Sound Static and Distortion
Hi Everyone,
I know this topic has been addressed before, but I haven't been able to find a solution. Up until today I had no problems with playback on my scores. Then I opened one this evening to play it and found the sound was fuzzy and had lots of static. It seems like it's playing very loud or something. I did try to adjust the volume in the synthesizer but it doesn't help.
My computer volume plays everything else in a normal way, including the MP3 files I made with MuseScore. I am using Windows 8.1. The soundfont is the standard General sf.3. I haven't changed any other settings in the synthesizer. I have tried other soundfonts like Timbres of Heaven and they sound distorted as well.
I upgraded to the latest version but it didn't make any difference. I also put the program back to factory settings without any change. Is there a fix for this? Should I re-install MuseScore? I would very much appreciate any help. There are a number or scores I would like to work with but can't with the present problem.
Thanks.
David
Comments
Turn down the volume in Synthesizer, there you can also what the VU meter, check whether it goes up into the high red area
In reply to Turndown the volume in… by Jojo-Schmitz
Hi Jojo-Schmitz,
Thanks for your very prompt reply. I have turned down the volume to about half-way up the scale in the synthesizer. I see that also lowers the Play Panel volume as well. But I notice that on the color graph the actual sound is up near the yellow area (-20 db) even though the slider is only half way up. This is an SATB piece and I have the mixer volumes on all voices up halfway as I usually do. Even at halfway up in the synthesizer panel the voices sound distorted and I can't hear them very well at all. The sound export to MP3 is distorted as well.
Thanks very much for your help. I did try to look through the manual for an answer but I'm still learning the basics. Such a great program.
David
In reply to Hi Jojo-Schmitz,… by notescribe
If the meter gets up high into the red area, there will be clipping and distortion. I have set my synth to 40dB and don't have them, the meter does get into the lower red area
In reply to If the meter gets up high… by Jojo-Schmitz
Hi,
Thanks for your reply. I put the synth at 40 dB but that makes the volume far too low. If I do that, I can only bring the audio on the computer to a certain level. In any event, when I play back my score with the setting on 40dB the synth range is still very high. I get a kind of buzz and distortion on the playback. Please see attached image file on the synth. Do the settings need to be changed?
Thanks for your help.
David
In reply to Hi,… by notescribe
Hi,
What I've tried to do is to adjust the volume for the volume controls in Windows, that is the speakers and the volume assigned to the MuseScore program. I've also tried closing out of other programs to give MuseScore the fullest memory allocation possible. It may have made a difference but I'm not really sure. BTW, the volume for the exported MP3 is quite a bit louder than the native program audio.
I've also tried processing the audio files with Audacity and was wondering if anyone else has tried this approach. You can normalize the wave pattern to a more acceptable dB range but there may be other fixes I don't know about yet.
Thanks.
David
I realize this is an old thread, but I found it when searching for an answer to the same (or similar) problem. In case it is helpful to anyone else, here is what I experienced and what turned out to be the solution for me:
I started up a fresh installation of MuseScore on a new computer, set up the directories to match what I have used in the past, and pulled up a recent score. So far so good ... but when I clicked on the play button, the piano sound was horrible - very static-y and distorted, and with a strange delay, so that I re-heard the distorted notes, more softly, a half-second or so after clicking stop. I tried changing from piano to violin, but though the instrument changed accordingly, the same distortion affected it.
After seeing this thread, I decided to check the synthesizer settings. I clicked on View/Synthesizer to bring up the Synthesizer window. The master volume was set to 40, same as for the OP above, and the soundfont was set to Musescore_General.sf3. But when I clicked on the Master Effects tab, I saw that somehow I had an effect set, one which was introducing lots of reverb. I turned off this effect, and saved "no effects" as the default and to the score. Voila! Now the sound is clear.
In reply to I realize this is an old… by awakephd
Thanks very much for this reply! Old problems still remain problems for many of us. What settings did you actually change? Attached is the default Synthesizer settings for my program. I know this is MuseScore 2 but I've found that MuseScore 3 doesn't show much of an improvement. The piano is still distorted.
Another problem, not directly related to MuseScore, is that when I use Camstasia to do a video capture of piano scores the result is even more distorted with a great deal of reverb and a muffled sound. Other instruments render much better for some reason. Also, changing sound fonts doesn't seem to help much. And synching a better quality audio to the video can be difficult.
Thanks again for replying to this issue.
David