Can I Link a TAB Staff to a "Violin" Staff?

• Apr 12, 2015 - 00:32

Hello,
I've run into a problem a while ago where I was arranging a song with an electric guitar in it, but the guitar switched between regular strumming and muted strumming. I had solved this problem on my own with Musescore 1.3 by changing the instrument to a Violin (to give myself a 'tremolo' and 'pizzicato' feature). Then, I changed the sound in the Mixer back to guitar and the Pizz. was Muted Guitar. So, whenever I needed it to mute, I would tell it to play pizzicato. Now...
I'm rewriting this arrangement into Musescore 2.0 to see if I can make it /look better,/ if you will. I used my same solution to write in the mutes for the guitar in 2.0, as well. (I like to have my "Playback Score" and "Print-Out Score" one in the same, otherwise it gets hectic) Now, that Musescore has TABs available, I figured I would include those in the score as well. And here's where my problem resides...

Musescore will not let me link a "Guitar Tab" to a part that's technically a "Violin".

I've tried other ways to fit in the mutes for playback whilst keeping the instrument a guitar, with no luck.

So, I ask, is there any other instruments that might have the "Alt. Channels" if you will (i.e. Trumpet with it's mute or Strings with their tremolo) that also allow TABs to be linked? Or perhaps a different way to link TABs to a staff?

(If all else fails and there is no solution, my last resort will be to simply copy and paste the part onto an unlinked TAB staff...)

Thank you,
--Morgan Resendes


Comments

MuseScore 2.0 no longer requires the hack of using violin or trumpet staves just to change sounds. Instead, use the new Instrument element from the Text palette. This creates a new instrument that goes into effect at that point in the score, and you can change its sound using the Mixer (or by right clicking and Change Instrument, if it's something on the instrument list).

So if it's a guitar staff, just use that technique for the playback, and linked tab staff should still be possible.

The reason you can't create a tab staff for any instrument you want is that tab requires knowledge of the number of strings, their tunings, and number of frets. So even if violin tab were supported, you'd get tab that wouldn't work on guitar (four-stringed tab for an instrument tunes G-D-A-E)

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

At first I had already tried that method and it appeared that it did not work. However, I tried it again with your directions and it worked! (I must have made an oversight last time.)
Now, comes another possible problem I discovered with this solution:

It appears that each time I add an Instrument Change, it adds another instrument to the Mixer. That's good, so that I can adjust this new instrument to my pleasing; however, my guitar is /constantly/ switching between Muted and non-Muted... (See picture) (X's are Mutes)
If I were to continue this method, I would have well over 100 instruments in the Mixer...
Is there a way to keep the Instrument Change to a simple 'two instruments switching back and forth?'

Attachment Size
Guitar plays with mutes.png 69.69 KB

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