Aeolus?
I'm very excited about the potential of Aeolus for playing back organ parts.
Only problem is - I can't get it to work with Windows.
Is this yet to be implemented? I gather from my explorations on Google that it is a Linux only thing?
I have a Linux box, but there are currently no nightly builds being released for it :(
Comments
Hi,
I run into the same concern a while ago: the stand-alone Aeolus application is Linux only, but the Aeolus library is built-in into MuseScore (trunk only!) and it is working under any of the supported architecture: I have used it both under Windows and under Linux (Ubuntu).
That said, using it is not very straighforward, at the moment.
Basically, you need:
1) Use "Pipe organ" as instrument (it is the only one supporting Aeolus)
2) Once the instrument is set, in the "Display | Mixer" dlg box, select "Aeolus" as sound for the 4 'parts' making up the pipe organ.
3) Once (some) notes entered, add a staff text to the first note of each staff: the actual text is irrelevant (ideally it could contain a description of the stops used), what matters are the "Staff Text Properties" (right-click on the text to open them).
Here is where things get hard.
1) In the "Change channel" tab, assign each of the 4 voices of that stave to one of the division of the organ (due to an unfortunate choice of colours, which voices are selected is hard to tell: the easiest things is to 'push' all 4 numbers of the first row and select a division in the first channel drop list; 'normally' one might select division 1 in the text for the treble stave, division 1 or 2 or 3 in the text for bass stave and division P in the text for the pedal stave, but in general it is possible to assign different voices of the same stave to different divisions).
2) In the "Midi action" tab: in the upper pane select the division you assigned the stave to, and in the lower pane click the stops you want to activate at that point of that stave.
3) The "Aeolus Stop" tab mostly escape me but, as a Church Organist, you may immediately understand its purpose.
Having done so, I usually can hear some Aeolus sound in some of the staves, with a degree of unpredictability: I know it works, so I'm sure it is my lack of knowledge.
I hope this explanation should get you started and, perhaps, able to fill the gaps I left.
M.
In reply to It is working under Windows by Miwarre
It just locks up my system :(
Sony Vaio VGN-TX3XP running XP Pro SP3 and Nightly Build 5240
I may try it on one of my other Windows machines, but not tonight.
Is there a log stored anywhere I can attach to an issue report?
In reply to It just locks up my system by ChurchOrganist
If it locks the whole system, I know nothing which will give you a report / log reliably.
At which point of the procedure the system hangs up? You may keep an eye on the command line window which opens when you start mscore.exe (but perhaps it only works in debug builds...) looking for diagnostic messages.
Sorry, little help, I'm afraid.
M.
In reply to O ! O by Miwarre
Progress!
After playing around a little this morning I have established that the Aeolus engine will run quite happily and behave as it should provided you do not assign a stave to the Pedal section. Doing so results in Aeolus playing the first note of the top stave and then freezing, consuming 99% of cpu time in the process.
I shall play around a little more and then file an issue once I have narrowed things down more (I hope).
In reply to Progress! by ChurchOrganist
Well I've downloaded the latest nightly r5247
And now Aeolus is behaving perfectly :)
Whilst on this subject.....
The specification of the default organ is a little weird by any standards - it doesn't fit with any of the main schools of organ building, and it seems that here is an area where I can offer my expertise, if I can find out how the organ specification is edited - I've established that there is a specification list in the Sounds directory, but it is unclear how you edit this - ideally we would need different stop setups for the different schools of organ music.
I have subscribed to both the Aeolus mailing lists, and have got Aeolus 0.8.4 running on my Linux box (after a couple of false starts due to not having QjackCtl running, but there seems to be no way of editing anything from the Aeolus window. How do I proceed further?
In reply to Working in r5247 by ChurchOrganist
First of all, I know I'm wandering in a terra largely incognita to me, so anything I say may be wrong!
If you are looking for a way to change the organ specification from piece to piece or within a single piece, I think there is no way; I think the organ specification is defined by the file
sound/aeolus/stops/Aeolus/definitionexisting some where in your installation (the exact location depends on OS, pre-built or locally compiled, ...) and this be valid for the whole MuseScore installation.Parallel to the
Aeolus/folder, there are other similar,Aeolus1/andAeolus2/folders, also containing adefinitionfile each.I would start by 'playing' (a.k.a. messing!) with these
definitonfiles and see what happens (I assume you have to stop MuseScore before any change and restart it after).How to edit those files: I would expect some documentation be available at Aeolus site(s); if not, I would just do little changes and see...
Once a rough idea of what does what is grasped, I would turn to the Aeolus community for more info and, possibly, support.
Is there any Aeolus expert here in the MuseScore community?
Wishing you a happy hunt!
M.
In reply to Glad it worked! by Miwarre
Next time I have a block of free time I will have a play witht eh Aeolus definition files.
A Google search for any documentation has proved fruitless, just sourcecode files for the project, which aren't much help.
I'll keep you all informed of progress here.
In reply to Working in r5247 by ChurchOrganist
I have been experimenting more with Aeolus with a MuseScore transcription of Bach Prelude & Fugue BWV 553
Sadly the Pedal section of Aeolus is definitely unstable :(
Provided you do not use the pedal section then Aeolus works fine, however notes below MIDI note 24 appear to be silent which is going to be a problem for playing back English organ music before 1850 as the Great keyboard went down to MIDI note 19.
Assigning a stave to the Pedal section results in a varying severity of crash of the sound system on the Realtek HD system I have on my laptop ranging from corruption of the sound into a series of digital clicks (very unpleasant) to MuseScore grabbing 99% of CPU this either happens immediately or a few bars in. Unless you assign no stops to the pedal section!
There is also a big MIDI echo problem with Aeolus - stopping playback of the score anywhere apart from at a place where all parts are silent results in a string of notes continuing endlessly, and as has been remarked several times in the forums there is currently no way of resetting the sound system in MuseScore apart from quitting!
I shall continue my experiments trying to narrow down exactly how to reproduce the crash and ultimately open in issue.
BTW which version of Aeolus is embedded in MuseScore?
Finally, Aeolus is defaulting to Mean Tone Temperament, which sounds out of tune to our ears used to equal temperament - it would be good to have a means of selecting temperament fromn the Synth window
Tested in r5386 under Fedora Linux. Using the "Staff Text Properties" trick, I get Aeolus sounds, but the notes aren't turning off.
This will be very cool when it's polished. I've played with Aeolus for a few years under Linux, but it's tricky to set everything up just right. It'll be awesome when it "just works" with sensible defaults.