Update on Playback and Installation for MuseScore 4
Hi everyone,
In previous posts, I’ve briefly described the playback library Muse has been developing, which we intend to offer as a free external plugin for MuseScore 4. Although we are not quite ready to provide teaser examples of how this library will sound, I thought I’d quickly describe how we are designing the downloading and installation process. This process will not be in place for the upcoming alpha release but will be fully testable for beta.
The two challenges we faced were:
- How to reliably download and install the library, given that it is going to be around 7GB in size
- How to ensure that it ‘just works’ upon installation
We’ve gone through quite a few iterations on the ideal experience and have landed on the following.
On our download page, there will be two options: for those who want to install MuseScore without the external library, the experience will be unchanged. For those who do want the library, the link will first download a Hub application that can securely and quickly manage the download of both the library and MuseScore itself.
At this point you might be thinking: "Hold on, I thought you said this was going to be simple? You've added another installation step!" Well, yes. As a person who is generally not a fan of download managers and hub applications, I was also sceptical of this option at first but am now confident that it will provide the ideal experience. Read on!
The hub application will be very small in size and will download very quickly. Once opened, it will display two options (see the draft sketch below):
The user can now immediately install both options without any complications: no sign-in requirements or verification process. It's worth also mentioning that there will be no tracking systems or advertising either.
To handle the millions of downloads we are expecting, we are utilising P2P sharing to speed up download time and reducing server load. If you would prefer to switch off P2P sharing, we will provide clear controls to do so, although this may slow down your download speed significantly
Once the library is installed, MuseScore will automatically prompt you to activate it, like this.
The hub application is being designed to handle both library and MuseScore updates as well. Should the library be updated, it would only download the necessary files rather than the entire library all over again. And when a new release of MuseScore is available, updating it would take just a single click.
We’re really excited about the possibilities of the new playback engine and hope that, with the new hub app, we can streamline the end-to-end experience of installing MuseScore and our external library. In turn, we hope it will encourage many new composers to try out and enjoy working with MuseScore.
Please let us know your thoughts on this plan.
Best wishes,
The MuseScore team
Comments
For those of us that already use bit torrent, could you maybe just include a bit torrent link?
In reply to For those of us that already… by soperj
This would be way more appropriate than having a closed source application built only as a deb package, without any information about what distribution it is meant to be used on.
Will the source code of the hub application be opened?
In reply to Will the source code of the… by knoike
We're thinking most likely not. There are a few factors playing into our thinking. One of our primary reasons is security. There is a worry that exposing the company's network infrastructure could open a number of possibilities for hackers, ultimately causing harm to users. For example, we don't want to make it possible for malicious actors to release a modified version of the hub application that would download and install malware on users' computers.
Of course, this has no bearing on MuseScore, which will always remain free and open source. The only change we have made for MuseScore 4 is a license switch from GPL2 to GPL3.
In reply to We're thinking most likely… by Tantacrul
Somewhat related: regarding systems based on repositories (like many Linux distributions), how could the library, hub and MuseScore installations be coordinated by a repository? Or putting it in another way: will it be possible to install MuseScore and the library without the hub?
I'm far from being a specialist in Linux repositories, but perhaps if the hub was not mandatory repositories could handle the process through versions and dependency checks.
In reply to We're thinking most likely… by Tantacrul
To be honest, I don't think security concerns are a valid reason for not opening up the client application. If you plan to perform downloads via anything else than HTTPS - please don't. ;)
For P2P downloads there are other more or less established protocols too. Therefore, I see no reason for security concerns on your end. I do understand that it's a different story for the server side. Keeping your filesystem structure safe and not opening up about your server's security measures, seems legitimate to me. But for the client side, this really sounds like a Microsoft argument - a nice excuse for "inadvertently" forgetting to put in a "Disable telemetry about your app usage, behavior, family, friends and whole life" button . And I don't trust Muse Group in the slightest, I trust MuseScore. It's open source and everyone can see when it's being tampered with. I also trust you, making MuseScore awesome. But making the hub closed-source seems to be one of the worst decisions in MuseScore development history to me.
Best Regards
Adrian
In reply to To be honest, I don't think… by famecastle
Although I can't appeal to your levels of trust towards Muse group, what I can tell you is that I am involved in the development of this installer and I can assure you that are no telemetry features and no storage of IP addresses (or any other kind of personal information).
To gather personal data of any kind without explicitly stating it in a privacy policy would break the basic terms of GDPR and would invoke heavy fines. It is completely not in our interest to do that. I would also not work on products that violate the basic privacy of its users and neither would any of my team members.
It is also worth mentioning that the vast majority of outrage towards Muse (regarding privacy) last year were due to catastrophic misreadings of an Audacity privacy policy. Those misreadings were not facts. All we had to do was simply rewrite the privacy policy to be more coherent (and accurate) and made no corresponding technical changes to Audacity whatsoever.
Muse's mistakes last year were not having the right staff in place to create coherent privacy policies, not describing their plans to their communities and poor PR handling. They have since dedicated a lot of time and resources to ensure that we have the right people in place to never let these kinds of issues happen again.
I am personally quite forceful when it comes to issues related to privacy because 1. I can't stand clandestine, tricky data collection. 2. Muse scandals affect me personally, since I am the most recognisable figure leading MuseScore and Audacity and people tend to come to my door to express their displeasure.
Edit: ...and that displeasure can be harsh, believe me.
In reply to Although I can't appeal to… by Tantacrul
Thank you for your extensive answer! (It took me a while to notice).
Well, it's indeed more of a feeling that I had
against Muse rather than hard facts. You know, those feelings like "better don't go with the recommended privacy settings of a big corporation", "be skeptical if an open-source product comes with closed-source components" or "don't eat yellow snow". The second one, especially, got my alarm bells ringing. Together with the Audacity affair (indeed, I wasn't aware of the details and that it was just a misunderstanding) and some design decisions (like almost always placing a "big discount" countdown banner on musescore.com; don't know if I recall correctly but might it have even held a personalized countdown that suggested you'd be in hurry to get the discount?), I got quite bad feelings about the Muse group.
Now, you've clarified things and your arguments to counter my concerns sound very understandable. Knowing that, I have better feelings. And honestly, I wouldn't really have expected anything else from you as a MuseScore lead person. Though, I'm wondering about the actual technical reasons that would make open-sourcing the hub client impossible. But hearing that you don't intend to do anything shady here is already enough for me.
Thanks and don't make me come to your door ;)
Adrian
In reply to We're thinking most likely… by Tantacrul
so musescore 4 is already to download already and should iunistall musescore 3.62
In reply to so musescore 4 is already to… by user105952868
No, neither. it is not yet available for download( except for pre-alpha development builöds) and it it were it won't uninstall 3.x
Sounds as very sensible and is consistent with how other software provides access to "add-on" libraries.
And perhaps in the future you may even add extra libraries and allows a smaller footprint of the application when it is not required/desired to use it.
You really know how to "teas" people, can't wait to test/play with this! Nice work!
Would it be possible to offer individual instrument downloads without the need for a download manager? I only require nylon string guitar and there must be many users who also only require a single instrument. We might even be able to build up a more complete instrument library by adding other single instruments as needed.
In reply to Would it be possible to… by yonah_ag
We won't be able to provide that specific option, unfortunately. It is a good idea though, which I'll suggest to the team to see what we can do but it won't be a change we'll see for 4.0.
Apart from that, there may be guitar-specific libraries that one can download in future but that is likely a long way away. What I would suggest in the meantime would be to use a decent VST instrument instead, since MS4 will have basic VSTi support that we will be expanding on in updates of 4.x.
In reply to We won't be able to provide… by Tantacrul
Am I right in believing that the Muse Sounds libraries are based on the Staffpad playback instruments that were added to that app some time ago? I have purchased the guitar pack for Staffpad which sounds quite good, even with some special techniques like tremolo. Any chance that pack could be included into the MuseScore-system short-term as well? I'm really digging the All New (or was that New All?) MuseScore 4 so far, but the playback for classical guitar is still a major downgrade so far...
Sounds like a really good idea! It might be nice, as @yonah_ag said, to be able to download and import only some instruments and not the whole library.
Also, do you plan to go through Hub to install other add-ons than the library? We can think for example of plugins or styles of partitions.
Besides, wouldn't it be better to focus on the Musescore playback system, which obviously doesn't work (it goes very slowly and the sound is not that of the chosen instrument)? This was to be fixed in the alpha releases scheduled for January. It might be interesting to write a new Update, so that we can also follow the progress of Musescore 4.
I think we are all very excited for its release.
In reply to Sounds like a really good… by Bastien Vlc
The core playback events system is almost finished. Once merged, we will proceed to alpha.
A point on organisation: we do not all work on one thing. The team members working on playback and sound libraries are not the same people who are working on installation and onboarding.
This is great news! I can't wait to try it out. The implementation doesn't seem that complex.
Sounds promising in my ears. I'm looking forward to "playing around" with that.
Thank you.
Sounds great! But a crucial question is: will it remain possible for users and the community to create, edit and share their own instrument packs using MuseSampler?
I'm wondering what the plans are for vsti support are for musescore 4?
Would I reliably be able to replace my DAW in terms of effects, instruments, etc. Do you plan on including default EQ, Compression, etc?
Does it support CC automation and keyswitching, and can I program my keyswitches in libraries such as EQHW to different articulation options (the keyswitch for stacatto for instance, to match the stacatto icon visually) without it messing up the notation?
In reply to I'm wondering what the plans… by mnmwert
This first release of MuseScore 4 has put in place a new audio engine and playback events system to make things like automation, key switching and articulation mapping possible. However, for the first release, VSTi and VST effects support will be somewhat limited. There are no native compressors or reverb units yet but that's just a matter of time.
In reply to This first release has put… by Tantacrul
For myself—and many other composers—the most exciting feature of Staffpad is not its note entry system, but the peerless playback engine. Any chance that what's coming in MuseScore 4 is MuseScore notation + Staffpad audio rendering engine?
Greetings from India
I want to know if there are any new Instruments added in this Update?
I had been on the search to add some Indian Instruments like Tanpura But I cant Find Them
It Would Be nice If there are some Classical Indian Instruments added In this Update
:D
In reply to Greetings from India I want… by The Musical Knight
File a request in the issue tracker as a "Suggestion", along with infos about the instrument; what sound (closest from the GM set), clef, what range of notes (amateur and professional, is it transposing and how, what should the long and short name be
Will the orchestra addon be free? Also I cannot figure out how to change the instrument sound in the soundfont, I also cant figure out how to select a soundfont. Musescore 3.6.2 is so much easier to use, Musescore 4 seems overly complicated and its UI is not very nice looking compared to Musescore 3.6.2, Musescore 4's Ui is very flat and minimalist which to me is very ugly. Also why are the menu bar labels so tiny? I need a magnifying glass. I'm using a Laptop with a display resolution of 1920x1080. So far I'm not impressed at all. I think if I want to notate a song, I will stick with Musescore 3.6.2, Musescore 4 is a mess and it is unnecessarily overly complicated and its UI looks like the dog's breakfast.
In reply to Will the orchestra addon be… by dmusicman
MuseScore 4 doesn't exist yet, especially the playback system part of it is still being implemented. So no surprise you'd not find it in the UI...
In reply to Will the orchestra addon be… by dmusicman
Indeed, the playback system isn't done yet, so sit tight on that.
It's already been announced the additional sounds with be free, yes.
As for font sizes, unfortunately every system is different in terms of how it reports display resolution, especially in regard to high DPI displays. MsueScore 3 was notorious for often getting this wrong and displaying with tiny text or icon, or huge ones. MuseScore 4 does things differently, and often looks correct on systems where MuseScore 3 looked wrong, but unfortunately, the reverse is true as well. On any system where the display resolution is not communicated correctly, there are workarounds to get programs that rely on this info to behave correctly. So some of the same workarounds that many people needed on MsueScore 3 will apply to MsueScore 4 as well. On my Linux system, for instance, I need to set the environment variable QT_SCALE_FACTOR to a value that gets more score to display life-sized (same size on screen as the actual sheet of paper), and then all my text and icons are correct as well. On MuseScore 3, I needed a different workaround. On Windows, you might need to play with the high DPI settings in the Compatibility section of the Properties dialog on the EXE file. Again, every system is different, so unfortunately there is and never had been any one-size-fits-all solution.
As for flat versus artificially "3-D" looking icons, that's purely personal choice, but FWIW, the MuseScore 3 interface was produced by programmers, the MuseScore 4 by professional user interface designers. So those of us accustomed to old-school "WIndows Vista" types of looks definitely find newer-looking interfaces a bit odd at first, but we are also experienced enough to get used to it. And I think the vast majority of users don't share our quirky preference for old-school interfaces.
OIther than the look of the interface, though, really almost nothing has changed in terms of how you actually use it, as you will discover if once the alpha is ready and you can actually try out all the features. The only things that have changed appreciably are the playback controls - which are becoming simpler but also more powerful - and a few other things here and there like the Inspector, which is now far more powerful but also renamed Properties.
In reply to Indeed, the playback system… by Marc Sabatella
I'm sorry that I sounded grouchy, times are tense and I guess it gets to me sometimes. I do like the old school skeuomorphic look like Windows Vista, or Mac OS X Tiger.
In reply to I'm sorry that I sounded… by dmusicman
I hear you!
I really appreciate what the Musescore team have been doing and I have been following the updates on the official page quite closely. But I would like two things addressed. Firstly, when will Musescore 4 be released? I cannot wait to try out the beta. Secondly, much more subtle, I'm not a fan of the treble clef in the Leland font. It is mostly fine, but the shaded rounded part that hangs down from the main clef just seems too big for me. It looks as though the entire clef would rock side to side on the staff line from the weight of the enormous bob that it is suspending. Just have a look before the next font version comes out.
In reply to I really appreciate what the… by rikipondi2005
See https://musescore.org/en/node/330829 for a current update - as you will see, private alpha just came out last week, so it's still too soon to say when a beta or final release might happen.
Also, for info on what is being planned in lieu of NotePerformer, see https://musescore.org/en/node/324814
Are there any plans for support on NotePerformer?
Hi, I have a question: when MS4 is out and I have installed the Orchestral Libary, will it still be possible to use the sf2 and sf3 soundfonts that I like so much?
Thank you for your work on MS4,
Pentatonus
In reply to Hi, I have a question: when… by Pentatonus
Assuming sf2 is no longer supported directly, you could always use a VST software that plays sf2 like https://www.dskmusic.com/dsk-sf2/
or any other you can find. For sfz for instance there is forzando.
In reply to Hi, I have a question: when… by Pentatonus
The default soundfont will still be sf3 and the Fluid Synth is still included, so sf2 is supported as well.
Zerberus and direct SFZ support is dropped, but there are free VSTs available to handle that (such as Sforzando).
In reply to The default soundfont will… by jeetee
That's good, but haven't i read somewhere that VST is not supported under Linux (AppImage)?
In reply to That's good, but haven't i… by Pentatonus
For 4.0 that had to be temporarily disabled indeed due to complications in getting the effects UI working, but that work is expected to be completed soon after the initial 4.0 release. In any case, I don't recall any suggestion there wouldn't be sf2/sf3 support.
In reply to For 4.0 that had to be… by Marc Sabatella
Will AppImage musescore 4 work with Ubuntu 22.04 (libfuse3 problem)?
https://musescore.org/en/node/333052
One hour to download just the woodwinds pack in Muse Sounds. Is that how it was intended or did I do something wrong?
In reply to One hour to download just… by katrina999
If it takes that long to download, then it is worth the wait. The saxes sound great. Thank you for providing nice sounding saxes!!!!!!!!
In reply to One hour to download just… by katrina999
We don't control internet speed ;-)
Currently the whole of MuseSounds is around 15GB.
In reply to We don't control internet… by jeetee
It'd be nice though to have an indication about the size before the download
In reply to It'd be nice though to have… by Jojo-Schmitz
If you click on a sound library (for example "Strings") and not immediately on the "Get" button then a details popover shows. At the bottom of it, the file size is listed for that library.
Here's the sizes shown to me inside of Hub:
Strings - 5.08GB
Woodwinds - 4.49GB
Brass - 1.67GB
Percussion - 1.18GB
Choir - 601.25MB
Keys - 361.8MB
Harp - 96.95MB
In reply to If you click on a sound… by jeetee
Ah, thanks
Today, I installed MuseScore 4 through Muse Hub and then downloaded all the Muse Sound libraries (not realizing how big they would be, but that's ok). MuseScore has not asked me to activate any of these libraries so I don't have access them to them yet. The library files appear to be in reasonable locations:
C:\ProgramData\MuseHub\Downloads\Instruments
C:\Users\All Users\MuseHub\Downloads\Instruments
This is on Windows 11. I'm not sure why there would be two locations and I wonder if they are actually one and the same behind the scenes. There are two copies of the MuseScore 4 installer (a .msi file) is in parallel "Installers" directories.
(I should add that I had tried yesterday too, but couldn't download the libraries at all. This morning, I was not sure that I had installed MuseScore 4 from Muse Hub. So I uninstalled both MuseScore 4 and Muse Hub and started over.)
In reply to Today, I installed MuseScore… by stephencbryant
MuseScore won't ask you to activate the sounds - you need to ask MuseScore to use them. Go to View / Playback setup and activate them there. Or select individual sounds for individual instruments using View / Mixer.
In reply to MuseScore won't ask you to… by Marc Sabatella
Marc, I was probably reading old instructions. In Playback setup I see MuseScore Basic with a checkmark and "Active" but next to Muse Sounds there is nothing. I'll attach a snapshot.
In reply to Marc, I was probably reading… by stephencbryant
The left part is a list; click on MuseSounds first to select it; then you'll see its options on the right.
In reply to The left part is a list;… by jeetee
It took several iterations of uninstalling and reinstalling, but now I have it working.
In the end, I uninstalled MuseScore 4 and MuseHub, then deleted the MuseHub folders entirely (\ProgramData\Muse Hub...), then installed MuseHub, MuseScore 4 and then downloaded just Muse Key. In MuseScore View/Playback setup the Muse Sounds button was responsive and I was able to Activate.
In my earlier attempts, I think there may have been a server problem on the for a while: one day the icons for the sounds were blank. The next day, I was able to press the Get buttons and did them all, not realizing that the files were large and would take quite a few minutes to download. I wonder if that triggered some confusion. Today I downloaded only one and it worked. (I'm very happy with the sound, too.)
By the way, I was able to verify that the Muse Hub installer hasn't been changed since I first downloaded it. I don't have a copy of the first MuseScore 4 installer, but the version number looks familar so I think I've been using the same installer for that as well.
In reply to The left part is a list;… by jeetee
I see the same thing as @stephencbryant, and "MuseSounds" is not 'click-able'.
In reply to I see the same thing as … by Are Jayem
Take a look at my post, 6 minutes before yours. I uninstalled both programs and deleted the files that had already been downloaded, then reinstalled the programs and one of the Muse Sound files.
In reply to Take a look at my post, 6… by stephencbryant
Perhaps I'm asking/expecting too much from in-development items... I'm OK to just wait until things get ironed out. Your troubleshooting & persistence help others, though...
In reply to Perhaps I'm asking/expecting… by Are Jayem
I hardly ever try Beta versions but the MuseScore team is so strong that I went ahead. The new version is really exciting and MuseSounds is especially good.
I’m not quite ready to abandon MuseScore 3, but since both can be installed on the same machine, I’m really enjoying the upgraded features.
How did u get to the library I downloaded all the sounds and I can't find the library?
In reply to How did u get to the library… by Koryanders16
If you've downloaded the sounds and didn't move them to a non=standard location, they will be recognized automatically by MuseScore 4. You can also select sounds individually in the Mixer.
Dear MuseScore team:
I have been trying very hard to make MuseScore 4 work on my PC, but I have encountered an issue with bad sound quality when playing back. I have been seeking help in the forum discussions but the progress is slow. Below is a video briefly showing the sound quality when playing back a short melody on piano:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdrUTIX8Nec&t=44s&ab_channel=CharlesWang,
I have attached the mscz file used in the video.
Please help. Thanks.
Charles
3/28/2023
In reply to Dear MuseScore team: I have… by charles_hans
Can you try going to Preferences > I/O and then increasing the buffer size to 2048 or 4096 and see if that works?
Also, can you tell us what your computer specs are? This will help us figure out the issue.
Thanks!
In reply to Can you try going to… by Tantacrul
Thank you for your instructions. It did work! Below is a video I uploaded onto YouTube:
https://youtu.be/9SBkNxiI0SQ
The new issue is: some notes were played doubled. I don't know why.
The specs of my PC are as follows:
memory 16GB 64bit, processor 2.6GHz, Made by Lenovo in 2014 (all-in-one PC with a good speaker)
Win 10 Professional 2004 OS: 19041.208
In reply to Thank you for your… by charles_hans
Glad it's better... but I agree, that's still quite bad sounding - particularly given how little work MuseScore needs to do for just one instrument.
We are targeting a significant performance improvement for 4.1, which involves replacing the reverb packaged in MuseScore with a much better sounding & performant reverb. This will be used in an auxiliary channel, which will boost general performance by quite a lot. However, in your case, the issue seems very severe and I'm not sure why. I've sent it to some of the engineers on our team to get a better idea.
In reply to Glad it's better... but I… by Tantacrul
Thanks! Look forward to the new Musescore 4.1!
In reply to Thanks! Look forward to the… by charles_hans
Hi, Tantacrul:
Below is a video I put on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/6Mb1sLIiNLc
I found that when I just started my PC, the playback is the cleanest with the least residual sounds. The more I played it, the more residual sounds I heard. Don't know why.
Thanks.