We're pleased to announce that the alpha release for MuseScore Studio 4.6 is now available for testing. You can download it for:

• Windows (MSI installer)
• macOS (DMG)
• Linux (x86_64, ARM64)

Once the alpha is installed, it will show up on your machine as ‘MuseScore 4 Testing’. You can install it alongside your current version of MuseScore 4, but note that the two versions will share preferences and workspaces. Also, scores saved with 4.6 cannot be opened in older versions of MuseScore 4.

If you find any issues, please report them on GitHub. As always, please check first that the issue hasn’t already been raised, and ideally try to reproduce it in the latest nightly build before reporting.

What about beta?

For Windows and macOS users, we’ll be making the beta release available via MuseHub. This is to streamline the installation of new beta sampler and sound library builds. We expect this to be ready in about 2 weeks’ time.

Registration will be required for beta testing. If you’re interested, please sign up here.

Beta builds for Linux will continue to be distributed here on musescore.org.

What's new in this update?

Playback improvements

• Realtime playback now recognises velocity and key durations when using a MIDI keyboard. Sustain pedals should also be recognised. At alpha, this is supported for SoundFont & VST only (For MuseSounds, see more below).
• Count-in is back! Find it in the Playback toolbar > Playback settings.
• VST3 support for Linux has finally arrived. As with VST on macOS and Windows, we expect that certain VSTs might still not play nicely in MuseScore Studio. If you find any problems, please raise an issue in GitHub.

Engraving improvements

For more details on all of these features, see this article (still in draft state)

• New options for selectively hiding/showing empty staves, both in Properties and via an in-score popup when staves are hidden
• Style options for Chord symbols have been extensively reworked
• System markings, including measure numbers (!) can now be placed beneath the bottom stave of a system via the Layout panel
• Many new style options for Measure numbers
• Play count text can be exposed (via Properties) when selecting an end-repeat barline
• Text and coda symbols have new options to control alignment and symbol size
• Free choice of SMuFL fonts
• Free choice of font for tablature numbers
• Improvements to frame layout
• A new Handbells palette with symbols
• New rest alignment options
• Improvements to horizontal spacing
• New settings for tuplet layout
• New options for showing barlines before key and time signatures
• Lyric text: new options for dashes
• Partial slurs: new options to control the position of the ‘hanging’ end of a partial slur
• Volta alignment: new options for where the left hook starts
• New option for controlling minimum system header distance

Guitar features

• Fretboard diagram legend: When a score contains chord symbols, you can automatically add their corresponding fretboard diagrams to the top of the score via Add > Frame > Insert fretboard diagram legend
• Fretboard diagrams can now be automatically created from chord symbols
• “H” and “P” symbols can be added for hammer-ons/pull-offs, and new symbols for tapping have also been introduced (See Guitar palette, and corresponding options in Styles)
• Bends can now be drawn to grace notes after the main note (playback supported)

Workflow improvements

• The Selection filter now lets you select individual notes in chords
• A new text styles widget allows quick styling of highlighted text
• You can customise the number of drum pad columns in the Percussion panel
• Minor tweaks to the UX for Workspaces

Accessibility

• A new shortcut to Pause and select playback position (Alt+Space/Opt+Space)
• Improved screen reader support

Other

• A new welcome screen
• New Save to cloud button in Publish tab, and slight reorganisation of options there
• Slight reorganisation of File menu options

New MuseSounds features

Various features specifically for MuseSounds will be available for testing only when we reach beta. These will include:

• Playback support for guitar hammer-ons/pull-offs/tapping
• Playback support for handbell symbols
• Realtime improvements (key duration, velocity, pedal)
• Fix for the fade-in heard when commencing playback

In addition, our new online sounds integration with Cantai will also be ready for testing when we hit beta. Read the announcement to learn more.

We’ve updated Qt to version 6.9.1 in this release

This should resolve a substantial number of issues (See here). We’re especially keen to hear from testers who have previously encountered UI problems—please try this build and let us know if those issues are now fixed. Many of these problems couldn’t be reliably reproduced by our internal team and only appeared in specific environments or with certain hardware/software/driver combinations.

Known issues

Important!: Some palettes may need resetting to enable various new features (specifically when testing the Layout, Guitar, and Handbells palettes). To do this, click the three-dots menu icon for the palette in question, and choose Reset palette. We will fix this for release so that a manual reset is not required.

We are also aware of issues with uploading scores to musescore.com. At this stage, score uploads are likely to fail, or may upload incorrectly. Our backend team is working on this issue. To this end, it's recommended to test using locally saved scores only.

Links to various videos or handbook pages (e.g. in a popup or the new welcome screen) are placeholder for the time being.

As with any alpha release, be prepared for bugs big and small! While we’ve done a lot of work to get the release ready for testing, all other known issues have been logged in the 4.6 project on GitHub (you can also check out our roadmap to see which ones are being tackled in preparation for the beta release).

Thank you for your support! If you’re interested in learning more about what’s in store for future releases, check out Our near-term plans for MuseScore Studio.