Playing different keyboards at the same time
In some bands, you may see the keyboardist playing one type of keyboard in the right hand and a different one in the left hand. The great Ray Manzarek, et al, did this. I am trying to indicate this in my score for just a couple of measures, then change back to piano. I thought I could put a change instrument on the treble clef of a piano grand staff to put a synth in the right hand, while still playing the piano in the bass clef. Apparently, Musescore doesn't allow this? At least, I can't get it to work. Since it is only for a couple measures, I didn't want to put a whole new synth staff in the score. Any help would be appreciated.
Comments
What is possible is to use a synth that has an extra channel you don't need for the section of music where you want the synth played so you will have a channel for the piano. Change your entire instrument to that synth. One I know with plenty of channels is the Effects synthesizer.
Set the first sound (Rain for the effects synthesizer) to the piano in the mixer and set the other sounds to the other synth sounds you need. In my example I set Soundtrack to Synth Bass 1 as the sound. When you need to use a synth channel use a mid staff sound change as described in https://musescore.org/en/handbook/mixer#mid-staff-change for the measures where the other instrument sounds. You will set the text to tell the musician that staff is for the "Synth" or whatever you want to call it. When the musician changes back to piano, set the text to "Piano" and the sound to Normal (or whatever the first sound is set to). I also changed the part name and instrument names of the instrument to Piano
In reply to What is possible is to use a… by mike320
Thanks so much. I will try it. Sounds complicated to set up but I will see what I can do.
By the way, I am trying to get a synth air sound (think of a fan on high or a very breathy AHHHH). I don't see that exact sound available. Right now I am using chorus, but it sounds too much like a human voice rather than air.
In reply to Thanks so much. I will try… by odelphi231
I'm not generally a good person to ask about soundfonts. Perhaps someone else will have an idea.
In reply to Thanks so much. I will try… by odelphi231
No more complicated than setting up the physical keyboards that way :-). It's a simple matter to have two synth instruments of one staff each rather than one instrument of two staves. Takes but a few seconds in Edit / Instruments, then add the bracket from the palette.
Regarding alternate sounds, for that you will need to do web searches to find soundfonts containing the exact sounds you want.