Crash while attempting to add notes to a percussion stave with non-drumset sound patch
Reported version
3.0
Priority
P2 - Medium
Type
Functional
Frequency
Few
Severity
S2 - Critical
Reproducibility
Always
Status
active
Regression
No
Workaround
Yes
Project
Here is my situation. I don't know if this is reproducible.
Musescore 2.0.1, Windows 7
I am writing for a symphonic orchestra (3 flutes, 1 alto flute, 3 oboes, 1 English horn, 1 clarinet, 3 bassoons, 1 double bassoon, 5 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, 1 tuba, cymbals, concert bass drum, timpani, harp, string quartet and contrabass).
My problem is about percussions. Cymbals and timpani are all right. However, I wrote, copied and pasted the same pattern for the bass drum for 28 measures. Now, I can't write anything else for it, not even adding a silence, without making Musescore crash.
Any ideas?
Comments
Assuming you are not planning to fix it yourself...
Please post the score you are having problems work and precise step by step instructions to reproduce the problem. If the score was original imported from Siberia via Music XML, please post that Music XML fie too. There was a known bug that was fixed recently, so if the import happened before 2.0.1, that could explain it.
Ok, here it is. It is still unfinished.
The score was created under Musescore 2.0. I worked following more or less the following pattern: I started by writing a few measures of the violins, then added the cellos and contrabasses, then the brass instruments, then woodwinds, then percussions, but this order was not strictly followed all the time.
I suspect it may be some sort of a MIDI channel conflict with another instrument, but if this is so, I can't explain why the bug occurs after having written 28 measures of the same rhythmic pattern and not before.
I got the notification for 2.0.1 update and installed it. First time I opened the file in the updated version, it worked very smoothly, so I could write the three notes on measures 52-53. Then the bug reappeared. I tried deleting the concert bass drum and writing it again from scratch, but it didn't work. So, I guess that bug is reproducible by doing what I did: delete the instrument, add it again, write a measure of the pattern, copy/paste it for 28 measures at the place where it is, then try adding any notes or silences in the following measures. If it works then, the bug should appear at next startup.
First, can you explain why in the Mixer the Flutes e.g. have the Dulcimer "Sound", or Jazz Guitar, and Oboes have "Percussive Organ", Clarinett Bb "Accordion" and so on for all the instruments?
![mixer.jpg]( "mixer.jpg")
![drumset.jpg]( "drumset.jpg")
![drumset1.jpg]( "drumset1.jpg")
For the crash, it seems that it can be fixed by ticking "Drumset" for the bass drum.
Currently, you have:
After ticking, no crash, and you can write on this staff.
At least, it's my first ascertainment.
I do not know for the moment if there are other ramifications.
Yes, the problem does seem to be that the staff is no longer seen as being a drum staff, or more particularly, it has no drum set. The question is, how did this happen? Like I said, there was a known bug in MusicXML import from Sibelius specifically where this could happen, but if this score wasnt created that way, we need to understand better how the score got into this state.
Oh yes, I forgot to mention that all the instruments are mixed up because I'm using Sonatina. As it is not GM compatible, I had to reassign every instrument to the proper MIDI channel to get decent playback.
I unticked the Drumset box because it only gives a selection of sounds that belong to a rock drumset, whereas I want to have a concert bass drum sound. As far as I know, it is the only way to get it, but if I'm wrong, please tell me.
Indeed, Marc, I don't have Sibelius on my computer. I created the score from scratch (more precisely from the symphony orchestra template) and then customized the different instruments. I must admit that I didn't have all the instruments created from the beginning, and specifically the percussions which I added later. However, the concert bass drum is the only one that causes a crash. I have no problem whatsoever with the cymbals and timpani.
Ah, that's very good information. A GM soundfont would possibly provide alternate "drum sets" that use orchestral instruments, but Sonatina plays by its own rules, so you may indeed have had no choice but to make this staff not be a drum set. In in so doing, you inadvertently created the condition that has led to the crash. Not that unticking drum set is *supposed* to result in a crash. But at least we have a much better understanding of what is going on.
So here are steps to reproduce the problem from scratch:
1) create score for snare drum or any other unpitched percussion instrument
2) Mixer
3) untick Drumset
4) save
5) reload
At this point, the drumset information is gone, and it will be impossible to enter notes into the staff. You can re-tick the Drumset box and be able to enter note,s but now its the wrong drumset definition - it will be the generic drum kit, not the opne specific for snare drum.
I personally don't get a crash - not with your score or with my steps - but notes cannot be entered. Do you have precise steps to follow to make it crash? Could just be platform-dependent things, or the fact that I am running development build.
Yes, I also bumped into that impossibility to enter notes, but not being able to enter notes has never caused a crash for me. Most of the time, I noticed that an "Edit Drumset" box appears at the bottom of the screen, but it is not always so. When it does show up though, I only have to click once on the note displayed inside that box, then I can enter notes on the score.
However, I seriously doubt that it has anything to do with the crash since I got the exact same "issue" with cymbals, yet this staff works fine. Actually, I think it has more to do with the unticking of the Drumset box in the mixer, for the Concert Bass Drum I select in the mixer list is absent from the original Musescore instrument list (Edit Menu > Instruments). So, maybe this instrument is exclusive to Sonatina and makes a conflict with the Drumset input expected by Musescore. What I still don't understand, however, is why the crash happens quite late into the score and not since the very first measure.
Besides, Musescore plays that percussion very well until the pasted pattern stops (measure 44). After that, it does not play it any more, which corresponds to the moment from which entering notes to that staff will cause the crash. Actually, it is even more than that: you simply can't *touch* this staff any more. To simply click on a note on it will play that note in the speakers and a second later Musescore crashes.
Maybe I should simply try and find another soundfont, for Musescore even has trouble playing it at startup. Playback will always get slowed down very much, saturated with several notes played together with screeching sounds that echo for several seconds after I stop playback, which makes the whole thing quite unbearable. I have to go to the synthetizer, select the Fluid soundfont, play it for a few seconds, then select back Sonatina, and then it will accept to play it normally.
Well, the reason you didn't see problems at first is probably because the durm set was still present until you save and reload the score. Unticking the drum set box in the Mixer doens't get rid of drum set immediately, so editing is still possible until a reload. That the point where the "Edit drumset" box as well as the whole drum palette stops showing up for the staff.
Still wondering if you have precise step by instruction to reproduce a crash - I haven't been able to.
Also, as mentioned previously, unless you are planning to provide a fix, please leave the "Assigned" field set at Unassigned.
Ok, here is a step by step instruction to reproduce it:
1. Install Sonatina.
2. Start Musescore.
3. Open my score.
4. Open synthetizer, select Sonatina and save it inside the score.
5. Open mixer and reassign MIDI channels according to the score instruments. For percussions, no staff must have its Drumset box ticked, but the proper instrument selected instead in the dropdown list (cymbals, concert bass drum and timpani).
6. Try playback.
7. If it works (it should), try entering notes on the concert bass drum staff after measure 44, or simply try to click on a note of this staff.
8. If Musescore doesn't crash here, save the document, close Musescore, restart it and reopen my score.
9. At this point, clicking on a note of the concert bass drum staff or trying to enter a note on it should cause the crash.
(Sorry about the assignment thing, I'm not very familiar with the rules of this forum since it is my first post on it.)
Thanks! Although I guess I was hoping for more specifics on what you were trying to do that actually caused the crash in your original file - selecting which measure, press which buttons, enter which notes, etc. Because as I mentioned, while there is no drum palette and thus I can't enter notes, I can't make it crash either. So I'm trying to understand what *specifically* you are doing to try to enter notes. How you are you attempting to enter notes when there is no palette?
Right. Well, truth is- I didn't do anything in particular! Actually, I was left lost with a crash when I simply tried to enter a note the regular way or click on an existing note. Ok, let me give me some details about this.
First, I created the staff through Edit Menu > Instruments, selected a generic drum that seemed to fit, i.e. military drum, moved it to the correct place on the score, then moved on to the mixer. In the mixer, I unticked the "Drumset" box in order to be able to choose the proper sound, and selected the concert bass drum.
Back to the score, I clicked on the bar I wanted to write in, clicked on the "Note input" button, selected the sixteenth note, clicked on the note showed inside the "Edit Drumset" box that popped up at the bottom of the screen (a single note at the top of a five-line, regular staff portion with the letter A, if I remember well), and wrote one bar of the repetitive pattern I intended to create. I had no problem whatsoever in writing that bar. Then, I selected the whole bar by clicking once between the notes and made a Ctrl-C / Ctrl-V on each of the following bars until measure 44.
Once this done, I went on writing the other instruments (some of them were already written, such as a few brass ones). First crash I encountered was when I accidentally clicked on a note of the concert bass drum staff. I relaunched Musescore, reopened my score and tried entering a note on this staff, which led to another crash. I restarted Musescore once again and tried playback. I was actually really surprised to hear the concert bass drum play for many measures from the first one, then suddenly go mute at measure 27. It was still version 2.0.
Then I got the 2.0.1 update. First time I opened my score, I could see that the bug seemed to be gone, since I could write on the staff (the three quarter notes measure 52, along with the timapnis). I saved my work when I was finished. On the next day, I opened my score and wished to go on writing the concert bass drum. It crashed instantly. I could notice, though, that Musescore plays the whole pattern for the 28 first measures in 2.0.1, that is until the first pause after the pattern occurs. Then, it doesn't play what's written (the three quarter notes) and, as I said, crashes whenever I endeavour to *touch* that staff.
I hope this helps.
So, for you, the steps are the following:
1) load the score you attached originally
2) click first note of measure 16 in the "Tambour militaire" staff
Result: crashes immediately with no other steps whatsoever required?
For me, no crash. but it plays a low piano note (because I don't have Sonatina set up). But I'm guess I won't worry about that. The underlying problem is clearly that you have a drum set staff with no drum set defined. We need to either prevent that from happening, or deal with it better - even though it doesn't crash for me, I can't enter notes.
Yes, that's it. If it doesn't crash on the first time, it crashes when I restart Musescore.
If it is really so, having a drum set staff with no drum set defined, I don't know how to solve this issue. I need to have an undetermined-sound percussion, which produces a single-line, drum set staff, with the correct instrument.
My guess is to try and install another soundfont, GM compatible this time, but I'd like something at least better than Fluid. If you have any ideas...
Or, the thing is to write the score with Fluid and then go through a DAW and set a virtual orchestra. Once again, if you have any ideas about something at least decent, free and compatible with Musescore, I'll be glad to hear about it.
Try posting on the soundfont forum. Fluid is one of the very best free GM soundfonts there is; Timbres of Heaven is perhaps the only one that I think is better overall. There are others listed in the Handbook - https://musescore.org/en/node/36171. I've tried all the GM ones and think these are the two best by far, but tastes differ, and I know some prefer GeneralUser GS or Arachno for whatever reason.
BTW, regardless of which soundfont you use, do be sure to select the orchesteral drum kit rather than standard in the Mixer if you are looking for orchestral sounds. Not all soundfonts provide an orchestral kit, but Fluid at least does.
And note you can have multiple soundfonts laoded, so if you like the selectiona nd sounds provided by Sonatina, you can use that for the isntruments it provides, and Fluid or another GM kit (with orchestra kit for best results) to avoid this particular issue.
Really? I thought I'd understood Musescore doesn't support more than one soundfont at a time. Besides, I wouldn't know how to put a particular soundfont on a given instrument.
Thanks fo your advice anyway.
Multiple soundfonts are new for 2.0. Just load as many soundfonts as you like, and all the sounds from all the loaded soundfonts will be listed in the Mixer in one long list.
Awesome. Thanks.
I don't think the priority is "low", while many other issues are at least "medium". Because this crash happens EVERY time I try to input note in a percussion staff with "Drumset" disabled. Even if there is indeed a workaround: by inputing on an other "Drumset"-ticked percussion staff and copy and paste, I don't think this is the reason for this low priority because what if the score is intended to have only one percussion staff and that happens to be bugged? I don't think "adding another staff just to bypass this bug and deleting it when finished" or "first turn it back to 'Drumset', then back to non-'Drumset' when finished inputing" are intuitive to each user encountering the bug.
Here is a detailed instruction for reproducing:
1. Create a score with two percussion staves;
2. For one of them, disable "Drumset";
3. You cannot directly input note in the stave, probably because there's no percussion element you can choose from since the sound patch is non-drumset;
4. However, if you turn to the other stave and select one element in the element selector at the bottom (i.e. "Crash Cymbal 2" for Cymbal), then go back to the former stave and click, it crashes immediately.
first reported in 2015, that can't have been MuseScore 3.2 ;-)
Anatoly set it to low prior to MuseScore 3, the idea, back then at least, was for those prios to 'bubble up' with every release they remain unfixed.
Several releases past and still unfixed, has the issue earned a "High" priority? ;-)
Maybe, but seems we gave up on that 'bubble up' schema. And this here certainly is exiszting since MuseScore 2
But... is it just me or the issue has really been fixed?!
Nope, still crashes when clicking on a drumset staff with non-drumset sound patch after selecting a drumset element from another staff.