MuseScore 4 - max of 92 notes per second?
Here's a bit of a weird question. Is it right that the playback speed in MuseScore 4 is capped to around 92 notes per second? And if so, why is this?
You can easily hear this if you insert some fast snare drums, such as below, and change the tempo. Playback doesn't change for me once it gets to (roughly) 92 notes per second.
Is this a deliberate decision? It breaks something I've been working on.
Comments
I don't know if this still holds true for MS4 and the new playback engine, but in MS3 the internal time tracking happened in MIDI ticks and assigned 480 ticks to a 1/4th note. You couldn't go below 1 tick.
In reply to I don't know if this still… by jeetee
Why would you want 92 notes per second? That would sound like a note pitched just above F#2. Anything sounded more frequently than about 20 per second has a pitch rather than a rhythm.
Take a look at this if you want to explore the topic further https://youtu.be/h3kqBX1j7f8
In reply to Why would you want 92 notes… by SteveBlower
Exactly. See this track. :) https://youtu.be/nH-4Nbvp7Io I know MuseScore wasn't meant for this, that's part of what makes it fun. I just found it curious that the technique doesn't work less well in MuseScore 4, but rather seems impossible to even try, because of some restriction.
In reply to I don't know if this still… by jeetee
A quarter note stays a quarter note when you increase the tempo, so that cannot account for the described behaviour.
Maybe they decided that capping it at twice as fast as that ever recorded by a human was sufficient? Remember the primary aim of MS was to create good printed music, sound second (but really catching up). Experimental music and black MIDI's were never planned in its development.
In reply to Maybe they decided that… by underquark
Experimental music shouldn't be supported, maybe, that's what makes it experimental. However, I wonder why there would be a restriction like this. Do you reckon the MuseScore developers would want to deliberately make this type of experimental music impossible?
I think perhaps they wanted the engine to stay stable, and found that it became unstable above this speed. I can say about MuseScore 3 that the engine is indeed very unstable, and you can hear this in parts of the track I shared above. In fact, while composing I often had to make different choices because my initial writings made the engine falter completely. However, I don't think that anyone not trying to be experimental will even attempt to play at these speeds, and if they do, I don't find that this result is less unintuitive than the alternative, which would be allowing any speeds and leaving it to the user to judge what the engine is capable of...
In reply to Experimental music shouldn't… by 607MuseScore
There is nothing deliberate about this. You're simply using a system in a matter it was not foreseen to be used. And at some point you run against the internal timing smallest resolution.
In reply to There is nothing deliberate… by jeetee
That's plausible! Thanks for your thoughts on the subject.