Comparison: MS4 with Muse Sounds Nylon Guitar vs. MS3 export with NI Picked Nylon

Muse Sounds’ Nylon Guitar sounds quite good to me, but not from scratch. Tailoring the overall EQ yields a more natural sound, and could make a nice default.

And for some reason Muse Sounds favors an "overplayed guitar" effect that’s “fret-buzz forward” … and curiously it occurs at medium velocities.

——————————

Because the sound is generally good it would be great to see other issues addressed.

Other issues are the sonic artifacts audible throughout this recording of St. James Infirmary Blues:

    • there’s a few distant “ping-pong balls” randomly scattered throughout.
      The first heard at about 0:05, more at 0:13, 0:21, 0:29, 0:45 & 0:46? ...
    • some quiet swooshing
    • most jarring: there’s lots of random amplitude spikes that make some notes sound as if played at velocity 84 when actually all notes are set at the default 64.

Now by default, as of MS4.4.1—for imported MS3.x for scores that include Offset type velocity values throughout—MS4.4.1 silently converts all Offset velocities to User velocities and sets the velocity value = 64.

The score imported to MS4 is the very same MS3 score that I used to create the following recording which contains User velocities and a much smoother overall sound. I haven’t checked but User type velocities may be preserved on open, nevertheless MS3 scorists deeply interested in velocity would likely use dynamics as well, and MS3 required Offset type velocities if they were to function in relation to velocities. So any finesse carefully added via Offset velocities is deleted on open without as much as an alert warning the scorist.)

This recording comes from the same MS4.4.1 score except I switched the Sound to Picked Nylon via Kontakt 7. All other setting were untouched. You'll notice a difference in timbre but the real point is that Picked Nylon has none of the spurious spiked note amplitudes. So clearly it's something with Muse Sounds Nylon Guitar

——————————

Here are recordings generated outside of MuseScore via MIDI export and then importing it to a DAW for mastering.

In contrast to the previous audio files, here’s an audio track made from my St. James Infirmary Blues MS3 score, exported to MIDI, and imported to at track in Logic Pro set to Native Instruments’ Picked Nylon, and mastered to including reverb and EQ.

And here's the same St. James Logic Pro project but with bass and percussion enabled.

The process was straight forward:

    • set playback to swing
    • create my guitar arrangement for St. James Infirmary Blues in MuseScore
    • add a tablature staff and set the string assignments
    • Apply intelligent Let Ring durations with the TAB Ring plugin
    • adjust offset velocities for realistic variances in note volume
    • export to MIDI
    • Import to Logic Pro X
    • Set the VST audio to Native Instruments’ Picked Nylon
    • Run some mastering
    • Export to MP3