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Temporary Instrument Swap
I haven't had MuseScore for too long, but for some reason, I've caught on well, but I have been having this problem for a while now and I decided to take it to MuseScore.com for help.
You see, I have a certain 7-and-a-half-minute long song with a sad part in the middle. That sad part has a trumpet solo. I felt like the solo needed something, so I played around with the instrumentation for a bit and I realized that the solo would sound best as a flugelhorn solo. Problem solved, right? No. Now I have this extra staff that has 45 seconds of playtime.
With that said, the question is: How can I temporarily change one instrument into another without adding/subtracting staffs, all mid-song? I know it might be complicated to code, but this is something I feel should be an option.
Comments (8)
This is being implemented in 2.0, I believe.
@iHasCheese that's correct
I totally agree. I would love to add occias to my songs, but th current method is too complicated.
Also, this isn't exactly a topic for Improving MuseScore.com. If you want to make a suggestion for the MuseScore application, it's best to post it directly to MuseScore.org.
Right - please use the musescore.org forums for questions about using MuseScore.
But since this thread is started, I would like to point out that 1.X already allows what you want. Simply create the staff for the flugelhorn, leave it empty for most of the song, then turn on the Hide Empty Staves option under styles / edit general style.
Now that I think about it, you could also use a violin or a trumpet and change the sounds in the mixer, using the Staff Text whatchamacallit to change instruments (using normal, pizzicato, and tremolo; or normal and mute on trumpet). I do this all the time.
Yeah I tried that, but it changes the sound of the instrument for the whole song. Thankfully, Marc Sabatella provided a good solution.
So, in real life, that certain solo sounds better as a flugelhorn, but in MuseScore, the flugel sounds exactly the same as a trumpet. Why is that? They have different tones, so it should be like this in MuseScore, but it's not.
Again, better to ask support questions on the forums on musescore.org. But the answer is, the soundfont that comes pre-installed with MuseScore uses the General MIDI standard to define the various instruments available, and General MIDI doesn't define a flugelhorn. So MuseScore substitutes a trumpet. In the Handbook that comes with MuseScore (or that can be found on musecore.org) , there are instructions on installing different soundfonts, so if you can find one that includes a flugelhorn, you could try installing that.