Some channels sounding louder than others

• Aug 20, 2022 - 17:10

Some of the channels sound louder than the rest, even though I have the same midi that I am using opened in a MIDI player. I have all volumes, including the channel volume and the per note volume same as the midi, but they sound very different.
Initially when doing, there was not any difference, and everything just sounded right, but now somehow channels with very similar volume settings sound way louder than the others.
What I assume (I AM STILL NOT SURE ABOUT THIS!) that this has happened after I had switched my Dynamic method to constant velocity and CC2 to CC11 since I was using a custom soundfont and wanted to use single note dynamics. But even though I have restored the setting to default, nothing seem to work.

Comments

• Aug 20, 2022 - 18:17

In order for us to understand and assist, we'd need you to attach your score and also say which soundfont(s) you are using and what settings you currently are using for dynamics in the synthesizer.

Note that MIDI doesn't contain any audio info, so it's completely normal that it will sound different from one program to another. Both might have trumpet sounds, but they'll almost certainly be very different trumpet sounds. One soundfont might have a louder trumpet than another, etc. Sounds like you're not entirely unaware of how MIDI works, but it's important to keep this in mind.

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• Aug 21, 2022 - 06:06

I can confirm that by repetitive trial and error that just as I switch from CC2 to CC11 to get the custom soundfont working with single note dynamics, one of the channels get quieter. And the channel that gets affected is random. For a while, piano channel got quieter, then just before attaching this file, the strings was affected. Sometimes nothing happens, but I don't really know what's going on.
(Also just load the soundfont from the file itself, haven't attached that separately.)

Attachment Size
4.mscz 11.38 KB

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• Aug 21, 2022 - 06:45

Sorry for disturbing again, but I now know how to reproduce this issue.
First open my .mscz file, go to View -> Synthesizer -> Load from Score
Till now everything will sound fine.
Now, change the Dynamics method to CC events only CC to use to CC11.
Everything still sounds fine,
but just as you touch any note, the whole channel gets quieter, and this happens on all the channels.

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• Aug 25, 2022 - 20:22

I have attached the soundfont, just in case you really need it.
And also if I revert back to default settings of using "Default (single-note dynamics and velocity)" and to "CC2", I don't have the problem.
But I need to use Constant velocity and CC11 for single note dynamics to work.
And I just tried it out. I can reproduce this as many times as I want.

Attachment Size
SEQ_D_MOUNT1.zip 1.82 MB

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• Aug 25, 2022 - 20:29

So, now can you give precise step by step instructions we can follow? Like:

1) load attached score
2) load attached soundfont
3) go to View / Synthesizer / Dynamics and set (whatever special settings are needed)
4) click measure (whatever measure the problem appears into)
5) press play

then describe exactly what you expect to happen and what happens instead

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• Aug 25, 2022 - 21:05

Ok. Here are the steps :

1) Load the attached 4.mscz file.
2) Extract and load the attached SEQ_D_MOUNT1.sf2 file.
3) Go to View / Synthesizer / Dynamics and then Press the Load from Score button.
4) Change the Dynamics method from "Default single-note dynamics and velocity" to "CC events only (constant velocity)".
5) Also change the CC to use from "CC2" to "CC11".
6) In the Advance Settings, change Switch all sounds to "To Non-Expressive".
7) Press Save to Score button.
7) Now do save the project. Close Musescore and restart it.
8) Again go to View / Synthesizer / Dynamics and press "Load from Score".

Now you can press play and hear the score (its incomplete btw) to get an idea about the volumes of each instrument.

After this stop the score.

Now press any note in any of the channels, in any measure. I would recommend you to do it in measure 1-4 since there are less instruments playing at that time, but it can be reproduce anywhere.

Just as you press the note with you cursor, the note will sound at a lower volume. Now play the score again and that particular instrument channel will become quieter than the rest.

You can press any note of any channel, and they will also become quieter.

Hope this will help you to understand my issue.

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• Aug 25, 2022 - 21:24

It does, thank you! But as far as I can tell, the problem is, those steps just don't make sense. You just told MuseScore to use CC events only, but then you also told it to use non-expressive sounds - these are sounds that only respond to velocity. Not sure how that would be expected to work? And then, many of the notes have a velocity offset applied, but since you're telling MuseScore to ignore velocity, those will likely be ineffectual. Also, your score lacks any dynamic markings, so the CC message sent when you click a note is likely remaining in effect. All of these are combining to produce kind of predictably unpredictable results.

Anyhow, MuseScore 3 will receive no further updates, and all this SND/CC business is changing for MuseScore 4, and also the whole save to score / load from score business is going away. So I encourage you to try this out in a currently nightly build to see if you encounter any similar issues with the new system, and report those to GitHub if so.

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• Aug 25, 2022 - 21:37

I actually followed a guide for single-note dynamics for an earlier issue on this forum only. Someone sent me this https://musescore.org/en/node/290616
And if you see I used the exact same steps. I also read some old forum posts and they said it worked and it did work.
And yeah my score lacks dynamic markings since I usually like working with velocity, since basically that's how I worked with my DAW.

Does this mean that if I switch to using USER velocity instead of Offsets, will the issue be solved or still remains?

And yeah I will be switching to Musescore 4 after publishing this score since I don't want to switch in between.

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• Aug 25, 2022 - 22:44

Interesting; I have no experience with using SND on other soundfonts, so the process seemed very strange to me. but still, you are deviating significantly from the process described in that article, bec ause in fact you're not using dynamics at all. The article doesn't say to avoid dynamics. On the contrary, it says if you follow those steps, things should work more or less the same as the default soundfont with SND. And the default soundfont definitely requires use of dynamics with SND - velocity, as mentioned, is meaningless in the SND world. Doesn't matter if you specify the velocity as offset or user - that just changes how the actual velocity is computed. but if velocity is ignored, then it won't matter. If you use SND with CC, you can't use velocity to control volume - you have to use dynamics.

So really, the main thing you need to do is add dynamics if you want this to work, as far as I can tell.

As for MuseScore 4, I said a bunch fo things are changing, but that doesn't mean it will necessarily work as expected. I highly recommend testing it - won't affect your MuseScore 3 installation at all - and giving feedback on how it goes. You might be one of the few people trying such complex configurations, so any problems that might be lurking will likely not be discovered or fixed if no one reports them.

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• Aug 26, 2022 - 00:21

When MuseScore is actually released, certainly. To be clear - there is no MuseScore 4 yet, just experimental builds available for testing. So, don’t even think about “switching” until it’s ready. I’m just suggesting you are a copy of your score and play around with that copy in one of those “nightly” test builds, and report problems you encounter. But still use MuseScore 3 for any real work.

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• Oct 19, 2022 - 10:18

Sorry for bringing this weird issue back from dead, but I am again facing the same issue again.
This time, I don't change any of the settings, just change CC2 to CC11, so that I can use SND.
So the weird issue of notes becoming quieter when touching them remains, which is annoying but I can work through it.
But now I am working on a different theme, with a different soundfont and this time except a few instruments, most of them get quieter by default. There is no way to work around this.

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• Oct 19, 2022 - 14:29

If you are changing the CC setting, you are not using defaults :-). And if you are seeing a need to change the CC settings in order to get SND to work, then I assume you are also using a non-default soundfont, since the default soudnfonts works correctly using all default settings. So you seem to have two major changes from the default settings - your soundfont selection and your CC setting. Everything should work if you simply revert those back to the default.

See my previous response in https://musescore.org/en/node/334475#comment-1139043. Whatever you are doing seems to be extremely unorthodox on top of merely using non-default soundfonts and non-default CC settings.

In any case, there won't be further 3.x releases, and everything about the synthesizer and management of soundfonts and single note dynamics has changed for MuseScore 4. I recommend testing with a nightly build and reporting your findings there. Then if there is still a problem, it can be investigated.

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• Oct 20, 2022 - 02:41

I need to use both the non-default soundfont and SND.
And this time, I am not changing any setting except just changing the CC from CC2 to CC11. Only that. It changing any other setting on top of changing CC doesn't do anything new. So only changing CC this time. No changing to any other setting.
Still if no future 3.x build is released, is there no workaround this?
And I am surprised that no one before me has ever tried to use custom soundfont and SND together and never faced this issue before.

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• Oct 20, 2022 - 04:29

Again, you most certainly are changing settings other than CC - you are changing the setting for which soundfont you are using. That's two big huge settings you are changing. We also don't know what exactly is going on in your current score, nor do we know the precise steps you are following that lead to the problem.

That's several different variables here. The workaround for the next few weeks until MuseScore 4 comes out is going to be, change the value of one or more of those variables. Since we don't have your soundfont, or your score, nor do we have the precise steps to reproduce the problem, it's not really possible for anyone to advise you better yet. Feel free to provide all the information necessary for others to reproduce the problem, and then someone who has expertise in the internals of that particular soundfont or the other variables maybe be able to assist.

But to be clear: yes, many people successfully use third party soundfonts with SND. Whatever is going wrong for you is due to the combination of the specific soundfont you are using, the specific CC setting you are using, the specific way your score is set up, and the specific steps you are following that trigger the issue.

For MuseScore 4, as mentioned, things work differently, so I encourage you to test that.

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