Drum staff in Musescore will not play on my Yamaha midi keyboard CP 300

• Dec 1, 2021 - 20:48

Hello, I’ve been working with musescore now for a few weeks and was able to successfully import several XML files into it created by Encore. I am happy with the program and I’m trying to learn as much about it as I can. I have been using the Encore music notation program for 30 years and I’m trying to wean myself off of it because of the new 64-bit technology that is now becoming prevalent. I am having an issue with one of the XML files that I imported into Musescore. The drum track or (staff) will not play on my Yamaha midi keyboard. The other instruments such as piano and strings sound just fine. It is only the drum staff. I have read the handbook many times but I am unable to solve this issue. The midi channel for the drum staff is set at 10. At first on import, the default was a one line drum staff and I changed it to five lines. I added some other drum sounds but none of them will play on my keyboard. I also created a new drum staff and copy and pasted part of the drum notes on it but the same problem existed. No drum sound from the keyboard. I even tried creating a brand new score and a brand new drum staff in it and I still cannot hear the drum sounds from my midi keyboard. The drum staff does however play through my iMac computer using the built-in sounds. I appreciate that, but I really would like to hear the arrangement played from my keyboard. When working in Encore, I had to set the MSB and LSB to 0 127 in order to get drum sounds, but I could not find any reference to that here in Musescore.

I was experimenting with the closed HH which would be 42 F#1 on my Yamaha keyboard, but the musescore edit drum set panel shows me that the closed HH is number 42 F# 2. I was thinking that this might be the problem and that I could somehow edit the information to change the closed HH to F# 1 instead of F#2. I honestly think I could be way off base here lol!

The second issue I’m having is when I start to play that same score from the very beginning, there is a delay before the midi keyboard sounds start to play from the keyboard. The first 3/4 of the measure does not play but the at last beat of that first measure I can hear the midi sounds all rushing to kick in and play. It’s a latency problem of some kind but I do not know how to fix this. This only happens when I am connected in midi to my keyboard. Everything works fine internally in the program. I have sent you the file that I am having a problem with.

Thank you so much for any guidance you can provide.

Rich

Attachment Size
PRELUDE_AND_FANTASY_SHORT.mscz 43.32 KB

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• Dec 1, 2021 - 22:15

Octave numbers are not completely standardized, so probably what you are calling F#1 is what MuseScore calls F#2 - the F# an octave and a half below middle C. But 42 is 42. So it sounds like MuseScore is sending the pitch you want. if you keyboard is not playing the sound you expect when pitch 42 is sent, that sounds like something to consult the documentation for your keyboard about. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding something. Can you explain which specific note in (a specific measure of a specific staff) you are having trouble hearing? As far as I can tell, your score uses standard GM pitch assignments and thus plays back fine with the internal synth and should also work with any GM-compatible synthesizer. Maybe your keyboard has both a GM and some other more customized mode, and you need to switch to the GM mode?

As for any delay in receiving and responding MIDI data, again, check the output latency setting in Edit / Preferences / I/O. Any additional delay would be something else to consult your keyboard documentation about.

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• Dec 2, 2021 - 00:38

Hello and thank you for your reply. Well, I did some interesting exploration of my keyboard and encountered an interesting scenario. While musicscore was playing my score, I could hear all the sounds except for the percussion staff just like before. Then I switched the keyboard off and turned it on again while the score was still playing. I then heard the drum sounds playing correctly! But this then presented another debacle. Although I could hear the piano part, the string sounds were now replaced by two other piano sounds! When the song repeated again from the beginning, the sounds reset themselves as they were in the beginning with the piano and string sounds working just fine but no drum sounds from the percussion staff. I can either have it one way or the other, but for some reason not both. Percussion with no strings or strings with no percussion. The musescore program is obviously sending the correct midi data but for some reason the keyboard which is supposed to be a very good one, it’s not interpreting the percussion staff midi data in the way that it should. I can try to look into the keyboard manual and I can contact Yamaha technical support and see if they know anything about this but they may tell me to go back to you lol! But we will see. As far as the latency problem, I tried different numerical settings in the setting window but nothing changed the fact that there was a delay.
I added an empty measure in the very beginning before the first full measure and that gave the program a chance to send the data before the first playable measure began, so I found a way to solve that problem! It’s a learning experience! If you have any other ideas please let me know. Meanwhile I will contact Yamaha tech-support as I mentioned previously. I have a feeling that it has something to do with the banks that the sounds are stored in. MSB versus LSB as I had mentioned in my earlier description.

Thank you,

Rich

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• Dec 7, 2021 - 22:44

Hi Marc,
I contacted the Yamaha support person (Robert), and he gave me some information regarding the Drum staff not playing from Musescore to my Yamaha MIDI keyboard CP300. I checked to see if my settings were correct as he directed and they were all as they should be. I tried all 16 MIDI ports in Musescore to see if that would do anything, but no luck there. I did notice that when I hovered my mouse arrow over the MIDI port icon that a small pop-up text appeared that said "MIDI port numb." I'm not sure why that means as I have never encountered that message before. Does this shed any light on the issue? Can you guide me any further? I have sent you a snapshot of the message.

Thank You,

Rich

Attachment Size
Midi Port Numb.png 194.87 KB

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