Flute and pianos sound drops out on the last page of score

• Mar 15, 2020 - 14:57

This is Stravinsky's Les Noces. When I play from page 53, rehearsal 41, the flute sound and all pianos except Piano II drops out. I had deleted page 53, 54 and several others after it for this problem. Then I re-entered pages 53 and 54. The problem reappears. The rest of the score up to page 54 is fine. Please confirm that you see this as well, because if you don't then there's a real problem.

Windows 10 (10.0), Arch.: x86_64, MuseScore version (64-bit): 3.4.2.9788, revision: 148e43f

Attachment Size
Stravinsky - Les Noces.mscz 166.22 KB

Comments

• Mar 15, 2020 - 15:44

I don't hear a problem. I can't verify everything is there because I'm not familiar enough with the music, and some of it is written quietly enough to be potentially buried in the mix, but I hear a bunch of instruments, and if I delete the notes for everything but flute, I hear it just fine. If I go to the Mixer, I see you've soloed everything, which is weird and probably leading to some confusion, but soloing everything should produce the same effect as soloing nothing, it just makes it harder to then solo only the flute. If I unsolo everything but flute, I hear flute only even without deleting the other notes.

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• Mar 16, 2020 - 01:39

UPDATE: I ruled out the soundcard by using the motherboard sound device. The problem persists at the exact same spot. The next thing is to create a brand new score that is two pages long - page 53 and 54. I will not copy paste anything. I'm going to re-enter the notes by hand just for these two pages. If the music plays fine, then the main score is incredibly corrupt and I'll have to start over.

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• Mar 16, 2020 - 05:25

I'm using MuseScore 3.3.4.with MuseScore_General.sf3 soundfont.
I notice the drop out, but if I mute Piano II everything else plays ok.

Changing the Piano II sound to 'Electric Grand' seems to fix this. The other grand pianos don't work, either.

Further experimentation:
Setting a playback loop from rehearsal mark 41 to the end and toggling the Piano II mute during looped playback confirms this. (Let the 8 bars loop once or twice, then toggle.) Change the sound to 'Electric Grand' and all is good.

Also, keeping loop playback engaged, solo the Flute + Piano II and you'll hear that Flute + 'Electric Grand' works, but Flute + 'Grand Piano' (also Mellow and Bright) causes the Flute to drop out when it loops back. Restoring 'Electric Grand (even during play back) fixes the drop out.

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• Mar 16, 2020 - 17:40

Thanks, and good detective work. I can confirm that the Electric Grand works in this passage, so I won't use Grand Piano for now. HOWEVER! In the act of checking this score, a huge space opened up between the Musescore menu and the toolbar:
huge space between menu and toolbar.png
Oh my goodness graciousnessess. I'll check to see if anyone has reported this and if not, I'll report it.

Attachment Size
huge space between menu and toolbar.png 115.78 KB

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• Mar 16, 2020 - 18:25

Not related to either problem is the thought that you might want to pan the instruments. Besides sounding more realistic, it will help so pick out the instruments better.

For the space problem, consider a reset of MuseScore, accessed from the help tab. A bummer if you have a lot of customised settings. But helpful to fix some things.

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• Mar 16, 2020 - 21:01

You wrote:
I can confirm that the Electric Grand works in this passage, so I won't use Grand Piano for now.

Weirdly, the playback anomaly only applies to Piano II. The other pianos can continue using the Grand Piano sound.

P.S. I had to re-open your posted score to double check. Yikes! I forgot that you soloed every instrument:
Button_presses.png
Whew! You must enjoy pressing buttons. :-)

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• Mar 19, 2020 - 12:42

So to recap, none of the pianos in the built-in MuseScore soundfont work with this passage except Electric Grand, which really isn't appropriate for this piece unless you really want to experiment with interesting sounds. The Grand Piano, the one soundfont that should work with everything that's thrown at it, doesn't. I tried other free piano soundfonts (because I'm poor and this Internet connection is a gift), they have problems of their own like scratchy sound, static, dropouts, mistuned and frankly bad sounding instruments. There's even a Grand Piano soundfont that's really some lady's upright piano in her apartment, and they admit to as much.

I liked the MuseScore Grand Piano the best out of them all.

Thanks everyone for helping me to sort this out.

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• Mar 19, 2020 - 13:06

...none of the pianos in the built-in MuseScore soundfont work with this passage except Electric Grand,

True, but only for Piano II, which is weird because the Grand Piano sound works for all the other pianos in the passage.
If you solo both flute and one of the other Grand Piano parts, it plays fine.
If you solo flute and Piano II, the score drops out; but changing the sound of Piano II to Electric Grand - even while looping playback - restores the drop-out.

Maybe try the (lightweight) TimGM6mb soundfont (or another one) from here:
https://musescore.org/en/handbook/soundfonts-and-sfz-files#gm_soundfonts
and use its Grand Piano sound for Piano II.

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• Mar 19, 2020 - 15:48

IMPORTANT UPDATE! ALERT! ALERT! DIVE! DIVE!
Okay, so I had a hunch. What if something in the score, some notation, was malfunctioning to the point where it interfered with sound production of all similar instruments? I had already deleted all the percussion instruments thinking this could be it, but it wasn't. Then I deleted all the octave signs on both pages. VOILA! All pianos sound, the flute sounds as well. So I saved that version. Then I went back to the original two pages with all the octave signs and only deleted the double octave (15ma) signs. It worked as well. The double octave signs caused a problem in these two pages at least. I believe these two pages are the first ones in the score with a double octave sign. I'll have to go back and look at the score from the beginning to hunt these things down. I believe I can search for all similar objects. Whatever, now we know what's causing this. It isn't the soundfont, thank God. It's the double octave sign.

Attachment Size
PAGE 53 - 54 - DOUBLE OCTAVE SIGN REVERT.mscz 18.51 KB
PAGE 53 - 54 - NO OCTAVES NO PERC.mscz 17.86 KB

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• Mar 19, 2020 - 15:55

Excellent work! I actually developed similar hunch last night but went to bed before I could start testing it :-) Although I was suspecting something about the articulations, not the octave signs.

I would say at this point it's a clear enough case to be worth submitting on official bug report to the Issue tracker.

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