How do I offset an instrument just a bit, so it plays a few milliseconds after another instrument ( gives reality to the musicians)??
Hi all: I have never used offsets before. Maybe it is time. I am adapting a new song to Musescore 3.62, and the flute is playing a hairs-breath after the singer. Can I offset the flute just a tiny bit to the right for a run of measures to mimic the musicians in the orchestra? If so, how? Thanks in advance
Frank
Comments
Can't do it. Not built into MuseScore. And, I would say, it should not be.
Do that in a DAW.
I would be thrilled on the day MuseScore 4 gets the options:
• to delay a "track" (in milliseconds)
• to prelay a "track" (in milliseconds)
Use cases
1) As in your situation, sometimes note onset in a library is too soon or too late. Depending on the library there may be a push/pull setting (for instance, I frequently see that option in Kontakt libraries.) In the absence of that—AND in addition to that—we'd greatly benefit from +/- ms options via a Mixer plugin.
2) To my ear there's little realism in all instruments playing at precisely the same time. Setting a temporal spread between instruments will make score playback lighter and clearer. Everything all at once is mud.
Whenever a DAW project sounds heavy I set:
• the melody front most
• then I delay any harmony
• I further delay the chords
• I further delay the bass
• And generally, I set the percussion the furthest back
Works like a charm!
scorster
In reply to I would be thrilled on the… by scorster
So if I understand both your comments, Musescore's virtual player has no way to delay a track by a few milliseconds to mimic the true sound of live musicians? If so, that really is a bummer. Surely there must be a way! I am totally not familiar with DAW's and honestly don't want to get into them, even though they can delay tracks if you know how to play with them. There really is no work-through or plugin in Musescore? Ugh! Does Polyphone enable me to do so someway? (it is able to open a. .sf2 file and play with it). Is there perhaps a plugin I can use in Musescore?
In reply to So if I understand both your… by fsgregs
It would be possible in Polyphone but less than ideal because it would be inflexible. Have a play with BSG's articulation plugin mentioned below, specifically DockArticulate.
In reply to It would be possible in… by yonah_ag
I downloaded DockArticulate a long time ago, but have never used it and have no idea what it does. I just checked it out in MS 3.62, and still don't really know what it does. If you think DockArticulate could delay or accelerate notes in a track by a tiny bit, please just email me a short screenshot of the menu from the plugin with the fields filled in. Otherwise, if an actual new plugin is not difficult, would you be willing to make it? Several Musescore users would be as grateful as me. Thanks in advance.
In reply to So if I understand both your… by fsgregs
Two things come to mind:
Any real player who played behind the beat for an entire song, even by a few milliseconds, would not have a job very long. It is the goal of every real musician to play correctly, in sync with all the other players, all the time. Sometimes there may be problems. But not for an entire piece. There are other ways.
Listen to recordings of professional musicians. Then listen to a recording of an Elementary School band. Bless their hearts, the school band does all the things that over the years I've heard people say they wish they could get software to do. They may not be on the beat, or quite in tune, and much more, No thanks.
I've used three different VSTs that were supposed to be professional grade. They are all boring, and lifeless. Not much better than Basic sounds. If you guys use any of them, I'm not surprised you want to liven thing up.
Some more things come to mind.
For heaven's sake, pan your scores. This is critical. And use lots of dynamic and tempo changes. Subtle, of course.
I find Muse sounds much more "realistic". Far from perfect. But much more expressive.
In reply to Two things come to mind: … by bobjp
Re 1. My thoughts exactly – but as a solo guitar player I have no experience of playing with others in a group. I did experiment with random offsets to note start times, (via a plugin), to see if it would 'humanise' the playback. It didn't: it sounded like a beginner in an Elementary School band! Humanisation actually took me a lot more manual effort in my scores, involving deliberate rubato and dynamic changes based on careful listening to different performances of the pieces.
I've been to a few classical concerts and witnessed quite a spread of violins, so maybe having several violins in a score and, as you say, panning them would help. Could there be enough front-to-back distance in the violin section that there would be a noticeable time difference, (e.g. milliseconds), in the audience hearing them?
In reply to Re 1. My thoughts exactly –… by yonah_ag
yonah_ag wrote > I did experiment with random offsets to note start times, (via a plugin), to see if it would 'humanise' the playback. It didn't: it sounded like a beginner in an Elementary School band!
Misguidedly most "humanize" functions rely purely on randomizing note onsets, and indeed that would sound like a bunch of musicians with bad timing.
The solution would be to:
• set a refined amount of focused randomization around a temporal point
• set that temporal point x milliseconds ahead or behind the beat
• allow the randomizing to be weighted toward "leading" or "following"
And when I set the temporal point ahead of the beat I also like to weight some very subtle randomizing toward leading; conversely, when I set the temporal point behind the beat I like to weight randomizing toward following.
The effect can be quite convincing and it gives the notes some room to breath and be heard rather that stacked and clumped in a heap.
Could there be enough front-to-back distance in the violin section that there would be a noticeable time difference, (e.g. milliseconds), in the audience hearing them?
Bingo! The placement of instruments on the soundstage naturally impacts how the audience perceives the music, and I mean this specifically in terms of the temporal affect and the way the "leading" instruments are clarified and focused for the audience by the precedence effect.
In reply to Two things come to mind: … by bobjp
Bob: Thanks for the post. Because MS 4 does NOT allow either hairpins or Dynamics marks to be edited for volume, I can't use it. I use Musescore specifically to adapt actual songs to sheet music, and then let the virtual player play it. It gives me great joy in my old age to adapt entire symphonies (I am now 77 yrs old). In so doing, I mimic the actual song musicians closely, using their own timing. Frequently, I must edit hairpins and dynamics to change their volumes to better match the song, using the Inspector in MS 3.62. Since MS 4 does not provide this option, I cannot use it, so it may be more realistic, but not good for me.
I will try to alter panning a bit, but really, a new plugin that can play an instrument with slight differences in play time, is much preferred.
Very easy via a plugin in MS3.6.2 or, better, in MS3.7.
Example:
https://musescore.org/en/project/articulation-and-ornamentation-control
In reply to https://musescore.org/en… by yonah_ag
Yonah_ag: I swear I answered this in detail, but it is not here, so ...
I visited the above link and examined the plugin. As I mentioned above, I already have DockArticulate but don't understand how I can edit a track on one or more notes with it to force the MS player to play that track either a tiny bit before or after the other tracks. If it can do so, please help me out by explaining what to do. Alternatively, I and others in MS 3.62 or 3.7, would be soooo grateful if you were able to write a new plugin that allowed one or more notes in a track to be accelerated or delayed by a very short amount, be they violins or others, to better mimic real musicians.
Should be possible via the piano roll editor.
In Mu3 that is, not in Mu4, where that feature (and quite a few more) had been removed,
I'm only familiar with classical music (string and symphony orchestras) and have played the violin in many orchestras with many different conductors, some of them famous. "The conductor is the one in control and you must follow him/her."
The MS playback is a nice feature which I only use to track down errors in my engraving. So, out of a sort of ignorance, the realism of the music output is of second priority for me. I understand if other users want to prioritise realistic output as well, but was that really the primary intention with MS? There are much be tools for this on the market, e.g. DAWs.
Having said that, an orchestra must follow the conductor. As an example, assuming you are sitting at violin 1 at one of the last desks and you try to follow the rythm from the double bass on the other side of the stage (maybe 10-15m away), there will inevitably a time delay which could be considerable and unwanted. In this case and for critical parts, every musician must visibly (no time delay) follow the conductor. In the auditorium however, and depending on where you are sitting, there could be a time delay when you listen to the different instruments.