Temporarily Hiding Instruments
I am creating an SSAATTBB A'Cappella score and at the very beginning I only use SATB. Later on in the score I add the additional SATB parts. Is there a way to hide those unused staves/measures of the parts I don't use and then show them during the measure they come in? I tried "Hide empty staves" and it would've worked perfectly except there is one spot where I omit the bass section for a few measures and it deletes those empty measures as well.
Thanks,
Alex
Comments
Welcome Alex, possible workaround:
Enter a note, for example, of the second voice;
Make it invisible and mute.
Or right click the bass staff, Staff Properties, Never hide.
In reply to Or right click the bass by Marc Sabatella
I have a similar problem. I wanted to use two different sounds in the mixer for the bass line to a composition, picked in one place, fingered in another. Changing sounds midstream doesn't do it; all I get is "normal" and not the available options for the bass sound. (Perhaps a bug?) So I set up two whole staves for the bass, one with a picked sound, the other with a fingered sound. The playback is what I wanted to hear. But in the systems where the sound changes, I get the empty measures in the different lines. There's no "hide empty measures" style, just "hide empty staves," which won't work when both parts have notes in the same system. So how can I get the sound to change along one line, or how can I concatentate two parts in a system when both are partially full?
In reply to I have a similar problem. I by km2002
To get the sound to change on a single line, simply use the Instrument element from the Text palette, as document in the Handbook under "Mid-staff instrument change".
Hi, Marc. Missed the part where I wrote that the specified procedure isn't working, that the box says "normal" and does not give me the available instrument sound options. That was why I wrote "Perhaps a bug?"
In reply to Hi, Marc. Missed the part by km2002
No, I think you missed where I said to use the *Instrument* text - that's different from *Staff* text which is apparently what you are trying to use. With instrument text, there is no "normal" - you simply use the Change Instrument item in the right click menu to select any other instrument you like, as documented in the Handbook page I mentioned. You can also use the Mixer to change to any other sound in the current soundfonts.
If you are still having trouble, please post the specific score and precise steps to reproduce the problem, and we'll be able to help further.
Changing the instrument is not the intention. Changing the sound is. [[nodetitle:Mid-staff sound change (pizz., con sordino, etc.) ]] If you look at the mixer, you get options for fingered bass, picked bass, eight different ways to play a bass (including two synth bass sounds). If you look at the mid-staff sound change item in the handbook, you see an example changing strings to pizzicato. It specifies that you can use this for tremolo strings or muted trumpets; and I used this to change to a muted trumpet in another score I've been writing. But apparently, the only way to change the bass sound from picked to fingered and back again is to write two bass lines with different sounds attached via the mixer, then slam them together using Hide Empty Staves. Except that on pages 3, 5, and 7, where the sound shifts from picked to fingered and back and forth, I get two staves because the sound change appears in the middle of the line. Have a look.
In reply to Changing the instrument is by km2002
Instrument *is* sound as far as MsueScore is concered. Instrument change *is* how you change sounds, as I and that Handbook page have explained. The page you reference is *only* for the very specific instruments that have been preprogrammed to allow a very limited set of sound changes - trumpet (normal & mute), violin (normal, pizz, arco) and a small handful of others. For everything else, you really do need to use Instrument elements as I have said. In 1.3, it was necessary to use the complex and unsatisfactory workaround you suggested, but in 2.0 and later, it is no longer necessary - the Instrument element really does work. Just try it, you'll see. Simply add the Instrument text, then go to the mixer and and change the sound for the new channel you will see is added. It's that simple.
In reply to Changing the instrument is by km2002
Marc is right with "instrument" one line is enough.
see below :
The blue name is a staff text (recall the basic instrument)
Other names are simply "Instrument" renamed.
Every time we place "Instrument" on the staff the possibility to change the sound is added to the mixer.
In reply to Marc is right with by Miré
Sorry, I'm just not hearing it. I do see that I now have three instances of electric bass in the mixer. I don't hear the sound changing. It's all fingered. Check measures 1 and 37. There appears to be something to this that isn't either mentioned in the doco or as simple as you'd like me to believe.
In reply to Sorry, I'm just not hearing by km2002
When I load your score, I hear the bass clearly change sounds at measure 37 where the "fingered" text is. Maybe the difference in sounds is too subtle to notice - try changing it in the mixer to trombone :-). It's also possible that in things you tried while your experimenting with this, you somehow triggered a bug where the playback isn't correct until closing and reloading the score, so try that if you still don't hear the difference. But this really *does* work, I promise. I hear the change in your score, and if you either try a different sound or closing and reloading your score, you will too.
BTW, you didn't need to use the Instrument text in the first measure. If you want to start out with the Picked sound, you could have simply used the mixer to change it. You should only have needed to add the Instrument text at measure 37. Then you would have only two mixer entries instead of three. As it is, the first entry is for the original instrument but you never use it, instead creating a second instrument that begins at measure one.