Playback Bandwidth
As a new user, I regret what seems a very elementary -- tho important -- question. Searching several pages of posts returned nothing on point.
While pleased by several features of MuseScore 1.0, including how realistically it plays back the merlin_gmv22 Soundfont, it seems that MuseScore will play back no more than 4 voices/parts. I have 4 GB of system memory, so this should not be the issue. Is multi-voice playback being limited by MuseScore itself, by my choice of Soundfont, or something else? Is there anything I can add (such as a plugin) or set that would increase the number of voices available on playback? Is there any reason why doubling a part and assigning it to (2) different instruments malfunctions?
Comments
Could you post a sample score? I've played back scores consisting of dozens of independent parts with no difficulties.
In reply to Could you post a sample by Marc Sabatella
Hi Mark:
Thanks for responding. As I must rely on dialup Internet service, posting even a two-bar example might take slightly less than forever (particularly if the Soundfont is part of the post, as I suspect it needs to be). Before I trouble eveyone with all that nano-drama (*Grin*), let me share a couple more thoughts.
The piece I am working up -- my first in MuseScore -- is largely in "quadruple counterpoint," hence my use of one-part staves. I wonder if this might be the issue, even tho your own experience implies more than four staves. Also, I should add that I am using Windows Vista and relying on playback thru the internal devices of a Vaio laptop (all I can sadly afford, for now). The Vaio is reasonably powerful, as laptops go, and has dual processors in addition to the memory capacity already mentioned. Yet it does not seem impossible that your setup excludes an external MIDI device. (I have had parallel experience with the Mac, which was limited to 8 voices with ConcertWare Pro and 32 with a sampler, etc.)
If you don't mind replying to another tedious post, I would much appreciate your thoughts. If still necessary, and if I can prevail on everyone further, I will put together a couple of bars and see if they will post. Alack, I am a respectable musician, but an utter newbie with regard to Windows artistry and MuseScore.
In reply to Preliminary Thought(s) by Sarastre
I'm not using external MIDI, no. Just the default playback engine in MuseScore. And I have several soundfonts installed I could try it with, alhough it might be interesting if you could figure out if the problem occurs with the stock "Tim" soundfont. Soundfonts are not saved as part of the MuseScore file, and the default is to compress the file, so a short (say, 8-bar) example is only a handful of KB in size. Even on dialup, that should be a snap to upload.
In reply to I'm not using external MIDI, by Marc Sabatella
Thanks for the additional info. Lo and behold: When I created a new score and specified all of the staves upfront, playback was no longer limited -- all eight experimental voices played back. And that was with the Soundfont I currently prefer. I also found that adding additional notes to the existing staves in the original file does allow more than four voices to sound (again using Merlin_22, which has a fine cello, among other niceties). At this point, I can probably work independently to see if trying to add staves with or sans unison parts is the vagary, or whether some combination of misguided keystrokes was the problem. (This is, again, my first effort, and I use either my laptop's keyboard or its touch pad for entry.) I have also noticed, BTW, that certain bars or portions thereof would spontaneously transpose by odd intervals, such as an augmented fourth. Those gremlins have for the time being gone away, and might have something to do with a couple of spontaneous exits and one "Unexpected C++ Error".