Musescore 4: how to make notes sound like piano

• Jan 31, 2023 - 20:56

Hello. I'm transcribing some choir music, but I don't want the notes to go aah aah aah aah all the time. In a previous version of Musescore I believe I would have changed the notes to "piano" in the mixer, but the mixer in Musescore 4 doesn't give me that option. Is "replacing the instrument" (which requires many mouse clicks) and then manually renaming the instrument back to e.g. Soprano or Alto again the new way of doing this?


Comments

I see that renaming the instrument from Piano back to Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass is only half a solution, because when I open the mixer, the instruments are still indicated as Piano, Piano, Piano and Piano.

ugcheleuce wrote, paraphrased >** In a previous version of Musescore [3.x?] I [could change Sound] to "piano" in the mixer, but the mixer in Musescore 4 doesn't give me that option.

Are you using MS Basic sounds or MuseSounds? Currently it seems that MS Basic defers to the Instrument definition, with no option to override. But if you installed MuseSounds you have a choice of pianos under Muse Keys. More on that option below. But first to address your concern ...

I frequently need the option you describe:

    • to have an Instrument properly defined and all the benefits that affords
    • also to have the freedom to easily override the sound associated the Instrument.

For instance I've always found the guitar and mandolin instruments annoying, the latter sounding like harpsichord. So for those tracks in 3.6.2 I set Mixer>Sound to Piano, which is one of the most listenable sounds in 3.6.2. Sadly MuseScore 4.01 has nothing like the v3 Mellow Grand Piano. Hopefully that's in coming down the road.

I can still override the default instrument sound with Mixer>Sound in v4 ... but only with MuseSounds. And unfortunately the MuseSounds Grand Piano has way too much reverb baked in, and it sounds tubby, as if recorded in a small room tainted with short reflections. And the other MuseScore piano options sound worse like some particular piano affectation, handy if you want to create a cover of Rocky Raccoon!

For the record, that state of affairs lodged in my mind as "I can't set playback to Grand Piano in v4" which led me to make the follow erroneously statement in my first draft reply: Perhaps in tightening up on Instrument definitions in v4 we lose some flexibility? Or maybe we the requested option is available but moved to another location. And perhaps like many other features it's removed until v4 becomes a more full-fledged version of its former self.

SORRY about that for anyone who read this before I amended.

scorster

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