Sound Fonts (new user question)

• Mar 20, 2010 - 13:29

Hi, all. I'm a new user, working with 0.9.5 on a Win Vista laptop. I'm finding my way around all the basics pretty well. I've got the Fluid Soundfont installed and I've learned to switch channels when I want to (eg, from strings to pizzicato strings in my Violin1 section). It works just like the documentation said. My only issue is, for the piece I'm writing I have short passages where I want to switch from a whole section of violins to a solo violin, then bring the section back in, and I'd like to do this without creating a whole solo part because the passages really are short. However, while there are options for switching to pizzicato and tremolo channels, there is no option to switch to a single voice and back.

So, my question is this: Are there other soundfonts that have the option I'm looking for? Where would I find other soundfonts outside of those mentioned in teh documentation? Or alternatively, is there a simple way to edit a soundfont that would let me add a "solo" channel to the Violin part?

I hope this makes sense. Thanks in advance for your help.

Comments

David Bolton

• Mar 20, 2010 - 16:21

The ability to switch instruments mid-staff is feature that is not yet implemented in MuseScore. However you can change the sound mid-staff with a little bit of tweaking.

Go to your MuseScore program folder and look for templates\instruments.xml and open the file with a good text editor such as Notepad . Look for the "violins" instruments (near the end of the file) and add a channel for "solo" violin.

After you add the "solo" channel It will look something like this:

     <instrument>
        <name>Violins 1</name>
        <short-name>Vlns. 1</short-name>
        <clef>0</clef>
        <aPitchRange>55-88</aPitchRange>
        <pPitchRange>55-103</pPitchRange>
        <channel>
          <program value="48"/>
           </channel>
        <channel name="pizzicato">
          <program value="45"/>
          </channel>
        <channel name="tremolo">
          <program value="44"/>
          </channel>
        <channel name="solo">
          <program value="40"/>
          </channel>
        </instrument>

Now when you create a new score for Violins 1 you can access the "solo" option just as you would for pizzicato or tremolo.

MDMilford

• Mar 20, 2010 - 19:25

Will this only work for the violin and trumpet? or can you add channels to other instruments as well? I tried adding a channel to change the piano to bright piano and nothing I do to the xml file seems to have any affect. I even tried deleting whole instruments and they still show up in the "create instruments" dialog. Does this not work the way I think it should?

lauraw

• Mar 20, 2010 - 20:23

It worked! I did have to go to the edit/preferences menu and make sure that the path to the instrument list was to the file you specified. It looks like it was originally directed to somewhere called data/insturments.xml. One I redirected, however, the new channel showed up, just as you said. I was able to add solo options to the other strings, as well. This is exactly what I needed! Thanks so much for the help.

MDMilford

• Mar 20, 2010 - 21:28

I tried the above and I still can't get it to work, even on violins. using R2887

David Bolton

• Mar 21, 2010 - 04:30

lauraw, Sorry, I forgot about Edit > Preferences. One thing to keep in mind is the instrument.xml file gets updated whenever you upgrade. To make sure you don't loose your changes be sure to rename to sometime else (like "instruments_modified.xml")

MDMilford, The channel setting allows you to change the sound mid-staff. See the instructions in the handbook on how to access this: Change and adjust sounds . If you just want to add a Bright Piano to the instruments list just copy and paste the current piano from "..." to "..." and change only the name and program number (for the first channel)/

MDMilford

• Mar 22, 2010 - 07:58

Well I do try to review the handbook every now and then when it changes. I tried all of that but still no dice. Previously I've had problems with my computer remembering things I don't want it to, though. Maybe this is just another instance of that. So theoretically, there should be no reason why I shouldn't be able to add a "bright" channel to the piano, just like was done with the violin. That answers my question. Could default velocity and other properties be changed like this too?
My idea was to see how close I could get to the sound of the piano with the una corda pedal by switching to bright piano (I'm guessing this means more upper partials) and reducing standard velocity to 70/80%. Just for experiment.