Instrument Preview Function
I think it would be a huge timesaver if Musescore played a note on each instrument as I clicked on it to add it to the instrument list, so that I wouldn't have to place all of them on a score to test which ones work for the piece I'm composing.
It would also be nice to be able to set what pitch and duration the preview note plays at in preferences, as well as turn on or off the feature.
Comments
I'd love to have such a feature, too.
In reply to Great idea! by Fermate
yo, I made a few documents that play a sample of notes for one measure so you're able to hear all of the instruments for wood wind in one of the documents, and the second document covers all of the pitched percussion, keyboard, and electronic instruments....
I absolutely second this feature request. I hope it can be added at some point.
In reply to I absolutely second this by Florian Haag
yo, I've halfway kinda added the feature to hear what all of the instruments sound like by making some documents myself. in the first document , a sample of notes is played by all of the wood wind instruments with each measure being played by a different instrument. The second document covers all of the pitched percussion, keyboard, and electronic instruments. In addition to seeing the notes as they are being played, you'll also see the name of the instrument playing those notes to easily match up an instrument name to a sound... hope it helps
This would be a nice feature, but in the meantime there is an easier way than adding them all to the score:
Just enter some notes and then open up the Mixer and change the sound of the current instrument. On my computer, if I hover the mouse over the instrument sound in the Mixer and rotated the scroll wheel then it quickly swaps between the different sounds. You can even do this during looped playback to avoid having to manual restart playback when the notes run out.
Now, what this method doesn't do it tell you which instrument sound is assigned to which instrument in Edit > Instruments, but this is pretty obvious in most cases.
In reply to This would be a nice feature, by shoogle
Thanks, that is somewhat helpful.
Although, admittedly, I tried a few times and I did not find the mapping obvious in any of these cases. For instance, to find out which of the various guitar instruments uses the instrument sound "clean guitar", I ended up trying all the guitar instruments one by one, which is a little bit cumbersome. Better than nothing for now, but I still hope such an immediate test sound feature will be added at some point.
I thought the same thing too when I began...and no, I'm still not familiar with most of the instruments either, so I just made a few documents that has each instrument play a sample of notes for one measure, so that each measure is played by a different instrument in order to hear what all the instruments sound like....
I only have two pretty decent documents done so far. One allows you to hear all of the woodwind instruments. the second combines pitched percussion, keyboard, and electronic instruments.... then I only have rough draft samplings for the rest of the instruments...The first two documents will show you the instrument name along with the notes being played for the first two documents that are pretty much done... the rough drafts though, do not look at those names since they are not correct and also the rough drafts has many clefs that don't fit or run off the page so they are more confusing to look at than the two documents that are finished...but, I'll let ya see for yourself. Hope it helps
In reply to I thought the same thing too… by Al Toe
updated a document to preview or hear all the free reed and Brass instruments play a sample of notes in order to hear what every instrument sounds like for those two categories.