Questions about synthesizer and Mp3 export
I've done a MIDI import of a score with many orchestral parts. When I look at the synthesizer window, it looks like the volume is too high, possibly causing distortion. The volume level meter is way up into the red zone. Does this mean that sound output will actually be distorted?
If I try to turn the volume down on the Synthesizer window so that the volume only spikes up into the yellow zone, the sound coming through the speakers isn't very loud.
I think the high volume is caused at least partly by the large number of voices. However, if I set almost all the voices to PP throughout, that doesn't seem to reduce the volume on the meter. I'm not sure why.
When exporting a score in mp3 format, is it important to adjust the synthesizer volume to avoid distortion in the output sound? Or does the Mp3 encoder ignore those settings?
I tried to turn the volume down pretty far. When I listen the the exported Mp3 file, I hear distortion. I don't know if this is occurring because output levels were too high, or for some other reason. Maybe the Mp3 generated is of poor sound quality anyway?
Finally, which is the better soundfont? FluidR3Mono_GM.sf3 or FluidR3 GM-2.sf2? What are the differences between them? Oops! It looks like I have another soundfont saved to my hard disk -- FluidR3 GM EarMaster.sf2
Thanks!
Timborino
Comments
It's hard to answer questions like this without seeing the actual score and knowing more about your system and configuration. Eg, what kind of speakers are you playing from? What are you comparing the MuseScore volume to? Does your OS provide an application-level mixer, if so, how is it set for MuseScore? Where is the volume set in View / Play Panel for MuseScore?
As for the sf3 versus sf2, they should be essentially the same, but the sf3 version is compressed (in the sense of file size, not dynamic levels) and as it says, mono. Beyond that, we (mostly ChurchOrganist from the forums here) constantly makes improvements that he makes available for download and that eventually make it into the released version, so without knowing exactly which version of each of these files you have, it's also hard to say more. In general, the latest and greatest from ChurchOrganist is the best, whether in sf2 or sf3 format.