Adding OUD

• Jan 4, 2017 - 12:52

Hi, My name is : Mustafa Taher and I am an OUD player "which is an Arabian instrument"
I can't find it in the instruments list ,
for who don't know what OUD is :
simply it's a lute without frets and it is 8ve clef like classic guitar and it has
5strings "from 1 to 5" or 6 strings "from 0 to 5" or 7 strings "from 0 to 6" "it sounds differ a little than lute , however this small difference makes another feeling"
it has different tuning I am using this tune which is Egyptian tune :

(6) B2
(5) E2
(4) A2
(3) D3
(2) G3
(1) C4
(0) F4

amateurs can play from : the lowest note to C6
professionals can play from : the lowest note G6

I know I can choose the lute and make these differences " I am using them "
and also I can modify that file .xml but I'm asking for this to increase musescore features & to be permanent - guaranteed changes as I am not able to change these midi files professionally

P.S.
"actually : the lute is a modified OUD not the opposite"

you can watch this beautiful videos of oud & lute together
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbOyEQQQylk

Comments

• Jan 4, 2017 - 16:44

I thought I saw a thread that said there was work on a utility that would allow for the editing of instruments.xml file to add/edit instruments. I can't find any reference to it in the 2.1 release notes. If this is the case, then adding an oud to the list of instruments would be very easy in the future, and each individual's definition of the oud would match their own. This would prevent users from having to redefine it every time they use it. I'm not a programmer so I'm hesitant to change instruments.xml because the last time I tried I messed it up. Fortunately I made a back up and fixing it was easy.

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• Jan 4, 2017 - 16:51

It would be great to have such an editor but AFAIK, no one is working on it. Editing instruments.xml is a bad idea. The "right way" is to copy it in Documents/MuseScore2 for example, delete all the instruments, add the one you want to add and then point to the file in Preferences > Score > Instrument list 2. It's often a bad idea to modify the files included in the MuseScore software and there is almost always a way to do it in the "user space".

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• Jan 4, 2017 - 17:58

There is insufficient data that I can find that tells me the data I need to enter for an instrument. I found

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aqL7PL90Ui45EjtxiBTYa4smhBb5zGNNCpk…

but it does not explain what commands in greater and less than signs are required where. The instructions are intended for a savvy MS user, which I thought I was, but this does't help much. There is too much document formatting information missing. I'm wondering where the definition of such instruments as the violin used in the string quartet comes from. It's not the same one as in the ...MuseScore 2/instruments folder. None of those violins have string data.

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