Musescore 4 and Musesounds bugs and suggestions for improvement
I have been using Musescore 4 and Musesounds for a couple of weeks now and I have to say I really enjoy it! The audio sounds about a bajillion times better than it did in Musescore 3, and I am quite thankful for that.
However there are some bugs and things that annoy me about it that if fixed or added could make this perfect in my opinion.
Musescore 4:
Dynamics:
- Dynamics are a bit inconsistent. The softer dynamics are too soft on some instruments. In general it feels like every instrument is slightly different in terms of how they interpret dynamics making large orchestral scores sound very... interesting.
Musesounds:
Flute:
- Very loud; for some reason flute blows out like every other woodwind, even in their low register
Clarinet:
- The note Ab3 has a weird click sound.
- The softs are way too quiet, making the clarinet hard to hear especially in big scores when the dynamic is mp or lower.
- The range recorded is not enough; I would record a couple of whole steps higher and then that should be enough.
- The starts of the notes are not super smooth all of the time
Harp:
- The note Bb1 has some scratching sound in the background.
- Some notes don't like to sound during playback; I'd assume this has to do with the round robins. Seems to happen mostly in the second octave
Instrument Range:
- Ranges in general are too small. Some instruments like the violin are very well recorded with almost their full range recorded while others like the contrabass and the Bb clarinet have some notes skimped out on at the top of their range.
I appreciate that this program and musesounds is free and that you guys at musescore have put a lot of time and effort into this. I appreciate the care for quality and amount of thought that went into musescore 4 and musesounds. It's astonishing what you guys have done and even if none of these issues get fixed, musescore and musesounds would still most definitely be the best free option out there and could even be considered better than the paid for options!
Comments
I find Muse Sounds flute and alto flute unusably bad, Luckily, it seems you can use the Mixer to use the default flute sounds, which are much better, even if other instruments in your score are from Muse Sounds.
In reply to I find Muse Sounds flute and… by jcorelis
...or our own VSTs which is great out of the box - was seriously considering paying for Dorico just for this option. That said, anyone figured out the issue I'm having where playback seems to occasionally ignore a dynamic assigned to a note for the first split second of it before adjusting to it correctly?
In reply to I find Muse Sounds flute and… by jcorelis
Strange, I find the flutes to be amazingly good, far better than MS Basic in virtually every conceivable way. But, different strokes for different folks!
In reply to Strange, I find the flutes… by Marc Sabatella
I agree, the flutes are better in musesounds in my opinion, i just think they may be a bit too loud. But other than that the vibrato and just general color is definitely better!
In reply to I agree, the flutes are… by joecool1588
To me they balance well with the strings, but I'd say the other winds are mostly too quiet. Nothing that isn't easily fixed in the mixer though. And there are definitely existing GitHub issues about balance issues, so I'm sure we'll see continued improvement there over time as more feedback is received.
In reply to To me they balance well with… by Marc Sabatella
Actually yeah, I agree with that. The more I think about it the more I realize that I think it’s just the other woodwinds being really quiet so I agree that that may just be the issue
In reply to To me they balance well with… by Marc Sabatella
"Nothing that isn't easily fixed in the mixer though."
Nonsense. Typical Marc Sabatella sycophantic response.
In reply to "Nothing that isn't easily… by gary23andrews
? I’m confused, we’re you having some sort of problem raising the level of the other woodwinds relative to the flute? If you attach your score and describe in more detail what went wrong when you tried, we can understand and assist better. But I tested it and works as expected for me - in fact I use mixer adjustments for this sort thing pretty regularly, just as I did in MU3, MU2, and MU1.
In reply to I find Muse Sounds flute and… by jcorelis
It may well be a matter of taste, or maybe of my sound system. Here are some examples. To me, the MS3 standard and alto flutes have a smooth, mellow sound which is what I want. The MS4 Muse Sounds seem to have a scratchy, echoish tone, especially the standard flute, which sounds almost screetchy.
In reply to It may well be a matter of… by jcorelis
Could be taste indeed, but also, this is but one simple isolated example - in this case, to me MU4 is only slightly better. Hearing more complex passages makes it more clear just how many orders of magnitude MU4 is. But it is true there is more reverb in MU4.
In general, if you'd like the Muse Sounds developers to address any problems you perceive, be sure to open issues - separate issues for separate problems - on GitHub. Be sure to attach a sample score and/or screen recording so they can see & hear what you are and reproduce the issue for themselves.
Do be sure to search GitHub issues first to be sure something isn't already reported, though. Limitations in ranges are already reported, as are a few noisy sampelrs in a few specific notes for a few specific isntruments.
I totally agree with the statement that clarinet is too quiet part.
I transcribe a song to Piano, Flute, and Clarinet. I have to crank the volume for the clarinet in the mixer to +5 db in order to sound "normal" (i.e. compare to what we've heard in real life).
To compare the result, here is what I've rendered with MU4 with 5db clarinet adjustment: https://musescore.com/redirect?to=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2FFv8UrIRvmJs
Whilst the clarinet sounds brokenly loud from the direct website score replay:
https://musescore.com/user/31519379/scores/9601807