Instrument description in the mixer

• Jun 21, 2013 - 21:11

I'm looking for a way to change the instrument description in the mixer (first white field).

This is important to me as a choir singer. When I chose a cello for let's say Tenor 2 I want to give the information that the cello is for Tenor 2 in the mixer. Also, because this is the description which is taken for the MuseScore Android App.
When I have a choir peace with 12 voices (3 parallel choirs with 4 voices) I just need that information.

It is possible to change the description of the instrument by staff-properties. However, this information is not taken into the instrument description of the mixer.

Anybody an idea?

By the way; the same is true for the nightly build.

Comments

• Jun 22, 2013 - 02:16

I agree it seems loke it might make for the names in the mixer to reflect the current staff names. But I'm having trouble understanding why you say this would be necessary, or even helpful. Could you post a acore and explain the intended use case?

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• Jun 22, 2013 - 07:58

I don't think this is possible enaef.

The Mixer is listing the GM sound related to the Instrument stave on the score.

This name is hardcoded into the soundfont itself, and can't be changed by MuseScore.

It might be possible to change the title in the mixer, but then it would not reflect the sound actually playing.

I'm not really sure why you want to do this anyway - isn't the Staff Name enough?

Maybe you are thinking in terms of Trackname as in a sequencer, but you have to realise that in MuseScore the Trackname is the Staff Name.

As MuseScore saves the actual Mixer instrument used for each stave I don't really understand your problem - perhaps you can tell the community a little more about what you are trying to do.

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• Jun 22, 2013 - 09:31

In the mixer of MuseScore 1.3, for one given part == instrument there is one or more "boxes" (3 for violin or trumpet). Each of this boxes represent a MIDI channel. For each MIDI channel, there is a name, selectable but you can't change it and a combobox to pick up a sound. The sound list comes from the soundfont. The channel name is autogenerated from the track name (or longname) and the channel id from the instrument.xml file. Unfortunatly, there is no easy way to change the trackname is MuseScore 1.3.

In current development version, it's very similar. Except that the part name can be changed in Staff properties -> part name. The part name is initialized from the trackname tag in instrument.xml or if empty from the first longname

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• Jun 22, 2013 - 10:20

Thanks for your responses!
I hope I can explain a bit better.
Please have a look at the attached file.

3 Choirs, each with a soprano, alto, tenor and bass.
As you can see I chose S1, A1, T1, B1, S2, A2, T2, B2, S3, A3, T3, B3 as Long Instrument Name and Short Instrument Name.
Only, this information is not what is shown in the mixer.
In the mixer it says 1.Stimee-normal, 2.Stimme-normal, 3.Stimme-normal, and so forth until 12.Stimme-normal.

I, and my colleagues in the choir need the file to learn our voices. In my case it is tenor in the second choir (T2). In order to "highlight" my part I set the volume high and choose another instrument. Therefore it is inconvenient to have to count the staffs down in order to find the channel which reflects your part, because the labelling is as it is.
In the case of MuseScore Windows/Mac it's uncomfortable, in the case of MuseScore Player ANDROID it is even more inconvenient.

In MuseScore Player ANDROID there is only one part shown at once. You have to choose which one first. The information given for choosing the part is the one shown in the Mixer. In the case of the attached file: 1.Stimee-normal, 2.Stimme-normal, 3.Stimme-normal, and so forth until 12.Stimme-normal. Since the Instrument Long Name or short Name are not shown, I just have to know, where my voice is by heart.
Since some pieces have for example two sopranos, one alto, one tenor, one bass, other pieces have one soprano, one alto, two tenor and one bass voice it is hard to know, which part is mine ....

I hope I was able to explain my problem a bit.

Thanks

Attachment Size
Gabrieli_Plaudite_Psallite_Jubilate-Tenor2_2013_06_21.mscz 38.9 KB

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• Jun 22, 2013 - 15:58

Thanks for the explanation; that definitely helps. Now that I understand better, I would agree it seems very natural and useful for the channel name in the mixer to show the name of the staff rather than being hardcoded to showing the name of the instrument originally assigned to that staff. And if you read lasconic's response above, you'll see this is already implemented for the eventually-upcoming 2.0 release. I just tested it using a development build, and sure enough, if you change the "Part name" in staff properties, that name appears in the mixer. So, I guess just put up with things as they are for a while, then they will improve.

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• Jun 22, 2013 - 17:44

You are completely right. All I need is already done! :-)!!
My only problem was that I didn't check out the nightly build thoroughly enough!!
On a first quick look it seemed, nothing had changed in the nightly build compared to 1.3.
It is only after your replay that I realised that there is the new field "Part Name" which I can take control of and which serves to what I need. So one still can have one Instrument Name displayed on the sheet and another label for the mixer. Or choose to take the same label. Wonderful.

When do you think Version 2.0 will be officially available?
I guess it is save enough to use the nightly build in order to rename the Part Names for my purposes (it won't destroy my files?)

By the way, sorry for my imperfect English. It is not my mother tongue.

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• Jun 22, 2013 - 18:29

"when it's ready" is the standard response; I don't have any more info than that.

Simply opening a score in 2.0 won't destroy it, but if you save it, you won't be able to open in 1.X any more. So to be safe, I often make a copy of any score I plan to open in 2.0, unless I am goong to then immediately close it and I'm sure I won't accidentally save it first.

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• Jun 22, 2013 - 10:33

> It might be possible to change the title in the mixer, but then it would not reflect the sound actually playing.

Well, when I change the sound in the mixer, the label of the staff stays the same; this already does not reflect what is actually played.

In case of choir pieces this is just normal - at least for me. Since I don't want to have the voices played by the available MIDI voices due to sound quality, I have to choose other instruments. Nonetheless I need the information which instruments plays which human voice (soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, bass) ...

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• Jun 22, 2013 - 13:24

I'm using GeneralUser GS MuseScore v1.44.sf2, one of the best in my opinion.

However, none of the "human-voice-instruments" in MIDI sound naturally enough to me.
In addition these voices are not really suitable to learn a voice. I don't understand too much of it but it might have to do with the ADSR envelope (Attack time, Decay time, Sustain level, Release time)?
In order to learn my part I need clear orientation of all the voices which means quite a sharp "start" and "stop" of each played note. At least in the beginning of the learning curve of a certain piece.
The human-voice-instruments too much flow into one another in my opinion.

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• Jun 22, 2013 - 19:15

FluidR3_GM.sf3, so really *.sf3?
I got the *.sf2-version already.

By *.sf3 do you mean the one from this source: http://musescore.org/en/node/8027

But when I download and decompress it, it is still *.sf2 ...

I have tried the 'old' sf2-version and yes, it is good, better to some part to the GeneralUser font. However, Contrabass does not work to a great part of the notes and where it works the sound quality is poor compared to GeneralUser GS MuseScore v1.44.sf2 (here called doublebass).

You can easily try that on the file I attached in one of my earlier posts: all the bass parts.

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