Musescore 4 Is Terrible?

• Jun 18, 2023 - 07:23

I have been a musescore user since musescore 1. Each new musescore was a step in the right direction, but the new musescore 4 has changed the input mode so much that it is essential unusable? Why so many changes when the original way was so intuitive. And how do I get msuescore 3 again? The devs could at least offer a mode to toggle to the musescore 3 input.

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• Jun 18, 2023 - 15:48

Agreed. MU4 is different in many ways. I think input is not so different. But editing is different. No more Inspector. Intuitive is not the same for everyone. When I first started using MuseScore years ago, it was not at all intuitive for me because it was so different from the software I was used to. It seems that MU4 is less an upgrade and more just a different program. Sure, there are problems. But I don't even have MU3 installed on my new computer.

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• Jul 14, 2023 - 21:51

I think the changes would be great, if only they worked better. So many glitches. And the latest update has rendered it virtually unusable. Most of the editing functions take ages (e.g. cut & paste, or moving a note to a different voice) when these were instant in 3. You get a "not responding" message while you wait. Editing a section midscore often causes a few subsequent bars to be muted during playback (cutting and repasting the entire score still fixes this, but you might have to wait 5 to 10 minutes). At least playback has improved a bit since 4.0 (when it was terrible), but I'm losing faith that updates will ever fix this platform. Really I'm hoping it won't be too long a wait for 5!

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• Jul 14, 2023 - 23:12

Hmm, nothing should have changed at all regarding cut & paste or moving notes between voices. Sounds like there might be something unusual going on with either your particular score or your particular system. Best to start a new thread and attach your score and give precise steps to reproduce the problem so we can investigate and either confirm a bug that you can then report to the developers, or else show you how to solve the underlying problem with your score or system that might be leading to these issues.

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• Jul 19, 2023 - 15:35

Musescore 4 is awful, and I disagree that it's for the more formal user. I think the software is just flat-out incompetent. I've been struggling with a line of music for the past hour and have increasingly discovered that it's almost impossible to just make adjustments without having to constantly battle the UI. It constantly highlights the bar instead of the note you're trying to adjust. It keeps jumping notes way away from where I want them. That's if I can even get it to adjust when I first try to move a note. I'm just at war with this gods awful UI. At least they let you change soundfonts by individual instrument instead of having to stick with a soundfont for the whole project. Anything to replace the garbage they have in default. Heck, the soundfont for Musescore 3--disgusting, tinny thing--sounded better than this. I decided to do an important project in this...and...now I've discovered that I can't copypaste it back to Musescore 3. And I liked this one! This was sounding good, but Musescore 4 is so awful to use that I don't think I can continue this project in it and now I'll have to redo it note by note in Musescore 3. This is such terrible software I can't even work with it. It's held me up for hours. And I may have to discard this project as ruined because I can't work with it in this software. It's too hard.

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• Jul 19, 2023 - 15:43

Sounds like your having some sort of trouble learning to use the software, but it isn’t clear exactly in any case, you’ve come to the right place! Just start new thread to ask your question about how to select or adjust things and so forth and we’re happy to help!

Btw, the default soundfont in MU4 is identical to the one in MU3; just a name change from General to Basic. So if you want to use those sound for whatever reason, just make sure MS Basic is selected.

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• Jul 19, 2023 - 16:13

What makes you think I don't know how to use the software? Why is the first assumption that I'm somehow incompetent? I have no trouble using any of the other Musescores, but I'm just an idiot, right? There's no way they could have possibly made a trash program.

As for the sound, no, there's no way this is the same soundfont. I'm listening to them one after the other now. Unless MS4 has heavy filtering on it with reverb or whatever. No, I just turned reverb off and made sure there was no effect on it. If this is the same soundfont, they've done something to it.

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• Jul 19, 2023 - 16:35

No one said you were incompetent. Just that it sounded like you were having trouble figuring out how to do something, and we're here to help. So as soon as you're ready, just start the new thread with the information about whatever it is you are having trouble with, and we can get started. If it turns out it's just something that you need to relearn because MU4 works a little differently from MU3, we can get that straightened out quickly. if it turns out you have discovered a bug, we can help you report it to the developers so it can be fixed.

But yes, MS Basic is identical to MuseScore General. The reverb processing is indeed different. We can help you with that as well - again, just start a new thread, attach your score, and we're always more than happy to assist.

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• Jul 19, 2023 - 16:10

It has always been the case that if you don't select the note exactly, then the bar will be selected instead. If you are trying to move a note left or right, that has seldom been a good idea, You can offset them a bit. In MU4 you can save your file as an xml and open that in MU3.

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• Jul 19, 2023 - 16:29
  1. Sometimes it WILL move notes left or right no matter what. I'm just trying to move the character to a different note.
  2. Sometimes it appears to be impossible to put the character on the note I'm trying. It will skip over it and I will often have to simply delete the note and put in position, and sometimes, it will even refuse then. (To be fair, this one also happens in MS 3. Never happened in 1 or 2. I'm willing to tolerate it in MS 3 because it's the only real complaint I have and in general, 3 is better than 2.)
  3. As I said before, it's extremely difficult to avoid selecting the bar (It is the exact opposite in MS 3, which I never had a problem with.).
  4. On occasion, it's extremely difficult to unselect the bar once it's selected (a problem I don't have in MS 3.).
  5. On occasion, when I finally unselect the bar and manage to select an individual note, it will immediately reselect the bar. I suspect this is because of MS 4's tendency to double-react to mouse clicks (I know it's doing this because it's double-playing notes when I click on them. It's also a nuisance getting it to play because of this.)

That's what I can think of off the top of my head.

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• Jul 19, 2023 - 16:39

Again, if you are having trouble, please start new threads - one for each problem/question - and attach your score and precise steps to demonstrate the problem or question you have. Then we can understand and assist.

For #3, I'm going to guess you are talking about trying to click a note and missing slightly which selects the bar instead. There is a setting in Edit / Preferences / Canavs that controls the proximity for selecting elements. it's a little lower by default indeed in MU4 because people had been reporting the opposite problem - difficult to select a bar when there is a lot of notation in it and/or the score is zoomed out. But you can tweak that to your liking.

But also, it sounds like your mouse could probably use a cleaning if you are finding double-clicks to be a thing.

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• Jul 19, 2023 - 19:20

Well, I have Musescore 4.1, including the latest development nightly, and I still cannot select individual sounds from a soundfont. Any idea when I will be able to stop splitting soundfonts in version 4?

I'm keeping an eye on this. because I am afraid for Musescore on Linux, and I see so many complaints....

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• Jul 19, 2023 - 19:32

You change them in your mixer. The green box (the one that says MS Basic in this file) has a dropdown option. In the dropdown menu, you'll be able to select soundfonts you have saved to the soundfonts folder. The thing that annoys me is that it automatically determines which one is the right sound. You can't just decide which violin you want if your soundfont has multiple violins.

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MusescoreSoundfonts.png 209.71 KB

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• Nov 29, 2024 - 05:00

Can you explain what in particular you are having trouble with? In general, while some things might take a little getting used to, MU4 is orders of magnitude better in almost every objective sense. And we’re happy to help you find the “new” (well, not that new anymore) ways of doing the things that have changed.

Probably best to start a new thread with more descriptive title, like say “what’s the new shortcut for tie” or whatever specific thing you are having trouble with.

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