore.com does allow you to synchronize the playback to an external source (e.g., a YouTube video), thus allowing the playback online to come from any recording you like. Mostly people use this feature to sync to an actual live recording, but some people who imported from another program might use it to suync to that other program's audio. Probably (just a guess) no more than 0.01% of scores would have that going on, though.