Editing a drumset seems to add the wrong instruments
I'm attempting to combine a snare drum and a tamtam on one percussion staff. If I add a tamtam staff, pick "edit drumset", and export a .drm file, I get this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <museScore version="3.02"> <Drum pitch="52"> <head>cross</head> <line>0</line> <voice>0</voice> <name>Chinese Cymbal</name> <stem>1</stem> <shortcut>A</shortcut> </Drum> </museScore>
I take this to mean that the tamtam is the drum with pitch 52.
However, if I add pitch 52 to an existing percussion staff (using the "edit drumset" UI), or if I edit a .drm file to include a <Drum pitch="52"> entry and then load that edited file into an existing staff, the resulting drum is not the tamtam. It sounds very different. In fact, if I do nothing but load the same file I exported from the tamtam staff, I do not get the tamtam in the resulting staff.
I assume this is a bug, but if not, how am I supposed to add a tamtam to another percussion staff? (I can't work around this by adding other instruments to the tamtam staff; when I tried to add a snare drum, that got mangled too.)
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| default_tamtam.drm | 254 bytes |
Comments
Are you using a soundfont that includes a tam-tam sound at pitch 52? Certainly the default soundfont doesn't do this; General MIDI defines that as chinese cymbal. Which is the closest it offers to a tam-tam or gong, but still, not very close at all.
In reply to Are you using a soundfont… by Marc Sabatella
I don't know what a tam-tam is supposed to sound like; I selected the "Tam-Tam" option from the list of instruments MuseScore offers. This results in a staff that is labeled Tam-Tam, but which, if you look in the drumset information, calls its sound "Chinese Cymbal". You can see in the exported XML file that the drum is named "Chinese Cymbal".
While obviously I'd prefer to have something with an accurate sound, I'm willing to take what there is. The problem here is that I cannot get the same sound that the Tam-Tam staff uses by adding that pitch to another percussion staff, or even by exporting the Tam-Tam staff directly and loading that file onto another staff. The reported pitch is the same, 52, but the sound played is a drum, not a cymbal of any type.
Am I correct in thinking that exporting drumset information from one staff, and then loading it into another staff, should result in the second staff playing the same sound as the first staff, whatever that sound may be? Because that isn't happening here.
In reply to I don't know what a tam-tam… by collapsinghrung
It's supposed to sound like a gong. As I said, General MIDI doesn't include such a sound, so standard soundfonts don't include it. That's why MuseScore substitutes Chinese Cymbal, which is the closest sound available, even though it isn't really particularly close.
For me, a note with MIDI pitch 52 plays as a cymbal on any staff I add it to, no matter how I add it. If you have a particular score where this isn't happening, you'd need to attach it so we can understand. It's possible that staff maybe has a different sound assigned to it in View / Mixer, and that's why you're getting a different sound. For example, in the Orchestral kit, MIDI pitch 52 is not a cymbal at all.
In reply to It's supposed to sound like… by Marc Sabatella
Ah, you're correct - the Tam-Tam staff is created using "Standard" sound assigned in the mixer, while the other staffs are created with "Orchestra Kit" assigned. (This was not something I did intentionally; I started a project with the default "Symphony Orchestra" instrument choice and then added instruments in the Edit Instruments UI.) I guess that explains that; thank you.