Playback issues
I have so many issues with MS4 playback that I hardly know where to start, so I thought I would list all of these in one forum topic.
I am quite happy instead to submit these one by one (as you know I take great care to provide evidence when possible) but I thought it would give you a glimpse of how difficult it is for me to work with MS4 and Musesounds.
Here we go:
1) When I’ve selected a playback loop, and play through a few times , and then decide to alter the speed and / or change the start or finish of the playback using the playback buttons, the score often randomly jumps to another place.
2) Playback at a reduced speed sometimes reduces the volume altogether.
3) Clicking on individual notes (these are all choral sounds) with Muse Sounds activated, produces very loud playback and occasionally crackle.
4) Voices played back at anything at or exceeding a volume of “f” produces a coarse sound so I cannot use f or ff anywhere..
5) Playback often goes back to the beginning, no matter what key is used to end the previous playback.
6) Playback of sopranos always swells too much on high notes. Occasionally other parts too.
7) Ritenuto with the extended duration (manipulated via the properties mechanism) has unpredictable results on playback – sometimes hesitates towards the end of the duration.
8) Altering the playback back to 100% after a period of slower playback plays the section (sometimes a different section altogether!) at much reduced speed. While this is happening the displayed progress is of a completely unrelated part of the music.
9) The space bar should stop or start a playback, but quite often goes to sleep.
10) When playback mode has been finished, pressing the playback start arrow does not move the display of the score to the start of the score, as it used to on MS 3
I thought this would give you a flavour. As I say, I could submit these as individual topics, but you may be able to shed light on one or two of them so I can reduce the list down a bit before doing that.
It begs the question, was MS 4 playback tested sufficiently before release?
Comments
I certainly agree that there are problems with MU4. But most of the things on your list don't seem to be among them. At least on my system. That doesn't mean they aren't real. Just that we need to figure out why they are happening to you.
1. I'm not totally sure what "change the start or finish of the playback using the playback buttons," means. I created a loop and selected different starting points in the loop and it worked. No problem changing tempo. The only problem was when I selected a measure in the loop (instead of a note) then playback started at that measure and continued past the end of the loop. Hard to call that a bug because selecting a measure might just override the loop.
2. Not on my system.
3. Not on my system.
4. If you mean choral voices, I do have to turn their faders way up. But no distortion at f or ff.
5. Not on my system.
6. I haven't noticed this. But I will try to pay more attention. There are some instruments that do this a little.
7. Haven't had this occur yet.
8. No opinion. I seldom alter speed as in you example.
9. Always works for me. Now that I think about it, it always works on my own scores. But perhaps not always on scores from other users on the forum. Not sure, but interesting.
10. True. But is that really that much of a problem? I'm not trying to gloss over this.
In reply to I certainly agree that there… by bobjp
Thanks for taking the time to look at these.
1. I should say this happens particularly when I change speed.
2. You'll have to take my word for it.
3. Definitely so.
4. Definitely happens with me. Faders?
5. Already reported as a known bug. Really annoying, because I then have to find where I was in the score.
6. Probably the same as no. 4, it requires turning the volume down.
7. Not important, can live with it.
8. Often altering speed so that I can hear the harmonies clearly (I'm no genius). It goes wrong frequently. The only way to recover from this is to save and reload the score.
9. I was so sure this happened so I just loaded my score up and tried again - straightaway the space bar didn't stop the playback running!
10. To get back to the start of the score I hit Find and 1, but the start button always used to work in MS3 if there wasn't a loop selected, it just went back to the start. What caps this is that the Find button is slow to respond and sometimes seems to get locked up altogether. (another bug)
All these are a nuisance for me because I use playback an awful lot. Perhaps I shouldn't!!
I think that if you work with playbacks for a while you'll discover these strange things - some of them don't happen all the time. That's why it is so difficult to provide proof.
Many thanks.
In reply to Thanks for taking the time… by Ali Wood
I'm not discounting that these things happen to you. I use MU4 for composition. So I work with playback every day. I don't need nor use the loop function. If I need to temporarily change the tempo I don't use the slider. #5 may be a know bug, but in the time I've used MU4 (since before it was released) I've never had that happen.
Space bar works. I assume your keyboard is OK. Sounds funny I know. But I had to replace my old laptop because the keyboard, and the spacebar in particular, started acting up.
Open the mixer. Those columns with all the numbers are called Faders. They increase or decrease the volume of their channel.
True, when I hit the rewind button the view does not go back to the beginning. But if you then hit play, playback starts at the beginning.
In general, listing a bunch of unrelated things in one post is not a good idea - it makes it almost impossible to follow the discussion. Please open separate posts for separate questions, and be sure to attach sample scores and precise steps to reproduce the problem in each case. Maybe focus on the ones that are the most significant to you, and also the ones that are the most clear how to reproduce (may of these seem like things you might not know how to reproduce).
The only one of these that seems sufficiently clear from your brief description here is 10. That's probably just a matter of you not waiting long enough after playback stops - there is an extra three seconds or so for the final reverb and other decay (like crash cymbals) to subside.
As for testing, there were indeed months of beta testing I can't recall how actively you participated in that.
In reply to In general, listing a bunch… by Marc Sabatella
Number 10 deals with the view not returning to the start of the score after pushing the rewind button. Either in the middle of the score, or at the end. No matter how long you wait.
In reply to Number 10 deals with the… by bobjp
Rewind is not about the view, only about the playback. So if that's what was meant, then a simple misunderstanding. But I'm guessing it was actually what I said - simply not waiting long enough.
In reply to In general, listing a bunch… by Marc Sabatella
On the contrary, I had a specific reason for listing them all, to try to give a picture of my general frustration with the instability of the playback, and am quite happy for them to be treated separately - only I have raised some of these individually before and no-one has been able to make progress with them, partly, as you say, because they are difficult to reproduce constantly. EG the random repositioning of the playback start and finish when speed has been changed.
As for contributing to beta testing, I'd have had no objection at all to doing that if I'd been aware of such an opportunity - so I think your comment was a little hard. In general MS 4 seems to be fairly stable and I have few issues outside playback.
In reply to On the contrary, I had a… by Ali Wood
If your goal is to express your frustration, OK, fine then, mission accomplished.
If you're looking for actual assistance, though, please do what we ask so we can understand and assist better.
As for the alpha and beta testing, it was announced discussed here extensively through 2022 leading up to the original release in December; sorry you missed all of that. But my comments were not intended to be "hard". On the other hand, your comments suggesting that there wasn't enough testing - and in turn implying that testing of open source software like MuseScore is someone else's job other than the user community - those could be seen as kind of harsh.
In reply to If your goal is to express… by Marc Sabatella
OK Issue number 10...
As I said I'd be happy to open this as a separate thread, or revisit it if it is already raised. I've been playing around with this and the fact of the playback start button not going back to the beginning seems fairly clear cut, doesn't it? No matter how long one waits.
The subsequent use of the Find button (which seems the only other way to get back to the start) is a less clear cut issue, and I think what I'm really saying is that the Find bar sometimes works but sometimes gets "cursor focus" and it becomes impossible to type over it. I could try to explain In a separate thread the exact sequence of events, which I will endeavour to do, if you think that is valuable.
In reply to OK Issue number 10... As I… by Ali Wood
If you mean the rewind button, that resets the playback, not the score view. That's by design. To move the score view to the beginning, simply press the Home key on your keyboard. Or to also select the first element of the score - and thus move the playback position, use Ctrl+Home. These are the same keys you'd use in a word processor or pretty much any program. For keyboards that lack physical Home keys, Fn+Left normally does the job - again, not just in MuseScore, but in any computer program, any operating system.
In reply to If you mean the rewind… by Marc Sabatella
OK. but if one is constantly using the playback feature then, when a loop is deselected, one would expect the rewind button to cause the view to go back to the start of the score, and when a loop is selected , for the view to back to the start of the loop. It used to in MS3. It may seem nitpicky, but it is perhaps better for the score to position to the beginning of the score (or start of playback) before the playback is started, so you are looking at the right part of the score.
In reply to OK. but if one is constantly… by Ali Wood
It's not by any means a given that every time you change the playback position you also want to change the view, any more than the reverse is true. It's a feature that MuseScore allows you to control these two very different things independently, via two separate commands. And it's a feature that for the times when you happen to want to set them both at once, there is yet another command to do both. So everyone gets what they want, you just need to use the proper tool for the job. If you want to reset playback position only, use the reward button If you want to reset view only, use Home. And if you want to do both at once for whatever reason, use Ctrl+Home.
In reply to It's not by any means a… by Marc Sabatella
I wasn't aware of the difference between these two alternatives. Thanks
In reply to If your goal is to express… by Marc Sabatella
As far as my comments on testing are concerned, I obviously don't understand who does what. I assumed there was a team that codes the software, that isn't the same as the user community. Is this mistaken? Also that there's a core testing team which is separate from the user community, even if the user community contribute?
In reply to As far as my comments on… by Ali Wood
MuseScore is open source. That means all users are welcome and encouraged to participate in the development, testing, documentation, and support of the software. That's true of pretty much all open source software.
In the case of MuseScore specifically, there does happen to also be a small team of paid developers as well. They do a lot of work and help determine the overall direction of the project, and we're all very grateful for their contributions to the project. But the vast majority of testing has always been from users, There is no way a small handful of people can possibly catch all the sorts of things that millions of users will.