MuseScore Composers
A fluid group designed to be available for general discussion and score posting.
Recording Music
murazrai - Jul 4, 2012
Since that the music generated by this site or saving score in music formats directly does not sound like what I intended to be, I decided to record the music played when the playing feature in musescore is on. My plan is to get a USB microphone and record sounds using sound recorder that comes with my operating system. Any suggestions?
Comments (11)
Assuming you're on Win7, I would suggest starting out with Audacity for recording.
If you prefer to play everything live, Audacity will do you just fine.
Another way of doing it, especially if you're ok with spending some money, is by using a program like Pro Tools or Ableton Live.
After downloading the midi, I open Ableton Live and import the midi tracks.
Set the midi tracks to a piano (I use standard acoustic piano from ableton).
Add reverb.
Remove velocities from the notes (the velocities applied by musescore are ridiculously exaggerated for this sort of program)
Export.
Wav to mp3 (lots of ways of doing this, but I usually don't bother).
Done.
Takes about 10 minutes, all told. It sounds flat though. If I wanted to take more time with a piece, it would simply be a matter of adjusting velocity, colour, and key release.
Why is this way important? Well... if you plan on doing anything with an instrument you don't have, it's useful.
What instrument will you be performing with?
I think audacity is sufficient for me. By the way, I am using WinVista. I will be performing recorder solos, because I like the instrument a lot. Thank you very much for your advice!
I'm confspused as to what you mean. Saving a WAV file from MuseScore should be identical to what you hear whe you hit play. Also, note you can change soundfonts to get different sounds. For more info, it is better t ask n the forums on musescore.org.
I would suggest that such discussions should be moved to these forums rather than the MuseScore.org forums. The musescore.org forums should perhaps be more technical in nature. This is not such a technical discussion. It will get along fine on either forum, but should we leave these sorts of discussions over at .org or start shifting them here?
Sorry, I'm not sure I understand your confusion with saving as a wav file from MuseScore. That was never mentioned.
Have you chosen a Mic yet? I would also suggest ensuring you are in a fairly large room when you record, especially for a recorder as it is a very 'bright' sound.
The OP was said he wanted to "record the music played when the playing feature in musescore is on". As far as I can tell, that means he want to hit the play button in MuseScore then hit Record in some other program to record what MuseScore is playing. And he said saving in a music for at directly from MuseScore - which I took to mean saving as WAV - was not meeting his expectation. I am observing that there seems to be some confusion, as pressing play in MuseScore then Record in some other program will not result in anything different from simply saving as WAV from MuseScore. Well, actually, the only differences will be that it is more work, takes much longer, and will likely result n a lower quality recording. Nothing about the original post suggested he was talking about recording actual instruments. but a followup did appear to say that. Hence my confusion.
Ah, I think you're completely correct and it was my misunderstanding, and then we ended up both being right.
For exporting sound from MuseScore, mrazrai, you can 'Save As' wav. Be careful as this sometimes results in errors, so check the file. Errors probably do not exist anymore for MuseScore 1.0 +.
The errors exists with some sort of echo and delay between notes, but with some tweaks with the score I can just simply create the .midi file which has no errors and convert it to .mp3 file later on. The main trick is to not using the tempo slider at the play panel, but to create tempo text at the start of the score. Otherwise, the .midi file would play in 120 bpm regardless of the actual tempo of the score. Anyway, thank you for your advices!
If you post a score you are having problems with over on the support forums at musescore.org, perhaps someone will be able to figure out why saving as WAV is not working as you expect.
It's not a score, but all scores that I made have the same exact problem. That, however made me have an reignited interest of playing my own recorder and record them. Of course, practicing takes time and for a real recording I need to play at the same tempo with what my score indicates by looking at the score when I record it.
Speaking of large room, I have only my small house for my home recording and I have a pair of old mic for a DVD player which was broken. I wondered if I can use some sort of cable to make it compatible with USB or a connection to a mic port. Thankfully that the only time I can do this is when my family members are away from the source of sound. Any ideas?
Usually if a mic wasn't made to be a USB mic, you're not going to be able to modify it to make it so (I say usually just in case, but I've never heard of an instance where this has been done).
I'm afraid I can't think of any answers there.
However, USB microphones have gotten much cheaper. Partly, this is because of their use in video games.
For example, this is probably a perfectly capable mic, designed for the Wii (but it'll work in comp): http://chucksaudiovideo.com/product/56184_Logitech-Wii-Vantage-USB-Micro...
Obviously it's not professional stuff, but I bet it'll give you great quality for the price. (note that on Amazon it is marked down from a supposed 30USD to 15USD)
As to the room... a small room might be fine? That's something you'll have to test out. If you can't switch rooms and you find the room echos a bit much or the sound is too 'bright,' you could put carpets (or other sound dampers) on the walls while you play. You're just trying to reduce the resonance a bit and the reflections.
If you are having problems apcnverting all scores to wav, then probably something is wrong with your audio settings MuseScore, and once again, if you post in the support forums, probably someone will be able to help.
As for recording with regular analog mics, no simple cable could possibly convert them to usb since usb is digital, but you can get a usb mixer or similar device that would digitize their signal and output the results as usb, and these can be had for well under $100.