Staff Text Options for Organ and new midi
Can we please have at least a few selections for different registration on organ so that it doesn’t always sound the same.
Suggestions-
Flute Chorus: We could have an 8’ stopped flute and a 4’ open flute or just the 8 foot flute.
Strings: we could have an 8’ Viola da gamba and Celeste that goes with it like a vox Celeste with an 8’ gamba or something like that. Probably no Celeste for the pedal so probably like an 8’ gedackt and an 8’ gamba.
Principal Chorus: Principal 8’ and octave 4’.
Reeds: Trumpet and krumhorn 8’.
You could combine them together or mix them if you wanted and the default would be the principal chorus. Just an idea.
Comments
+1
Yes please!!
The fact that all the available organ soundfonts in MuseScore are basically different "full organ" sounds betrays a basic lack of understanding about the instrument on the part of the folks who design and program this software. "Full organ" is what you get when you "pull out all the stops" -- something organists do, I'd say, less than 5% of the time. Most of the time the organ is played using combinations like those Mr. Crisman suggests, and it surprises me that the designers and developers of software as sophisticated as MuseScore have not yet grasped that fact!
I would add to Mr. Crisman's suggestions:
a plenum (16, 8, 4, and 2-foot principals, plus a mixture)
a cornet (8, 4, and 2' principals, Nazard, Tierce)
a reed chorus (trumpets or similar stops at 16-, 8-, and 4-foot pitch)
full swell (preferably with a French Romantic quality! )
and at least one useful solo stop like an English Horn or clarinet, with tremulant.
In reply to Yes please!! The fact that… by doc867qu
Sorry, but even Sibelius, which is far more "sophisticated" than MuseScore, doesn't have a full range of stops. Much less a Swell. The short sighted developers made it easy to add vst's and sf2 and sf3 fonts for organ and other sounds. It is standard to be able to do so.
In reply to Sorry, but even Sibelius,… by bobjp
Noteperformer with Sibelius does.
In reply to Note performer with Sibelius… by Asher S.
Yes - interesting model: you can combine stops on its little organ by using binary arithmetic. For each organ division, you compute an aggregate CC (control change?) value by adding each required stop's special value - each one has a value which is a power of 2.
Unfortunately, Marc Sabatella has confirmed that Note Performer doesn't work with MuseScore.
I've been playing with a set of stops that David Back set up as a 'Universal Organ' aligned with his eplayOrgan project. He mentions MuseScore on his page: https://midimusic.github.io/tech/eplayOrgan.html
MuseScore 4 has a slightly improved way to access the SF2, but I'm currently getting the wrong timbre in that version. In any case, whether using MuseScore 3 or MuseScore 4, there are identification hurdles that I've started to outline in my response to Asher S. above.
I'll probably re-cast this as a separate post if I don't see a related proposal somewhere.
In reply to Sorry, but even Sibelius,… by bobjp
Perhaps you intended to reference foresight? The developers had the foresight to permit sound fonts and VST as an open way to extend the sound world. In that way, they can concentrate on the tasks before them. I guess, in that sense, they need to focus appropriately on the near field. "Short sighted" usually has a negative connotation when applied to planning, which I think you didn't intend.
I do believe, however, that we need an improved way of relating these timbres to what's on the score in MuseScore. That's why I searched for "organ" in this forum and got this thread. I'll make a new post myself if I don't find the proposal already registered. Briefly, an organ is a multi-timbral instrument, so to hear it through MuseScore you're potentially settting up an alternative orchestral score. MuseScore requires you to map your instrument list to its set of standard instruments. That way, it can set up appropriate staff properties and pitch range advice, etc. But it also assumes a 1:1 relationship to an instrumental timbre. That's not how organs work: they have their own multi-timbral world. To realise this sonically in MuseScore, you need an orchestral-sized score. You can add a host of 'organs' (or some other wide-scoped instrument) and then use the score properties to identify the stop you've created it for, and to which you've assigned a sound font. To read this score as an organist, you will need a 'score reduction'. A lot of work - I'm not sure how far Implode will help with this.
If you want to go direct to writing a 2- or 3-stave organ part, you'll find that the 'change instrument' technique fails. MuseScore presents you with a selection of its standard instrument world, instead of the named identities that you've set up on the score to represent your alternative 'instruments' - the timbres (stop names) of your organ.
In reply to Perhaps you intended to… by davidpowellau1
There's quite a history to this topic. I did find a conversation where the poster reported that the change instrument text dialogue can be ignored and allow a timbre change all the same at that point via the mixer. Marc Sabatella agreed with that workaround, along with other techniques. I've lost the reference now. Just regretting labouring you with so much text. (I need to add that it's still not working for me, though.)