Percussion playback has odd clicking
Hi all.
Before I ask my question, I want to give a little background so you know where I'm coming from.
1. I use a better soundfont than the one built in (I use Fluid R3)
2. It is indeed gone in the Musescore 2.0 nightlies.
That being said, the nightlies are not stable enough to become my daily drivers just yet. Truth is, I now own an academic copy of Sibelius 7 and It has spoiled me :P but the academic license doesn't allow me to use it for some of my more business-oriented projects, so I still rely on Ol' Faithful (Musescore 1.3) to get the job done.
The percussion instruments don't all have this clicking. It is only, as far as I can tell, the bass drum and the wood blocks. This also depends on the preset I use too (the orchestral bass doesn't click at all). The clicking happens after the sound has played as the reverb ends, and it just sounds sort of gross in the grand scheme of things. I often use MuseScore 2.0 to render the audio when I need the clicking gone, but that is more of a workaround than a fix.
I figure it's gotta be something to do with the reverb settings in the mixer and the synthesizer, but as much as I've tried to fiddle with these settings and eliminate the clicking it still persists. Most will probably know exactly what I'm talking about since it seems like a fairly persistent and audible problem.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
- techlover10
Comments
You maybe encountering this?: #14683: [1.1] Auto-muting after notes is too aggressive
The customised Fluid synth engine in 1.3 has a problem in that the gating is audible if the sample playing is silent during part of the sustain phase of the amplitude envelope, and this is what you are hearing. It is also very often apparent at the end of a piece where the gate slams shut before the reverb tail has finished.
This has already been fixed in 2.0, and there are unlikely to be any further bugfix releases of MuseScore 1.
I must say I am surprised you are even attempting to render audio in MuseScore. The degree of control available is sadly lacking unless you use Peter Schaffter's technique of using JACK to route MuseScore's output to LinuxSampler. Even then there isn't the degree of dynamic control you would have in a sequencer.
Personally I would write the score in MuseScore then save as a MIDI file for loading into a sequencer - I use the proprietary Cakewalk Sonar, but there are free and open source versions around.
HTH
Michael
In reply to The customised Fluid synth by ChurchOrganist
Actually, it's just what I'm used to and the output's good enough for my purposes usually. I have tried using SynthFont to render, it's just more complicated and I prefer when the rendering is integrated into my whole writing process. I was more or less aware of what causes the issue, I was just wondering if there's some reverb setting such that the gating is no longer audible or some sort of plugin. I figure there will be no more bugfixes, but 2.0 is just not stable enough for me to use just yet. I have kept up with the nightlies but it just doesn't seem to have the features I need (Recently, one of the changes starting in May rendered my Instruments.xml file which includes drumline completely useless!) .
In reply to Actually, it's just what I'm by techlover10
Something to consider then would be to create your score in 1.3, then try to open in 2.0 just for the playback if I aim to actually create an audio file. I find most 1.3 scores open and playback in 2.0 just fine, and it's quite nice to be able to create MP3 directly now for upload purposes. Not sure how viable that is with customized instruments.xml, though.
In reply to Something to consider then by Marc Sabatella
That has worked okay for me in the past but it's kind of an unpleasant workaround so I'm still looking for other solutions. Currently, the nightlies do not read dynamics written in Musescore 1.3 and moving them to 2.0 requires me to rewrite each dynamic in 2.0 which is a time-consuming process.
In reply to Actually, it's just what I'm by techlover10
I think you'll find that the latest nightly will address your drumline problem.
The latest version of Instuments.xml has a Marching Percussion section and there is a release of Mike Scorsh's soundfont additions to be downloaded from the Soundfonts forum for use with the marching percussion section.
HTH
Michael
In reply to I think you'll find that the by ChurchOrganist
I have actually created my own drumline soundfont using sounds found here http://www.gearslutz.com/board/rap-hip-hop-engineering-production/13432… and Mike's xml file but in the latest nightly that I have (June) I can only access Flutes and Marching percussion on the new score wizard. Old scores work fine but the one I'm currently working on is so slow in Musescore 2.0 that I can't use it. I tried the latest nightly, it crashes on startup with a runtime error.
Update: I managed to get one of the July nightlies working better and although I cannot access the drumline stuff I don't need that anymore for what I use MuseScore for; it seems that the built in Instruments.xml is the only one that properly shows all instruments but that is fine for my purposes. However, I still don't know if this will be stable enough for me to work with on a regular basis. Thanks for the advice though!
In reply to I have actually created my by techlover10
Great! Would you be willing to share that with the rest of the MuseScore community?
Unfortunately there has been a change in file structure for templates recently. Consequently all existing templates are having to be re-written from scratch in 2.0
We're currently on hold with that until Werner gives the all clear on any further file format changes, which I hope will happen soon after the dust has settled from the move to QT5.
As you are writing for drumline it would be most helpful if you would cast your eye over the provision to make sure it is OK.
In reply to Great! Would you be willing by ChurchOrganist
Wow, that would explain the weirdness and issues with the XML. And I'd really love to share the soundfont, but I don't actually know where those sounds came from so I don't know the licensing rights on that and whether I can share those in my own derivative work. I only use those sounds for personal projects and examples, and I emailed the guy who posted those asking about rights but he never responded.
In reply to Wow, that would explain the by techlover10
Yeah - I've just had a look at the link and from the posts they could very well be commercial samples.