Turn off lead sheet style with chord symbols harmony in the Mixer?

• Mar 13, 2021 - 13:32

I wrote something and to help me I put in some chord symbols in some bars. At one point these were associated with a piano instrument. If I listen to the output and mute the piano in the mixer I can hear everything else up to the point where the player sees a chord symbol, whereupon a piano reappears.

Is there a way to toggle or suppress this? If there is, I need help as I've not found how to do it yet, otherwise I'd request this as a feature.


Comments

In reply to by dave2020X

There is also a channel in the mixer in the mixer dedicated to the chord symbol.
Using it allows you to change the instrument, or its volume, or just mute it.
I have found that setting the chord channel to acoustic bass at a rather low volume allows to hear the chords in the least disturbing way (subjective personal choice)

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

You are right about that - I hadn't read down to part 4 of the relevant manual section - though the snag with that (for some people) is that it leaves the "play" feature off for all selected chord symbols until reset. It's then not obvious which chords will actually produce audible output. As a short quick fix it's fine - maybe there should be a visual clue as to which of the chord symbols are actually going to sound.

I may adopt that method, though a global toggle might be easier to manage.

In reply to by dave2020X

As you say, different people have different needs, and even a single person has different needs at different times. That's why we do provide so many controls here: over a single chord, over all chords for a single mixer channel, over all chords in the current score, over all older scores, and over all new scores. Simply use the control that best meets more needs. I'm not really the need for yet more controls here, it's already quite the explosion of options!

As for a visual clue as to which chords will sound, that's already there - the Play checkbox in the Inspector. Same as for notes, same as for dynamics, same as for articulations, same as for ornaments, etc.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Until recently I only used the Inspector occasionally. I don't know about many other users, but my guess is that a fair number won't go there unless they really feel a need to. Knowing that there's a checkbox in a tool which many might not even think of using is not quite the same as having some other visual cue which would be more obvious on the score or the Mixer.

In reply to by dave2020X

So, use the Mixer, that's your right if it happens to be more convenient for you personally. But for the record, I will bet far more users know about and use the Inspector than the Mixer. After all, the Inspector is used for tons and tons of things, but the Mixer is only used for playback controls. And.the Inspector is right there when you first start MuseScore; the Mixer you only find out about later if you read the Handbook or start exploring beyond the defaults.

But I don't see the value in creating yet more confusion by adding yet more controls in addition to the many already present.

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

To the extent that some future MuseScore 4.x release might include a "sequencer" mode that includes some ability to mute and solo tracks directly from the score view, now that is a place I can totally see a toggle button, basically just a more visible way of accessing the mixer channel control.

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