Is MuseScore 4 still . . . not good?

• Feb 10, 2024 - 19:49

Hi all--

I downloaded MuseScore 4 with great excitement when it was released. However, I found it difficult to adjust to and felt that it negatively impacted my writing process. So, I (like many others I believe) reverted back to MuseScore 3. Despite receiving numerous "update available" prompts, I chose to stick with MuseScore 3 and continued as usual.

I gave MuseScore 4 another try about six months ago, hoping for improvements. Unfortunately, I was disappointed to find that its state hadn't improved (in my opinion) despite bug fixes etc.

I'd like to ask those who have been using MuseScore 4 and tracking its changes what they think about its current state and whether or not it's worth the switch. I've been hesitant to try it again myself due to the frustration of going through the process and the concern about potential file-related issues with the logistics (i'm not the most tech savvy, fear data loss/file corruption and so on)

I would greatly appreciate hearing your thoughts and experiences on MuseScore 4. Thank you in advance.

-Basquiat1981

P.S. I want to clarify that my title isn't intended to be disrespectful. I have immense respect for the dedication and effort put into developing a free notation software like MuseScore, which I use daily and find incredible. I just wanted to express my honest frustration with what seems like a missed opportunity with MuseScore 4. I'd love to be proven wrong and to see continued improvements!


Comments

It seems to me that people need to use the software that works for them. That goes for any software. I use notation software for composition only. And for playback. I doubt that anyone would want to play anything I write.
I have Sibelius 7.5.1. The UI and how it interacts with a score, and the number of ways it manipulates a score, are far superior to MuseScore. There are far more sounds and variations. The sounds are good, but a little dull. It’s an old program, and someday it won’t work on a future version of Windows. So, I started using Musescore. 2.5. All the way to 3.6.2. Since I’ve been on the Forum, I read about people using MU3 in ways that I never would have dreamed of. And they’ve based their workflow around these things and do many things very quickly. Many of these things have, in my opinion, nothing to do with the purpose of notation software. That doesn’t make them wrong, by any means.
I started re-working Sibelius files into MU3 files. There always seemed to be something missing. No matter what fonts I used, playback was always a little dull. That’s fine, I guess. Or maybe not.
When MU4 beta came out, I downloaded it and Muse sounds. I loaded a score originally from Sibelius and had been modified in MU3. I hit play. As a result, I deleted MU3. I have no use for it. Period.
There is a plethora of features that MU3 has that MU4 does not. Most I did not use, or don’t miss. The first main complaint seems to be that things are missing. As a result, MU4 is a regression. Released too soon. A mistake full of bugs. The second main complaint is that MU4 won’t run on their computer. After all, MU3 ran perfectly. Having used Sibelius, I knew where to look to start making the proper adjustments. It works fine on all my computers.
Is MU4 perfect? Of course not. No software is. MU3 isn’t perfect, either. Nor is Sibelius. They are three different programs. There are things that each can do that the others can’t. If MU3 works for you, then there may not be much reason to even try MU4. It just depends.
But then, my needs are simple. I want good playback. Is MU4 perfect? No. But a darn site better than MU3.

I haven't had issues with corruption or file loss with MuseScore 4. The only bugs I've experienced recently are a few minor playback issues (such as glissandos not playing on tied notes) and, at worst, a couple of VST plugins that instantly crash it.

The most annoying thing to me is the fact that dynamic markings don't do anything to the notes' velocity when using soundfonts or VSTs (all they do is change the volume). Updating old scores to MS4 basically requires you to change all the dynamics, whether you're using Muse Sounds or not, if you want it to sound right.

I agree that it was... kind of terrible when initially released. 4.0.0 was a mess. But now, while it's not perfect, it's completely usable. I still use MS3 if there's ever a score that wouldn't benefit from MS4's features (accel/rit, multi-measure repeats, several other things, and of course Muse Sounds and VSTs).

"I have immense respect for the dedication and effort put into developing a free notation software like MuseScore, which I use daily and find incredible."
Same. Yet, it is what it is.

MuseScore3 was a solid, reliable and flexible music notation software that matched if not surpassed every expectation I could have. MuseScore4 has been a triumphant parade of annoyances, UX unequivocal bad decisions, an interface that tries to look cool at the expense of being cumbersome to navigate and use, keyboard shortcuts that disappeared or were radically changed because of no apparent reason, crashes that come on an arbitrary basis, file recoveries that make you wonder what recovery is actually taking place and why, inability to open its own files from the desktop environment, etc., etc., etc..

But today marked the apex of my frustration with this version, as upon having decided that I had had enough of it I was going to migrate back to the previous one, I realized that not only files saved with MuseScore4 cannot be opened by MuseScore3, but nor can musicXML exported by MuseScore4 without a rainfall of incompatibility messages, rendering issues, formatting issues, font issues, the works. This until you realize that you're locked in version 4, doomed to forever regret the decision when you decided to "upgrade".

MuseScore4 is on version 4.4.1, yet issues are a daily thing and the only features which are actually worthwhile in this version are the ones that were there from the previous one.

Granted the guys in development are working hard to provide the community with a free notation software, yet their answer seems to often be along the lines of "yeah, no, our software runs fine, it's your system, you see", "can't help you there, your settings your problem", "never ran into that, nor do I think it's an issue worth looking into", "no, that's not a issue, you gotta change your approach". Honestly, at this point I wonder whether it wouldn't be better to take the hit and go for a paid application, because this is becoming aggravating on a daily basis.

MuseScore3 was gold, MuseScore4 (to my great sadness) is a cockup with a cherry on top.

In reply to by Jose Brites Music

Jose,
It is interesting to me that because MU4 doesn't do what you want, that it is "bad". MU3 does almost nothing that I want. That doesn't make it a bad program. Just one I have no use for. It isn't on my main computer. I have it on an old computer because sometimes people post something I might be interested in. Though not very likely.
Sometimes, it IS "your system" or settings. Things I learned about long ago trying to use Sibelius some 14 years ago. And, sorry, MU4 does run fine on my system. No crashes. No corruptions. No studders.
Absolutely no reason for you to stop using MU3. Or not move on to paid software. We all do what we must.

In reply to by bobjp

Bob,
it is interesting to me that your shoulder-shrugging reply illustrates to a T my argumentation.
The software isn't bad because "it doesn't do what I want", it is bad because it takes its own previously established characteristics user-experience-wise - which will have contributed greatly to why users chose it over others - and it decides that its evolution is just following a different set of rules. I see that as a quite considerable disregard for the user community, crystalized perfectly in your "don't really care, do what you must" type of answer.
And sorry, I don't have computers lying around for the sake of if one day I will ever, by curiosity, need to check something up.

In reply to by Jose Brites Music

Jose,
I don't think either of us knows why users have chosen Musescore over other other software. But if I had to guess, it is not because of what it can or can not do. It is because it is free. You talk about MuseScore turning its back on the community. But what about the part of the community that saw MU3 as not usable. Those people that did not like playback in MU3, for example. Is it OK for MuseScore to disregard them?
You choose to mis-interpret my answers. That's on you. You want me to care why you don't like MU4. While you don't care that I do like it. Otherwise you wouldn't have said "crystalized perfectly in your "don't really care, do what you must" type of answer." Which is inaccurate, by the way.
I have my opinion, and you have yours. Probably should leave it at that. You could have one of my old computers if you want. I only mention it because you felt the need to end with that statement for some reason.

In reply to by Baquiat1981

Baquiat1981,
It's not just about ram. It's all the specs together. And MU4 is getting better about running on lower power machines. But they have to be setup properly. I have a usb audio device that I used to hook up to my older machines to help them with MU4 playback. Now, playback is the same without the device. Not perfect, but usable if I needed it.

In reply to by bobjp

Bob,
in all honesty, all your talk is just deflection. There's not much mis-interpreting your answers because they're never really answering anything nor pointing in any tangible direction. It's hard to tell exactly what it is that you hope to achieve, but I'll guess it's just part of you doing what you must. So yes, I'll leave it at that.
¯_(ツ)_/¯

In reply to by Jose Brites Music

Jose,
I'm sorry English doesn't seem to be your main language.
I don't have to answer to you for anything. You stated your case. Good for you.
I stated mine. You don't have to accept it. just like I don't have to accept yours. It isn't about achieving anything. It isn't about winning or losing.
In all honesty you are deflecting also. You don't understand my answers. Sorry.
Truth. MU4 runs fine in my system. It does what I want. You can't change that. I am truly sorry You have problems with it. There is nothing I can do about that.
BTW, xml is not the only way to open MU4 flies in MU3. A better way is to unzip a mscz file with 7-zip. That leaves you with a mszx file. This opens much better in earlier versions.
But since you're done I guess you won't see it.

In reply to by bobjp

@bobjp I just want to say that I do not use MuseScore 3 because it's free. I use it because it fits my needs very nice. I can afford myself buying other musical software (for instance, I bought BitWig DAW, primary for being able to MIDI record my playing on digital piano for purpose of composing).
I had big expectations for MuseScore 4. Naively, I expected that it will be better than MuseScore 3 and that it will be better for everyone. So I was somewhat disappointed when I concluded that it's not better for me, at least not enough to start to use it seriously. I do not write for orchestra (but for piano) and that is certainly a big factor in the story. But perhaps one day I will learn enough of orchestration to try.
I am following MuseScore 4 development carefully and still hope that one day I will switch to the latest version of MuseScore. In the meanwhile, I'm playing also with Dorico SE. Some things are more flexible in Dorico. For instance, I love the playback mode of Dorico where you can control playback of notes quite independenty of notation and that is a great way to fine-tune the performance. Imagine this, you real-time record yourself playing something on digital piano, then you quantize it and the result of quantize only changes (simplifies) the rhythm in the score, but all the performance details like arpeggios or even small tempo changes are still here/unchanged and visible in the piano-roll together with what is annotated so they can be easy compared (start/end of each note as played vs as annotated). Of course, I do not love everything in Dorico. For instance, in Dorico you do not have the feature of hiding elements like in MuseScore. This is no-no for Dorico. I love the concept of hiding because it's a single tool with which you can do so much. It's quick and easy to learn it and then you can use it for many things. Also the UX for entering notes in Dorico using mouse is kind of confusing. Now I understand it very good, but at first it was non-intuitive, especially compared to MuseScore.

In reply to by hstanekovic

hstanekovic,
Of course, each of us has to use the software that suits our needs. I own Sibelius. Almost everything about it works better than MuseScore. There is far more control over everything. But someday my copy will not work on some future version of Windows. So I looked into MU3. I had a particular composition that I had started in Sibelius. In MU3, playback of this piece was pretty unexceptional. But I kept at it. I write for what I have available to me. That means that if something I write isn't working with the sounds I have, then I re-write it. Much like writing for real musicians. Suppose the real orchestra I was writing for didn't have a trombone player. Then I wouldn't write a trombone part. The thing about software is that we tend to write whatever we want and expect to be able to manipulate the software and bend it to our will. I think it is more of a challenge to write something that sounds good (to me at least) without too much manipulation. Anyway, back to the orchestra piece. I wrote it in Sibelius. Then worked on it in MU3. This is a piece that starts out soft and slowly builds to an almost explosive final section. Then MU4 came along with early Muse sounds. So I tried my piece. This was the power and punch I was looking for all along. Perfect? No. But worlds apart from the anything else. I will put up with things that MU4 can't do (that I wish it did) As long as I can have what I hear now. I don't write complicated music. And I write as a hobby. Though sometimes for video work. Most real composers would find my work laughable. I don't care.

In reply to by bobjp

I do arrangements for musicians who write their own music And what allot of composers might find laughable a lot actually won't. So don't under estimate what you write. That is the biggest mistake you can make. Go and consider this Have you ever thought that your so called laughable compositions might actually teach someone something? Or clarify something for someone else. Or inspire someone to compose a score that works for them???? Think about it.

In reply to by Jose Brites Music

Re "its evolution is just following a different set of rules."

That does seem to be one of the main complaints about MS4. Perhaps it should be called MuseScore Studio 1 to make it clear that it's in a different product line to MuseScore 3. Being version 1 would also indicate that it is in its infancy and may therefore be less stable and fully featured than a mature product.

In reply to by yonah_ag

yonah_ag,
I write for playback. I have never liked playback in MU3. Of course there are many features in MU3 that got left out of MU4. Features that many people want. Being able to change velocity in Muse sounds would be nice. But overall, for my needs, playback in MU4 renders MU3 not worth having. I know you do a lot of guitar work. Things that MU4 can't do. I recently made an all distortion guitar version of Thunderstruck. Because I only needed playback, I didn't need tab. only notes. And the playback was much better than anything MU3 could do. However, I mostly writ for orchestra.

In reply to by bobjp

So there are things in MS3 that you want after all - and some pretty major things.

You write for playback. MS3's most fundamentally useful feature is that it allows users to set up notation scores so that people like you can actually write for playback yet you class this as almost nothing even though this allows you to setup staves for a whole orchestra and write a score – which is what you mostly do, (by your own admission).

Because I only needed playback, I didn't need tab. only notes. Que? This is clearly a non sequitur: only needing playback has no bearing on whether notation and/or tab is required or not. TAB is equally capable of providing playback as notation.

In reply to by yonah_ag

OK. Sorry. I guess I'm not being clear.
It is my understanding that tablature functions in MU4 are not very good. I don't know because I don't write tablature. That's all I meant.
When I say I write for playback, I mean this: When I push the play button, what I hear is what I get. Yes I can write a score for orchestra in MU3. I can print it out and hand it to real players. Of course. I'm not interested in real players for the vast majority of my work. When I push the play button in MU3, I hear MU3 sounds or sounds that MU3 can work with. When I push the Play button in MU4, I hear Muse Sounds. Which is what I want for the work that I do. That doesn't make MU4 better than MU3. That just makes MU4 the software I prefer to use.

You and I have been down this road before. You have your reasons for not liking MU4. I have my reasons for not liking MU3 (or3.7).

In reply to by bobjp

The tablature features in MS4 are pretty much the same as in MS3. The main significant difference is the lack of plugin access to PRE settings and this has a huge effect on playback.

Re: "When I say I write for playback, I mean this: When I push the play button, what I hear is what I get."
Isn't this what happens in all playback software: what you hear is what you get?

My fix for the lack of Muse Sounds in MS3 is to connect MS3's MIDI output to a VST3 - no need for Muse Sounds or the associated system root privileges that it requires, thereby potential security risk avoided.

In reply to by yonah_ag

I get that you have MU3 working the way you want. That's great.

I know that PRE is a big deal for MU3 users. I've never figured out how to use it. Nor do I want to. And I know you may say that means I'm not serious about playback.

Obviously "what I hear is what I get" means that I don't like what I hear in MU3.

I've tried three of the main VSTs. Plogue, BBC Orchestra, and Orchestral Tools. All are very straight and dull. Sure there are settings to make them sound better. But then I spend more time than it is worth messing with them. I am mostly happy with what I get get when I push Play in MU4. I also know that Notation software is not intended to produce great playback. I'm not saying it does. I'm saying it works for what I need. Does that mean my standards are low? They are what they are.
The security problem has never been proven.

In reply to by bobjp

I think that you are serious about playback and that MS4 meets your playack needs. I have heard some Muse Sounds playback from other user's scores and it certainly is impressive - a huge step up from SF2 soundfonts.

I myself make no manual use of PRE because it's far too time consuming but the TAB Ring plugin requires programmatical access to the note's MIDI duration which can be seen in PRE. So it's not PRE per se that I want to see in MS4, in fact I don't care if it never appears, but I do want to be able to access note playback durations, (not face values), via a plugin.

Re: "The security problem has never been proven" but the security risk is without doubt.

Any process running with system privileges can do whatever the programmer wants to do to your computer. This is, by definition, a risk. Whether there is an actual problem is unknown because Muse Hub is not open source so it comes down to who you want to trust.

I choose to trust those Microsoft services running on Windows which have system privileges but I can't actually say whether they are safe or not. (I don't really have a choice not to trust them if I want to run Windows).

To me it is completely unreasonable that Muse Hub should require such high level system access. It's up to each individual to do their own risk assessment and decide which programs to trust.

In reply to by yonah_ag

@yonah_ag I see playback mode of Dorico like a perfect Piano Roll. You can control playback of notes (start/end/duration) independenty of notation and that is a great way to fine-tune the performance. Imagine this, you real-time record yourself playing something on a digital piano, then you quantize it and the result of quantize operation only changes (simplifies) the rhythm in the score, but all the performance details like arpeggios or staccato or even small tempo changes are still here/unchanged and visible in the piano-roll together with what is annotated so they can be easy compared (start/end of each note as played vs as annotated).

In reply to by hstanekovic

@hstanekovic • "I see playback mode of Dorico..."
That sounds really good, as you say "a perfect Piano Roll".
The TAB Ring plugin modifies start time and duration en masse and I have other plugins to do this manually on a note-by-note basis, (also note-by-note control of velocity), more simply than the standard UI.

In reply to by bobjp

The security problem has never been proven.

There's no need to prove, it is a severe and entirely unneeded risk, like any other process running with Admin priviledges, this is just a well known fact.
I'm not sure BTW whether the latest version of Muse Hub still does this.
At least it dropped the bad habit of turning every computer into a bittorrent host without asking the users consent.

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

Just going on the internet is a risk. The only way to avoid the risk is to never go on the internet. As I recall, the person that pointed out the problem was a Linux user. I don't recall that person ever saying there was an actual violation of his system. I don't recall any such violation being reported. I left the HUB open for weeks and monitored the torrent channel. The only activity was because my Focusrite used the same channel to update.

In reply to by bobjp

Nonsense. Going to the internet with a decent and recent antivirus and firewall and fully patched and supported OS and a non-Admin browser has a rather low risk. And with an open eye to what you click on.
Doing so without, or like like with using Windows 7 or even older is a different thing though.
It is not 100% rsik free though, that is true.

The torrent wasn't just a security risk, but also a privacy violation, my compalint about it is 'wothout user consent'. Even switching it off didn't survive the next update. Anyway, that's history now...

The fact that so far no actual violation has been reported or proven though doesn't elimiate the risk itself.
And it is not list Linux users, also on Mac and Windows these severvices run with Admin priviledges and in the background, with no user interaction.
This is 100% risk!

In reply to by bb94

Absolutely not. It's not perfect, that's obvious, but it's nowhere near as bad as it was when 4.0.0 was released. Its playback is so much better. There are only two things I can think of that haven't yet been added, those being the piano roll and tabs.

In reply to by bobjp

And don’t reply on this site anymore. Clearly, you’re fine using MS4, but that doesn’t obligate you to reply to everyone reporting problems with MS4. I’ve hoped for MS4 to be usable for me, but it turned out that doing so was a colossal waste of time on my side.

In reply to by bb94

O but I do get to reply. I'm sorry you are having problems. But that doesn't mean the program should be dumped. That's what I was replying to. I try to help people who ask for it. On my system, no performance issues. No UI problems. No crashes. No corruptions. It is possible. Even on lower end machines. Though not quite as good. There are features missing in MU4 that people really miss. But that is a different story

In reply to by bobjp

Re bobjp: "So you don't like MU4. Great. Don't use it."

That's really sidesteps the issues that some people are clearly having with MS4; hence the title of this thread: "Is MuseScore 4 still . . . not good?". You make it sound like a simple case of personal preference but the egregious bugs, (e.g. file corruption, crashes), make MS4 a non-starter for some people so what choice does that leave them? Why is MS4 so system sensitive?

In reply to by yonah_ag

All I meant was that often the complaint against MU4 ends with saying that the person is going back to MU3. We all have to do what we must. MU4 is far from perfect. But. I have it running on 5 different computers with differing specs, W10 and 11. One 10 and one almost 15 years old. No crashes. No corrupt files. Obviously those things and more are happening to many people. I'm not saying otherwise. Why do you suppose I don't have those problems? And for someone to say MU4 should be dumped would be very bad for me, and others like me. It would be like me saying MU3 should be dumped because it doesn't work for me. Which it doesn't.
OTOH, I know there are problems saving files. Personally, I learned long ago not to save to the cloud in any software. I know there are people that want to be able to do this. I always use Save As, with a different version number. Never just Save. I have more control that way.
Why would the developers release something so full of bugs. I don't think they would. The program must work on their machines. They release test versions so we can try them out. I don't really like them, but that's me. What the developers don't have is access to all the users computers. They can't know how everyone's system will react. Paid programs can have problems, too.
As I understand it, part of the reason for these forums is to try to help people who are having problems. Which is what I try to do.

In reply to by bobjp

I made no supposition, nor comment, about whether you have "those problems" or not.

How have you helped anyone fix any of the issues that they have with MS4. Saying, "It works for me but choose the version that works for you", is not helpful and fixes nothing.

"Why would the developers release something so full of bugs?" You don't think that they would but that thought contradicts reality: the release history clearly shows that they did.

In reply to by yonah_ag

I have never said that to anyone who has asked for help. No one on this thread has asked for help. It's been only complaints. Though the OP was asking for people's thoughts on MU4. I get to give mine.
If I see a post where someone is asking for help with an issue, and I think I might have an answer, I will post something that might help. It doesn't always help, but when it does, they thank me.
But when someone just says MU4 is junk and needs to be scraped? That doesn't help anyone. Maybe it is junk, maybe it isn't. For me it isn't. So, someone with a bad experience gets to post that. But my good experience is discounted as shoulder shrugging.
As for releasing something full of bugs. All the release history shows is that someone ( or many people) reported something that didn't work of their system and the developers were able to fix it. Everyone's computer is different. What works on your computer might not work on mine. We all take care (or not at all) of our systems differently.

In reply to by yonah_ag

So, the developers purposely did something to cause a crash in a later release. I never said there aren't bugs. Some of those things aren't proper notation. I learned long ago in different software, never to make changes in parts. Yes it works in some versions of software. But not all the time. I get that people get used to something working. But then it changes or causes problems. And then they are upset. I do understand. But what choice do we have until what we want is fixed? I remember seeing many of these things when they were first posted.

My comments about MU4 working for me are just as legitimate as comments that it is junk. None of those crash or corruption scenarios has ever happened to me. I use MU4 every day. If they were happening to me, I might move on.

In reply to by bobjp

@bobjp, You said, "Why would the developers release something so full of bugs. I don't think they would" but the issue log clearly demonstrates that they actually did. As to why: presumably they didn't know that there were so many bugs. Maybe the quality control side of development needs to be improved.

Re: "So, the developers purposely did something to cause a crash in a later release." Really? 😲
I doubt it. More likely to be indications of quality control problems.

In reply to by yonah_ag

I've been there and it really blows. The public posture, afaict, is that this is normal slash we should be grateful for when it is fixed, but with MS4, the bug-fixing happens on their timeline leaving the rest of us in the lurch for months on end.

and I use an Apple computer, so joke's on me I guess, but still, that normal functions are broken when they weren't before is something which I think that I rightfully lament.

In reply to by bobjp

Okay help me resolve this issue if you can please? See i am blind okay. Now i understand muse score has teething problems. It works well with TTS text to speach. And that is why i am using it. Now I've tried to create a simple slide. Like you know with a guitar or any kind of instrument for that matter. The manual talks about the guitars pallet where i can select lines to add slides. I cant find those lines. The A-I I've consulted tells me about the add menu with the lines option there. Now when i add a line that connects 2 notes. So I've found that line and yes it connects the notes. But lol its a text line. Even when i went to check the properties. So that doesn't work. Please help me to resolve that one? Send me an email if its going to be a bit of a process at visagiecjc@gmail.com. With the subject creating slides. I would appreciate it Even if you could just send me a small score with an example, then I can study that and see how its done. Thanks.

In reply to by bb94

This makes people profoundly upset though.

and the egregious bugs are not fixed in a timely manner. Not timely enough for me anyway, because they always want the next planned numbered version… which sucks because that's often months or more away. So if the software works, but has bugs, tough toodles. That's aggravating.

Nope note yet Rather stick to muse score 3 muse score 4 has a lot of bugs that needs to be worked out. I wont recommend You're going to end up being extremely frustrated if you change now. Give it another year or so.

I have just down loaded MuseScore 4 - a week ago and have spent much time
getting used to it. I had been using Finale for 16 years, so I found it fairly easy
to move over to MuseScore. I find it is much better than Finale in that it will
automatically adjust elements so that they don't collide, which is wonderful!
And the online instructions are much easier for me to follow than the Finale
handbook. I have spent a couple of days writing about 140 shortcuts into my
Little Red book - and I am trying these out to get them to work. Yes, I do have
difficulties here and there (as I guess most people do) but, generally, I am very
happy with the new MuseScore 4 programme. I continue to discover every video
on the use of MuseScore 4 (and there are plenty) and many, very good. So, I
am enjoying the new programme and feel no urge to return to Finale, if I could!

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