Playback of multiple instruments changed to strings
I've been working on a score for a while now and quite suddenly today, the top group of instruments have all started to playback exclusively as strings. Piccolo, Flute, Alto Flute, Oboe, English Horn, and Bb Clarinet are all affected and I can't figure out how to fix it.
I've tried changing pitches, instrument changes, adjusting the soundfont in the mixer, shifting the soundfonts around in the synthesizer, adding new versions of the instruments, restarting MuseScore, rebooting my computer and probably a few other things I can't remember because I've been at this for so long. Nothing I can think to do will restore the correct playback instruments or change them in any way. It appears to be the only score affected and limited to these specific instruments.
This is a very complex score that has all sorts of elements, like instrument changes, that don't copy and paste easily from older drafts. I really don't want to lose hours and hours of work having to input everything again and I'm at a loss. Could someone check to see if there's an easy solution I'm not seeing or if the file is irrevocably corrupt?
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| IV. War (09.16).mscz | 487.9 KB |
Comments
This can happen if you added new soundfonts, or if you changed the order of soundfonts.
Try to restore the order of the soundfonts you use.
In reply to This can happen if you added… by Ziya Mete Demircan
So far as I can tell, it's unrelated to the actual soundfont collection I'm working off of. I haven't changed them around recently and when I ran into the problem, I specifically moved them around just in case with no improvement.
Ultimately, I figured out that it had something to do with instrument changes made in parts at the bottom of the score. I'm not sure how changing a vocal part from aahs to oohs can convert most of the woodwinds to strings, but it's somehow responsible. I eventually started over from an earlier draft and tried to keep track of if and when the problem returned and that was it.
For now, I have to work around the issue by creating and hiding new instruments to actually play the music, using staff text instead of instrument change text, and turning off "play" for all the notes played by a different instrument in the part. It'a quite time consuming.
If someone wants to take a look at the file and see if they can identify what's causing the bug, it might be worth it, at least to someone like me who regularly uses instrument changes. I realize that MuseScore is not designed as a MIDI recording creation tool, but as a sheet music creation, composing, and arranging tool. The thing is that you (or I at least) really need to be able to hear the music played back to know if any errors have been made or if creative decisions are working. I realize this issue mainly affects playback, but I hope the team here finds it worth checking out.
Thanks.
In reply to So far as I can tell, it's… by Daniel O'Meara
Can you tell us the exact list of soundfonts youhave loaded when playing this back? Both the Fluid and Zerberus tabs. This would be necessary in order for us to understand what the expected playback should be.
In reply to Can you tell us the exact… by Marc Sabatella
Sorry for the delay. I've been very busy with this project.
All my soundfonts are Fluid. In order from top to bottom, they are:
MuseScore_General.sf3
DanSoundFont.sf2
proteus1.sf2
proteus2.sf2
proteus3.sf2
Timbres Of Heaven GM_GS_XG_SFX V 3.2 Final.sf2
Orch_Battery.sf2
tabla.sf2
The second soundfont is one I created myself and the file is over the attachment size limit here. It's only about 10 MB, so if you still want to test it out, let me know and I can upload it to Google Drive or Dropbox. Likewise with any of the others you might need, although a couple are much larger.
Thanks.
Dan