How to assign sounds to noteheads - Drumline
Greetings everybody,
I am having a problem. I write for high school drumlines and when writing a unison part for tonal bass drums I find myself having to write in each drum separately. Doing this slows me down and takes away from my creative process. I am trying to use the "slash" note head in the middle of the staff, that when used makes the sound of all the bass drums together. I am also trying to use the "x" note head to make a unison rim click sound in the same fashion.
For tenor drums, I am trying to create an "x" note head for drums 1-4 plus the spock, that carries the same sound as a regular stroke would on each of the drums. I intend to use this to write in "crossovers".
How do I do this?
Thank you in advance for your help,
Richard Gross, MBA
Comments
See https://musescore.org/en/handbook/drum-notation-0#drumset
In reply to See by Jojo-Schmitz
That tells me how to change the note heads of sounds that are already there. I'm trying to group all the sounds to play on one new note when selected. How do I do so?
In reply to That tells me how to change by richgross
If I understand correctly, you want one note to play several sounds at once? I don't think there is a direct way to do that. You could define each of those sounds to display the same way, then enter all those notes together as a single chord. Or add a chord consisting of all the sounds but hide all note heads but the one you want.
In reply to If I understand correctly, by Marc Sabatella
Yes, that is exactly what I want to do. With the first option you mentioned, that's cool except what about when I want that particular drum to play individually with a normal note head (splits)? Wouldn't those sounds be taken up? I guess a solution to that problem would be to add a sound to a number and note in the edit drumset pane. How would I go about doing that? I do apologize if I am being frustrating.
In reply to Yes, that is exactly what I by richgross
You are right about the limitation of the first approach. Really, the *right* solution is to find a soundfont that has the combined sound already available a single pitch. Editing a soundfont yourself is possible but I've never done it; you'd have to do a search to find information on available soundfont editors.
So for now, probably the second workaround makes more sense. Another possibility: add another staff for playback purposes only, add the notes, and mark the staff invisible in Edit / Instruments.
Or just don't worry about the playback - keep in mind MuseScore is primarily for notation, with playback secondary. It's not the end of the world if the automatic playback isn't right for this one particular notation.
In reply to You are right about the by Marc Sabatella
Ok. You're right about the usage of the software, but I guess this issue would be something to bring up in the suggestions thread; a need for an easier way to edit a soundfont.
Thank you for your help.
In reply to Ok. You're right about the by richgross
Polyphone is as easy as it gets: http://polyphone.fr/
In reply to Polyphone is as easy as it by Isaac Weiss
Ok. I've downloaded the software. How do I do what I've mentioned above?
Could you give a step-by-step if you don't mind?
In reply to Ok. I've downloaded the by richgross
To combine the sounds of the multiple bass drums into one "instrument" for use with MuseScore:
1. Open your given SoundFont in Polyphone.
2. Secondary-click "Instruments," choose "New instrument…" Enter a title (say "New Drums").
3. Secondary-click "Presets," "New preset…" enter title).
4. Under "Samples," find the drum sounds that you want to combine. Right-click each individually, choose "Bind to…", and select your "New Drums."
5. Under "Instruments," find your "New Drums" instrument, right-click, "Bind to…", select "New Drums" preset.
6. Export your new SoundFont!
In reply to To combine the sounds of the by Isaac Weiss
Thank you Zack! I tried to follow your recommendations and it works.
But I have a bit different task than richgross.
I work with church bells and want to write score as "one note = one bell". Then I should tune score for real sound. If one bell=one tone it's simple - I have written plugin which tune score perfecty, but if we look at reality where one bell is a chord (especially for Orthodox - look sample image for 13 historic bells), I suppose I need to produce samples and soundfonts.
Let's imagine that in my score the third bell from sample image is E4. So I need to create, say, "hist-bells" instrument and preset in which to set E4-E4 range as group of notes (tones) of tubular bells (or other) sample.
For now I have not idea how to do that.
Can you give me some advice?