Where do my voices go?

After being enthused by the relatively recent push to promote Musescore, including YouTube videos and arrangements with many makers of digital instruments, I got on the band wagon to see what all the fuss was about. I was very impressed with the sound modules that became available for a remarkably small cost, and proceeded to learn about the platform via making a digital rendition of a Viola Concerto written by somebody I know.

Everything was going well, more or less (that bloody disappearing mixer!) and completed the first version of the Concerto using a number of the sound modules that I had downloaded (and bought!) from the Hub. A list of these modules is attached to this note.

The concerto is scored for a large orchestra: 28 staves as I recall, with voicing from many of the downloaded packages (see attached), and is about 30 minutes in length.

The first really major error I came across was Musescore not being able to render French Horns properly when exporting the score to an audio file. I wrote a support request for this, but there was no reply at all.

The second significant problem I am having is that now, when I open one of the scores associated with the Viola Concerto, not only has Musescore completely forgotten the voice/instrument assignments, but also has forgotten that any of the sound modules not starting with “Muse” exists. I can uninstall Musescore and then install it again, and voila!, the rest of the modules suddenly appear. BUT… the voice/instruments have still been forgotten! (Factory reset doesn’t work either: I’ve tried.) It’s beyond laborious trying to revoice all the instruments every time I wish to do some work on one of the concerto’s movements.

Clearly, Musescore is not ready for serious work, even though I will be the first to admit that the downloaded modules marry very well with the audio engine.

Can you offer any assistance?

Dr Michael Hill.