MuseScore 4 no way to get rid of reverb

you're all but one

hi,

I've got the same problem and I'd really like a reverb slider of some sort.

Y.

edit : sorry I have no idea how bug reporting works, I just wanted to say this issue is relevant to more than one person.

two makes few

Hello, I also encounter this issue.

three is still few (only six makes many)

I have the same problem!!

I hear the reverb too, I think the playback engine does it. The engine should not force any effect on the sound. Either the playback engine should expose all effects it has to user control or VST3 effects should be used.

I have solved the problem! Mixer - "Master"- MuseFX- Reverb and put reverb to zero

Good luck!!

This workaround does not work. I can't find the option mentionned by Francesc Borrell.

BUT:
I can find the options after installing the MuseFX plugin for reverb.

HOWEVER:
It still does not work. First there is no way to put it at 0, its minimum is 1, and second it does not change the default reverb added by musescore.

Y.

You'd find it in Muse Hub

One user claims to have, no reason to raise doubts about this

Please read my full response, even after downloading the plugin, and following the instructions given by
Francesc Borrell, it still does not disable the reverb.

Why then does it for him?

Reason to raise doubt about it is that I tried his workaround and it does not work, there is still an amount of reverb added to the sound (albeit low, maybe the other user thought it worked by some placebo effect.)

"put reverb to zero"
But Zero is not even an option (as shown in the capture).

Thanks S., on est d'accord et on dit la même chose, j'ai juste un niveau d'anglais et des capacités d'expression écrite déplorables. By the way j'étais du même avis que toi dans le drame du tuba en Sib, et c'est d'ailleurs aujourd'hui partiellement résolu :)

Translation : I'm bad with english and I completely agree with Slacroix

I'd also say that the MS4 default reverb is stronger than the MS3 default one.

I've also oppened a new issue for transposition problems with the Bb sousaphone... It's a never ending story. :)

The existence of a dedicated VST3 reverb effect could mean that all Muse Sound instruments have a baked-in reverb, and MS Basic instruments too.

That would be quite a bad thing because it could or would disturb the use of other effects, and the use of Muse Sound tracks in a DAW too.

I installed Musescore 4 today and this jumped out as a pretty major issue for me. I'm hearing a LOT of reverb in the mix: much more than you'd add to most finished recordings, except as a special effect.

I haven't tried installing Muse FX yet, but I'd rather not. Having to install a large extra piece of software in order to switch off an unwanted feature is an unnecessary complication for users.

(Thanks very much for all the hard work on MS4! This issue aside, it seems like a really fantastic and thorough improvement on previous versions).

It takes 6 to be many :)

I can also reproduce this issue. Francesc's workaround is only applicable if musefx reverb has been enabled by the user, and this issue is present even if the user has enabled no effects.

I enclose Screen captures. Here the explanation. You have to go to Mixer- go to "Master key" and activate Reverb, closing to zero the panel. And.... solved!!

Still it doesn't make any sense. You still have to download the whole module, just to turn something off when it isn't supposed to be there. Say I'm not good solution finder on Google and found this site and read through this whole forum, how can I possibly know to turn it off?

Again as mentioned by "many" folks above, the effect is too strong to be default in playback.

As I already said in response to you, this "workaround" does actually not work. Period. It does not.
First, there is no "zero", even in your screen captures, the minimum is 1.
Second, even if I put it to the minimum, there is still a cathedralithic amount of reverb on my sound.

Proof in video (i can only capture one window at a time, so you wont see me puting the reverb to one, which is the minimum available.) : https://youtu.be/I_mfdQZTFw4

Hello everyone, I have the same issue. The workaround suggested by @Francesc Borrell was applied, unfortunately it's not working for me. I need to write several scores for 6 trombones. The result with this reverb is not listenable. I hope it will be fixed soon.

Proposition for making this a "critical" issue.

No, it doesn't crash nor causes corruptions.

Ok, but it sure causes corruption in my head when listening to my compositions. :)

The Mute button helps here ;-)

I'm not sure if it's a delay or reverb issue or both. And it's seems to be on many more instruments impacted than initially detected. When playing 2 times the same note, it's like 1 note with 2 times duration. Severity Major is ok, but for me the software is unusable. I have spent several hours to find a workaround without any success. I'm now stopping and waiting for a good solution to by pushed. What a frustration, this V4 should be really great.

Francesc, You are using MS Basic sounds, which do not have reverb. This issue pertains to Muse Sounds.
Edit: After rereading the original issue and trying it out again, I realize this statement is incorrect.

Adding my name into the list of ones impacted. Writing a score with tuba playing 8th notes at a decent tempo and it's just muddy due to the reverb. I've gone back to MS3 until this is fixed.

For muse sounds, the reverb may be baked into the samples. If they recorded the instruments in a space that has a lot of reverb, then removing the reverb may require rerecording every sample. Many orchestral VSTs are recorded this way, and usually it's studio VSTs that have no reverb.

I suspect the reverb for MS Basic is just an effect applied by musescore, though.

It was stated on Discord that in fact the ever is not baked in, and setting to control it will be considered in a future update.

Note there should be no reason to resort to going back to MU3 if there is too much reverb for your taste oon some given instrument in Muse Sounds - just set that instrument to use MS Basic instead

Have you all tried removing all articulations on a section to remove reverb? Importing scores from musescore 3, I found that some articulations were broken and was causing that single measure to have reverb throughout the entirety of the rest of the piece. Removing that measure/just the articulations fixed it.

@Trainzack, I don't think so. It's not a "natural" reverb, but combination reverb + delay making sound artificial. For trombone, when I play several times the same note, it's like one long note.

Marc: people have said upthread that it affects both MS Basic and Muse Sounds. I can confirm that too.

RE: Apprisco (suggesting that you turn off articulation). You can see in Yohann Faure's video that it happens when playing a single note with no articulation: https://youtu.be/I_mfdQZTFw4

Musescore 3 had a feature for changing the level of reverb, I'm surprised this wasn't carried forward to this edition.

Glad to see that issue Frequency finally officially made it to Many

If the much lauded Muse Sounds libraries don't allow diminishing of (in my opinion) the excessive default reverb then I'll not be using Muse Sounds, not until reverb control exists and is readily operated in MuseScore's mixer.

Far more useful to me would be reasonably dry sounds—with VST effects (such as Apple's Audio Units AUMatrixReverb) added via the mixer's Audio FX.

scorster

@Jojo-Schmitz you wrote:

> You'd find it in Muse Hub

But there's only Muse Sounds for me (Manjaro Linux). Do you still think the given solution is a valid workaround?

Muse Hub also has a couple other things besides Muse Sounds

Hello, I have installed BBC Symphonic Orchestra from Spitfire Audio (it's a free VST). Compatibility with Musescore 4 seems good. Really better, but I still have some reverb (even if it listenable for me now). I have also tried Halion Sonic 3 from Steinberg (I also have Cubase 12), but compatibility is still very bad. Application frozen after some few time. Perhaps a workaround for Mac/PC at least can be to install a good free VST.

It is a known limitation that the default reverb in MuseScore 4 is not currently controllable. For specific issues with other VST instruments, you would need to contact the manufacturers of those VST 's directly.

Thank you for starting this post. I’ve been digging to find a solution as well and it’s good to know others are having this issues.

Also I am new here and ask guidance to where I can find the frequency rules. I’ve looked but being new here am a little overwhelmed at the moment. 😂

@Marc Sabatella I'm speaking of VST just as a workaround for this reverb issue. Of course I'm not expecting for any support for VST.

@Marc Sabatella the issue is not that the reverb is not controllable but the reverb is so strong that the sounds are not usable. From a functional point of view it's not the same issue (Reverb could be not controllable but sounds could be OK). But fine for me for duplicate as I see the link "MuseScore 4 Muse Sounds not usuable?". I'm moving to the other issue. Thank you !

@Marc Sabatella , sorry I'm still not very familiar with this bug tracking tool :D , the link is not a bug. So I'm moving back the status to "Active". Please indicate the link to the reference bug, so we have evidence that this one is a duplicate.

Brandon,
1 reporter -> Once
2-5 reporters -> Few
6+ reporters -> Many

@slacroix , I'm fully OK, let's keep this bug open. I couldn't find any real duplicate until now. @Marc Sabatella if you have identified a duplicate, please share the reference with us. It should be unproductive to have 2 similar discussions in parallel.

> Muse Hub also has a couple other things besides Muse Sounds

Does it? How do I make it show it @Jojo-Schmitz? I know it is not directly part of this bug report (and for me, it is not as severe as for others), but I wonder where to get the FX from you mentioned a couple of times now.

@bmhm I confirm on my side : there is nothing more in Muse Hub than what you are showing. :) Nevertheless, it's possible to add a lot of sounds thanks to this new capability of using VSTi in Musescore. This is a really great improvement. It's still not working perfectly well, but it's a fantastic promise for the future. Thank you to the product team to allow that ! After setting up the VST paths in the preferences, it is really working better. And no reverb issue. Still working on it, but for me it's a good workaround, waiting for the reverb issue on muse score to be fixed.

Yeah, don't get me wrong here. MS4 is SUCH A GREAT software! I just was not able to follow Joachim's suggestion and wanted to make sure this still(?) qualifies as a workaround even if it is not available on all platforms? It seems he is a windows-only dev, though. And I do understand that he needs to clean up a lot of those issues, and he is doing a great work here, too.

Thank you.

I’m still having trouble actually finding those rules. I appreciate the info.

Regarding reverb - "not usable" is entirely subjective, of course. The professional musicians and audio engineers who designed it felt this is the appropriate amount of reverb for most cases, but of course, some people have special requirements for less than the amount the average person might want. So hopefully someday the control will be added. Meanwhile, though, calling is "not usable" doesn't really help move the conversation forward.

Here is one of the several GitHub issues where Muse Sounds reverb discussion is taking place: https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/issues/14107. Ypu'll see the issue is closed but also marked as to do in 4.x, which is how the internal team is managing the limitations of the GitHub issue tracker (closing issues is the only reasonable way on that system to move them "out of the way").

Here is a corresponding issue for MS Basic: https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/issues/15054

Regarding Muse Hub - I think those screenshots must be from Linux, in which indeed Muse Sounds is all that is currently available. On Windows, there is definitely more, and I assume for Mac as well. But if you are missing the effects and other things that should be seen on those systems, please use the Muse Hub issue tracker at https://musescore.zendesk.com

Hello @Marc Sabatella , thank you for your reply.

I feel the conversation going to a bad direction. Let's stay humble, let's stay rigorous, let's have no bias with other users. This is the only good way to be in a continuous improvement mindset.

I don't say "Reverb is not usable", I say trombone sound is not usable. When a reverb is so strong that several notes seem to be one note, it's unusable and it's objective. Actually, I'm not speaking of competencies or experience of those who have prepared the sound, I'm just speaking of my user experience. And user experience is just what we should focus on to create more value and improve continuously the product. When I say it is "not usable", it is a fact, it is objective. It is definitively useful as it is reflecting my own experience as a user.

Else I'm not sure to follow you, @Marc Sabatella : Links you are providing are in github, not in Musescore. If it's not in the same tool, it's not possible to say it's a duplicate. Let's keep it as active if there is no real duplicate there.

Regarding Muse Hub, I have nothing more for Muse Sounds and I'm under WIndows 11. I have also Samples but it is not the same, because samples have a fixed BPM. Perhaps I missed something ?

I don't see a problem with the direction of the conversation, we're just clarifying technical issues.

I would still disagree with the statement "trombone sound is not usable". I use it all the time, and so do many thousands of others. Again, it might happen to not subjectively fit your personal needs, but it clearly does for others, and in the opinions of the professional musicians and audio engineers who designed the system, the amount of reverb is appropriate by default. So, let's focus on what might be involved in providing overrides to these defaukt rather than making negative judgemental statements like something is "not usable". Suggestions for lowering the default are also fair game of course. But it's possible to do so without making statements that dismiss the expertise of the people who created these sounds.

As for the links - yes, thy are on GutHub. That is where all formal issue tracking is taking place now. This musescore.org issue tacker is more for trisage - to get clariy on issues and make sure they are valid, reproducible, and not duplicates. Once an issue has cleared those hurdles - which often takes a lot of exchange - then a simply summary of the issue can be posted to GitHub so the developers can begin investigating, without all the noise of the discussions it sometimes takes to get to the point of a clear issue report.

So, the point of closing issues as duplicates here is so it's less overwhelming for those of use attempting to perform this sort of triage. Once an issue is on GitHub, it just clutters up the system here. So please do not change the setting here again. The issue is a duplicate, so if there is important information that needs to be added, please do so on GitHub.

If it's not new information about the issue itself but just general discussion, this issue tracker is not the place for that - the forum is. Again, we want to keep this issue tracker uncluttered as a triage station, with the only things "open" here being, issues that are either not triaged yet, or that have been confirmed as issues but not yet reported on GitHub, Those are the issues that still require action, so those are the only one that should appear when one lists open issues.

If I play 4 time a C, I'm not hearing 4 C four times but one C one 4 times long. Do you need a MP3 ? Is it subjective ? No, it isn't. It is fact. Is this making the sound objectively unusable ? Yes it is. I have 6 Trombone voices, the rhythm and the notes I can hear are not the good ones. And when you put the 6 trombones together the result is not something I can objectively use. "Not usable" is not a judgement, it's a fact and it is objective. I say the conversation is going to a bad direction, because I see bias coming in. It's why I have recommend to all stay humble and to have an open mind. I'm not dismissing anyone, I just speak of my user experience.

Sometime we have to choose our battles. I stop for this one. You think I'm not respectful with professional musicians and audio engineers. I believe I'm respectful with them, because I'm not speaking of them, but only of my experience. I think you are not respectful with me, and thought me with all users. I see you as an arrogant person. Certainly I'm wrong and you are a fantastic guy. But this is my feeling and I'm frank with you. It's important to help people to grow rather than belittling them. I promise, this is my last post on the forum and you will not hear from me again.

By the way, thank you for the explanation on GitHub.

Marc

I am sorry you are seeing my attempts to be objective as being arrogant or not respectiful. That is not my intent at all. I am simply trying to point out that different people have different tastes, different expectations, different priorities. Everyone might hear the lessened attack on repeated notes, but not everyone would agree this makes the whole thing unusable. I agree with your statement about being humble - it's great advice, and it should help us all in framing statements about our own subjective feelings about specific issues.

So, a statement like "reverb makes attacks on repeated notes harder to hear" is objective and good to point out. Subjective statements about how we feel that this particular issue renders the entire instrument unusable - my friendly is advice, if/when you do add information to the GitHub issues, refrain from that sort of thing, as it doesn't move the technical discussion forward in a productive way.

I reported the same issue today having just started using MS4. I arrange for Brass Bands and, frankly, the reverb makes playback impossible to distinguish. So, for now, I am reverting to MNS3.6.2 which is absolutely fine

I can confirm that when I opened a large percussion ensemble piece, all I heard was sludge, especially at anything below mezzo-forte. The sound may work for solo marimba, but in an ensemble with multiple parts, the reverb and corresponding lack of clarity makes it hard to work.

That is exactly the issue I’m having right now. There’s no clarity to the parts.

As an arranger, I use the playback in order to control if I have overlooked a mistake in my scores. For this I need a pretty dry sound.
With that amount of reverb and delay I hear in Musescore4 I am not able to control my scores by ear, as I can in Musescore 3.
Since I am using Linux, I only have the options avaible bmhm was showing.
So I am hoping to have this issue resolved fast, so I can start using this promising new release. For now I am staying with version 3, because I have scores to be written...

Did you try switching the sound to MS Basic? It's drier overall than Muse Sounds.

Hi Marc, that works for me. I just haven't found out where to load the better sound font. until then midi sounds much better on MS3.6.

You select sounds in the mixer. MS Basic is essentially the same as the previous MuseScore_General. So, much less realistic than Muse Sounds, but drier.

Tantacrul's comments on https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/issues/14107#issuecomment-136411… make sense -- he is describing a way to have aux sends so you can load a reverb (or two, or three) and choose how much to send of each instrument.

Now, saying that the amount and type of reverb was decided by "professional musicians and audio engineers" seems like the wrong way to think about this, though: different music requires different types and amount of reverb... For Gregorian Chant, it's almost like, the longer the better... For chamber orchestra music, that's not at all the case.

It seems to me like the reverb was set to work correctly for big orchestral works (large room, fairly long and fairly prominent reverb).

This is definitely preventing me from getting the sound that I was so looking forward to with MuseSounds, though, and I hope it gets fixed soon.

And while I agree that AUX is the right way to go about this (so it can be set per instrument), having a single reverb volume knob would be simple way to make this much more flexible.

Thanks,

Z

Also a problem for me. I need dry acoustic to check dense orchestral writing. I hope we can find a solution. Thank you. M4 is very good otherwise. Thank you.

Another vote for dry default Muse Hub samples. I was looking forward to using them but will be sticking with the MS Basic ones for now to avoid all that default reverb.

(deleted)

+1 The additional reverb for the brass instruments without a way to lower or disable breaks potential realism. I've seen this all over works featuring Muse Brass instruments.

For this exact problem I return to Musescore 3. Don't get me wrong; there is phenomenal improvements in Musescore 4, its just that the inability to remove or modify the default reverb is a deal breaker for me.

not listenable ... indeed.

Jojo-Schmidt, you are really something, aren't you? Reading this whole thread drives to insanity, especially for how the way you treat us as users. Second, for the bizar lack of turning off this horrible bathroom sound. I'm with basic sounds or MS3 until this is solved.

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=ad+hominem+definition&atb=v204-1&ia=de…

It’s not clear to me what you are blaming Jojo for, but to clear - every single person here on this thread is a fellow user. We are all users just doing our best to help each other out. And yes, how we treat each other - those asking for assistance, and those offering it - matters. So let’s all please try to respectful of each other here.

To be clear - relaying the information the developers have reported elsewhere (GitHub, Discord, in person discussions) - yes, it is known that even the relatively small amount of reverb applied by default is more than some users would prefer, and that ideally there should be controls to disable it or adjust the amount of it. That’s being worked on for a future update. So, simply be patient - there is nothing to be gained by insulting fellow users here.

@msberends: you don't mean me, do you? If You do, please at least spell my name correctly.

On behalf of the MuseScore community, thank you, especially to Marc Sabatella & Jojo-Schmitz.

I have never posted on the Musescore forum before.

I've used Musescore 3 for the past six months, heavily, and enjoyed it. Creating midi files for my band to hear the parts is critical. LIstening back with clarity to the parts as I write them is critical.

Opening my files in Musescore 4 and listening to playback, even with all sounds turned to basic, immediately put me off the new product and I'm back to Musescore 3.

This is clearly not an uncommon reaction. If the developers are taking this as seriously as they ought to be, it isn't coming across in this thread which is probably why people are getting frustrated. We might be worrying too much about what 'critical' means in the developer community, compared to what an average user would say is 'critical' to whether they can use the product.

Other people have explained why we all feel it's critical. There are lots of basic and important reasons, many of which are fundamental to a music-making process where audio feedback is critical, why you wouldn't impose a post-production effect on every digital sound made by the programme. Whether that effect was reverb or delay or anything else. Because of the nature of this product all your users are musicians who find 'what the music sounds like' to be extremely important, both for how well they can apply their musical ear to it and for how they feel about the final product. Reverb is a strong aesthetic choice to impose, and makes using my amateur-but-enthusiastic musical ear feel harder.

Reading this thread from start to finish, what I feel is:
- the people who seem to be representing the developer community sound defensive about the issue and reluctant to believe it is a big problem - "even this relatively small amount of reverb..." etc
- a sense that if there is a claimed workaround then that's the end of the issue, without any proper process for testing that workaround
- a missed opportunity to reassure users - by categorising as 'few' etc without any other comment about whether it's being listened to. Imagine how many are googling the issue trying to fix it and only reading the thread without logging in, and going away without any workable solution or reassurance from developers.

Maybe this is simply an effect of using open source software and its not fair to expect customer service more like a corporate product. I get it - I'm using this thing for free! I hope it goes without saying that we're all excited and grateful that the work is happening on 4.

Anyway, like so many others, back to work in Musescore 3...

I'm still very excited for all the hard work and progress shown in MS4, and sooo happy that the crashing of the initial release has improved a lot with the more recent release. Thanks!!

Well, It's March now, and it looks like there's still no resolution to the removing the default reverb / delay.

After enjoying the generic excitement in MS4 of exporting MP3s of my orchestral arrangement "sounding good", now I'm moving to production phase in Ableton Live and I need dry sound. I was really hoping to use the much better sounding orchestral instrument samples in Musescore 4. I need to unify the reverb sound with other external sound tracks and DAW midi instruments.

Since the reverb problem is a blocker for my needs, the only other advantages of MS4 is the engraving. Human-like playback in MS4 is okay, but could be better. One work-around for me is to go back to Finale, which has better human-like midi timing (and a variety of subtle variation settings for this kind of "anti-quanitization" and organic velocities). In particular, the Musescore grand piano playing (timing, midi velocity) is way too robotic, so no matter what I'll need to mix in something else for that track, and I don't have the time to hand-play and correct 60 pages of piano score.

@Jojo-Schmitz , if you feel inclined to reset the workaround flag to true, I don't know what that means, other than many people can use the software and aren't bothered by the reverb, or they just need the engraving features. In truth there is no workaround to get a dry mix of instrument (no reverb/delay) in MS4. Instead, it would make more sense to adjust the severity if this is only impacting a small group of "many" users.

This issue is closed as a duplicated, and in fact this issue tracker has been retired, so comments here aren’t won’t actually make a difference, nor will settings made here. Issues are currently being tracked on GitHub, and this is already identified as an extremely high priority issue there.

MS4 is great.... 2 problems working with itand 2 solutions that helps me: 1- Solve the reverberation; 2- Find out where there is an error in the score
1- Reverberation: AsI already indicated in another letter that includes screenshots, simply open the mixer and in the right box search "Reververation". A button will appear that indicates the default reverberation level, and you have to put it to a minimum.
2-Sometimes we open a complex score, with many instruments, and "error" appears. In MuseScore3 there is the option that the program will tell you which compass and line have errors, but in MS4 there is only the possibility of canceling or ignoring. Solution: "Ignor", open your score and keep it in XML. Then open it in MS3. He will tell you that there is error, but you can find out what measures and lines this error is.
Thanks for your effort!!

A new reverb facility with ability to disable it will be coming in a future update, probably 4.1 although nothing has been officially announced about the schedule.

The missing button to show the locations of corruptions will be returning much sooner - in 4.0.2, due out any day now.

Hi Francesc, thanks for taking the time to re-explain your prior post. I had already read that, and as several other people already pointed out, that doesn't work. I tried exactly what you suggested, and it does nothing.

I'm wondering if part of the disconnect is a different platform. I'm on a Mac. It may be that the app has a different behavior on different platforms.

Anyway, the simple reproduction steps I made were to create a new single staff score, set the instrument to English Horn, and throw some notes on the score. As I click on the notes in the UI (without doing anything to change reverb) I will hear that the notes are very dry (no reverb). Then when I playback the score there is a generous reverb.

Finally, for me (and several others saying the same), downloading the special FX from Muse Hub, applying reverb to Master, lowering to minimum setting does nothing to remove that generous reverb sound. I even tried changing the reverb setting from the default room to a voice booth (which should be the most quiet on the minimum setting). No reverb reduction.

In all cases, the English Horn reverbs for quite a while on playback and I see that in the mixer master meter as the echos persist after each note.

For me, there is no workaround to remove this reverb. I hope that helps explain what I'm seeing, which seems the same as everyone else but you, and has been a confusing journey in this thread.

Cheers!

Marc! That's such exciting news! I know the engineers and enthusiasts directly involved with this project are working hard.

This app is such a game-changer, and I'm so glad that the company owners have found a monetization model tied to consumption rather than creation. Brilliant! Especially when so many talented musical virtuosi live financially modest lives. This is like desktop publishing leveling the playing field for books and magazines back in the 1990s.

And now we know we are going to stop hearing the echos of frustration in this thread (sorry, couldn't resist a dad joke).

Best,
-Mike

Francesc, just for fun, I am sharing here the reverbs of "My Frustration" (it's the name of a nonsense score that I threw together). I've included the Musescore 4 file and 2 MP3 files (default and reverb added).

I'd love to hear if you can export an MP3 and remove the reverb. As I listen more closely to mine, I find that adding the Reverb effect with a minimum setting seems to add a little more reverb than without any reverb effect. Note that adding the reverb effect to master preselects "StaffPad Hall" as the room acoustics, which I assume is what you used when you tested your workaround.

Sounds fun! I checked out your pieces and there is a slight difference with the reverb amounts. I've tried your workaround on my own score and unfortunately, the overly distant brass problem is still present. The issue is that I find the excessive reverb problem affects the brass (Trumpets, trombones, specifically) and these instruments aren't in your score given. Reverb with the winds and other instruments are tolerable for now in my opinion. Others will say otherwise.

If apply the compressor effect on a trumpet, set at "Squasher" on the default setting (Default "Pop Vocals" is fine), you'll hear the instrument as if it was closer but with a ton of excessive reverb.

I'm writing a short packed orchestral piece (~15 seconds) featuring at least 17 brass players. The brass and some of the percussion instruments are so hard to hear despite all of them playing "FF"! It is for a work around tutorial video I'm working on.

Thanks for the feedback Karol. I agree the Tuba I tossed in at the bottom of "My Frustration" doesn't really reveal the especially generous reverb of the mid-range and high brass instruments you mentioned. Looking forward to your example.

Musescore 4 will play any soundfont that you used in Musescore 3. All you have to do is either copy the soundfonts into the MU4 soundfont folder, or simply add the MU3 soundfont folder to the soundfont path in MU4.

If you prefer MU3, as many do, you can skip the amplifier all together and connect MU3 to your DAW for the sound. That allows you to use any VST that your DAW will support including LV2, VST2, and VST3. However, you will not be able to use Muse-sounds because they are the proprietary property of Muse-Group and will only work with MU4.

If you are running Linux and want the MuseFX plugins, you must download them using a Windows or Mac computer. After they have been downloaded you can copy them to your Linux system. You will need to use a bridge such as Yabridge. The MuseFX will work fine in everything EXCEPT Musescore4. The Linux version of MU4 will not allow you to use any VST plugins.

If you are using Linux, there are several How-To articles that explain how to use VST plugins and instruments with MU3.

Thanks Jim, I love the technical detail.

My interest is in getting access to the really nice-sounding instruments in MS4.

MS3 Sound Fonts are too synthetic for my needs, so Ableton Live and Finale will work better than MS3 sound-wise. My particular use case is for backing tracks for a musical concert with a choir and small instrument ensemble. Typically using music production software (like Ableton, ProTools, Cubase, etc) is the appropriate solution, but (excluding the reverb problem) MS4 was really looking like a promising shortcut from score to backing track.

For now I'm exporting the musicXML files between Finale and MS4 to take advantage of various strengths and exporting midi to Ableton Live for the final mix. Finale has really nice humanistic timing and velocities on midi export (with a very difficult UI for notation and some bad engraving bugs). I've found some great, free audio plugins from Spitfire that will work well enough for several of the orchestral instruments, an Ample Sound free guitar plugin, and the rest using stock instruments from Ableton Live Suite. I may still have to export single instrument audio tracks from MS4 for some things that I can't find comparable sounds.

Still a work in progress.

Cheers!

Have you tried the free BBC Discovery Orchestra from Spitfire? I am having good results using that with MU3 and Reaper. I imagine it will work with Ableton also. In fact, it will work in MU4 if you are on a Mac or Windows OS. The only draw back is that you may need to do some keyswitching to take full advantage of the articulations. You can set up keyswitches in MU4 by using a separate staff.

Spitfire's Epic Strings and Epic Brass and Woodwinds are also useful. Those two are not free but the are only $29 each, so affordable as that sort of thing goes. They are ensemble patches but I find them very useful. I layer them with individual instruments from the BBC library when I want a specific instrument sound. Some of the LABS from Spitfire are also quite useful.

One last thought, be sure you check that you are using the most recent updates to Muse-sounds. They have made quite a few improvements and the most recent updates have corrected the worst of the reverb problems.

Jim, Yes! We're on the same page with your Spitfire recommendations.

BBC Discovery is a great rescue from overly synthetic strings (lacking definition in the free version, but better than a lot of other options). I haven't tried the Epic Strings, thanks for reminding me to look more closely at that. I think I'll get the Originals bundle of all four. I'm also already using LABS Cello Moods for slower solos.

I have updated to the latest MS4 (4.0.1) app and sounds. Everything I've shared so far has been that latest version, which in my opinion sound nice for a quick performance hall proof of concept, but I'm hearing alot of reverb (as demonstrated in the MP3 I shared above).

Looking for the bug/stability fixes 4.0.2 since MS4 is crashing a lot.

Remember that the Originals are all section samples, not individual instruments. I use the Originals for quick mockups and sketches but for final production I either layer them with individual instruments from the BBC instruments or orchestrate them using the BBC instruments.

Ahh, Jim. You must have BBC SO Core or Pro. From the videos I've watched, those do sound fabulous. Sounds like you've got a great configuration.

Although both BBC SO Discover and Originals are both sections, there does seem to be more clarity and some extra subtlety in Originals. I think it's that Originals has samples from multiple mics, and of course, not free.

I only have BBC Discovery, Originals-Epic Strings, Originals-Brass and Woodwinds, and Originals-Drumline. I primarily use MU3 and connect it to Reaper via Jack. That allows me to quickly sketch a piece using the Originals without having to worry with the orchestration. I just have one grand staff for woodwinds. one for brass, and another for strings. Using Reaper allows me a lot of flexibility. I can layer different sounds on the same track, even combine soundfonts and VSTi on the same part to get a certain sound.

After I have a sketch that I like, I expode the parts into a full score and orchestrate them. After everything is complete, I open the file using MU4 and create the pdf files. I like the way MU4 formats the score but I have given up on MU4 for playback. Even though some of the muse-sounds are quite good, MU4 is simply too limited in features.

Just DLd MS 4 and have the same reverb issue. Do not like the reverb!

EDIT: Apologies, I don't know what the regression tag means, so perhaps someone could fix that. I would call this a temporary work around, however.

Hello all. Been loving the new musescore but also have encountered this reverb issue. A temporary workaround for me is to have the mixer open and drag it to the bottom of the screen so it's out of the way. When the mixer is open, I don't get the massive reverb and playback works properly. I should say that I am using MS Basic, not MuseSounds, but the reverb issue was very present for MS Basic for me as well.

If I don't have the mixer open, the reverb can actually mess up the timing and lead to weird notes as it struggles to add reverb at higher tempos with fast notes (this could also be my older set up). I also get it any time I select a note, initial note then long reverb tail that almost leads to something like distortion. This makes playback at faster tempos impossible.

So try having the mixer open everyone, and just drag it to the bottom of the screen to it snaps there. Reverb problem gone. Much love to the reverb team and I really like the new UI and other improvements.

Having the mixer open or not should not affect playback in any way whatsoever. Sounds like some sort of installation or configuration issue might be going on with your system. Best to ask for help on the Support forum, attach your score, and give precise steps to reproduce the problem. Then we can understand and assist better.

Opening the mixer window and attaching to the bottom never worked for me, considering I've always used the mixer that way both with MS Basic and Muse Sounds.

Duaneclapdrix, I just updated MS4 to 4.0.2. It seems the situation has changed for MuseSound cases but strangely there is still no way to get rid off reverb when all instruments are set to old MS Basic with no Effect. This is very audible with a trumpet playing short notes, or when just stopping the playback.
=> please try the attached GlennMiller_SolidAsAStonewallJackson_SlacroixLaDiese_MSBasic4all.mscz, start the playback and stop it while the trumpets are playing something. The sound dies slowly with a typical big room reverb

On the other hand, if all instruments are set to MuseSound then stopping the playback does a clean and straight stop without a reverb
=> please try the other file GlennMiller_SolidAsAStonewallJackson_SlacroixLaDiese.mscz to compare.
note : it might be due to this actually : https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/issues/12973

Now, MuseSound sounds usually much better, but the playback fails to play some notes perhaps because of some articulation or interpretations, so we sometimes have to switch back to MSBasic for reliability (to get all the notes in a chord). Some instruments like brass seem to have a high amount of reverb too. This is the current tradeoff between nice sound and getting the notes, which Music is about.

So at the end of the day, I believe :
a) the new Muse Sound of some instruments are still pretty wet with a rather high amount of reverb, perhaps because they were recorded with a natural reverb at the very source, so there will be no way to get a pure dry sound. If this is the cause, then it is a weird choice as it is easy to add a nice artificial reverb to something dry, but pretty impossible to remove it from something wet (no such thing like a dryer like for your hairs)
We usually enjoy these new sounds very well for classical music (my band also plays classical)

b) for a weird reason, playback still provides a reverb with MS Basic instruments. I recall MuseScore 3 was providing a reverb with a default fair amount, but that we could adjust to pure dry (I seem to recall the knob was orange, at the very left of the virtual DSP). Yes, a default reverb sounds usually better for many cases, and I understand there is a default non zero amount, but we do need a control to ajust its level appropriately depending on the style of music, and eventually just switch it off so a fast swing does not sound like being in a cathedral.
=> I insist it used to be possible with MuseScore 3.

Point a) will probably take a very long time to improve, because MuseSound is very challenging with interpretation. I may require to update the sound library. I'd be glad to know if it is already possible.

However point b) should still be considered as a regression, because it was possible to get a simple dry sound with MS3, but there is still no work around for that, unless I missed something new in 4.0.2
=> So I am setting the work around flag back to false. I someone thinks I am wrong, then please try my _MSBasic4all file and explain how we can work it around.

I checked your files which exploit the reverb problem very well, especially with genres such as Jazz.
The devs are already aware with the reverb issue and are working on a fix in the future.

Here are earlier comments from developer Marc on this same thread:

https://musescore.org/en/node/338522#comment-1175412
"...yes, it is known that even the relatively small amount of reverb applied by default is more than some users would prefer, and that ideally there should be controls to disable it or adjust the amount of it. That’s being worked on for a future update. So, simply be patient"

https://musescore.org/en/node/338522#comment-1157096
"Note there should be no reason to resort to going back to MU3 if there is too much reverb for your taste oon some given instrument in Muse Sounds - just set that instrument to use MS Basic instead"

I just DLed MS4 and also encountered the reverb issue. I am abandoning the app. Please let me know when it is fixed.

I am only posting this here as I'm not sure or able to open a new issue. Every time I click on "Add Issue" it takes me to the list of my posted issues. I cannot add anything new. @Jojo-Schmitz @Marc Sabatella

How do I add new issues now?

This issue tracker has been retired. If you have something you think might be a bug, please ask on the Support forum and include your score and steps to reproduce the problem. Then if others can confirm it is a bug and is reproducible and not already reported on GitHub, you can open the issue there.

Thank you @Marc Sabatella

Automatically closed -- issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.