UncleRed99

Oh, well... Too late, I already went and rebalanced the audio. Just came back to post it xD

The way that musehub works best is if you have it set to launch upon startup. it has little to no impact 🙂 Also, the Musehub login is different from the Musescore.com / .org logins I found a solution to it. I'm going to make a second post with an updated video to resolve some balancing/sound issues, and to showcase the reason why that was happening. To give you a summary, apparently I have to apply a soundflag to each part, and set it to "Classic Phrasing" to fix that... Who knew... lol

Let me try something new. I believe the audio issues that you all are hearing with my uploads are stemming from my use of Dolby Atmos, external speakers, and equalized headphones. I don't have a Raw Audio output to proof listen-to after writing music. The Musescore mixer is also notoriously under-monitoring for gain and overload, as in muse mixer, it didn't indicate this at all. It indicated French Horn was much lower than Trumpet, among other inconsistencies

I took the liberty of writing a short composition to test the different capabilities of the new Vienna Brass sounds from Musegroup, in collaboration with Vienna Music Library. My first impression was that the French Horn sounds, all of them, were FAR too quiet. I was forced to add a compression FX to it, cranked up quite high, with a +3.0 Gain just to hear it through the rest of the ensemble. But I think I got the sound dialed in just right here for the video. Figured I'd do everyone a favor and make a quick demonstration and provide my thoughts on it. Overall, I'd give the plugin a 5/10, in it's current state. I know its still new, so updates are likely on their way at some point in the future. Attacks on each instrument, as you'll hear, are a bit odd, and sort of like there's an accent or marcato mark on each note, except not as pronounced? I hope that makes sense.. lol I also noticed that when using Accents, they're either flat out ignored at times, or, they're over accentuated, to the point the instrument plays a "blat" rather than an accented note. Or, at lower dynamic volumes, they will be played as if it was notated "fp" just underneath it? Weird.. However I must say, it's WAY better than my previous experiences purchasing sound packages from MHub. CineBrass from MSounds, and Berlin Brass from MSounds were ABSOLUTE TRAIN WRECKS when I tried them out, a couple months after they released. Buggy as all hail, would randomly pitch bend notes longer than a dotted half note, or just outright play everything completely out of tune. (I have a demo vid somewhere that even shows that issue, I think... Can't recall what I did with that, but all you needa know is that it was HORENDOUS lol... This is a vast improvement that brings me some hope for future additions to the MS Library store. 🙂

Yeah, had issues with that in the past too. I didn't notice it on the initial export. It may have been I never even listened to it... lol But typically exporting as a .WAV then converting it was a good fix for me when it was a major issue.

Oh boy, I didn't realize there was an issue with the previously uploaded audio. Must've been something to do with the MS4 Studio Exporting. I apologize for that! I exported the audio from the MS.com website this time.

I do agree with you on the issue of balancing, and I can also see how the melodic choices I made didn't contribute much toward melodic development. As I said in my response to the initial feedback you gave, I went through with a new friend of mine who was willing to take his free time to instruct me on some of the Music Theory material that I was unfamiliarized with, that related to some of the things he noticed wrong with it, which were much in line with what your critique of it has been so far. So moving forward, I'll be looking to improve upon what you've mentioned, among other things as well. do always appreciate your feedback, and will be using this information to further progress my skill in dabbling with composition. And I do hope that you were able to enjoy this piece, despite the issues with it. I feel that with this one, I at least had some awesome chord modulations 😅 Especially there at the end, modulating back to the original key of F minor, just before the transition from strings harmonies to brass harmonies.

wait! @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu, I noticed you liked that comment while I was editing the post!! If you're taking a look at it, refresh the page first! 🤣

I hope you will consider taking another look at this, whenever you’re able to find the time for it 🙂 I’ve made many improvements to it since. I know that my form / structure is a bit abstract/abnormal. I met a friend on Musescore back when I wrote “The Long arctic midnight suite” in 11/8 time, and he also edited my score “Lamentation” on his own volition. we sat in a discord call for like 5 hours yesterday, analyzing one another’s scores. He’s a composer and is on his way to getting his masters in composition, and he performs as a classical pianist. He gave me some material on Binary and Ternary Form structure, and stated that I’d probably be most interested in Sonata structure.. (all of which I was clueless about until now 😅) He says he thinks this is one of the better compositions I’ve written, based on the modulation, and the chord progressions I’ve used, as well as the complexity in voicings within the chords and the melodic lines. Although, the form could’ve been executed in a way that would’ve been easier to digest. He called this “through composed” mostly, with some returns to a main motif. with this context, I believe what I’ve done, here, could be better understood, in addition to the changes I’ve made. I value your feedback as well as @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu’s feedback in this forum, given how methodical and detail oriented you both tend to be. I’m just looking to improve upon what I already know, learn what I do not know, understand what I have accomplished effectively, and have things to reflect on in regard to what was ineffective or poorly executed. i know I’m just an autodidact who does this as a hobby, but I’m a bit of a perfectionist who’d love to be that outlier independent composer who can write scores that are educated, well executed, and well received by the internal industry audience. 🙂 thank you in advance, Peter !

I didn't do a ton of mixing/mastering of the audio, more or less was focused on the music itself. If you get the chance to follow along, I'd like to hear your thoughts! As I was sure to have a melodic line through the piece, with some of those melodies briefly following the rhythm of the chord progression. I'm sure it would help if I went through to make those parts more pronounced. Thanks for your feedback on that. I'll be sure to make the audio reflect that, and make any changes in the score that might help with exaggerating the melodic lines Edit: I went back thru and listened with a clean slate, and could hear what you're saying. I did a bit poorly when marking dynamics for volume. The Melodic lines are blended with the harmonic lines. I've went through and either doubled / tripled up on the melodic voices, and adjusted dynamics. Going to update the post with that tonight. 🙂

The_Hallowed_Knights_Journey__UncleRed99.pdf The_Hallowed_Knights_Journey__UncleRed99.mp3 https://musescore.com/user/13593191/scores/24695323  

MuseScore doesn't need internet either! Unless you're using a third party sound library like I do. I pay for LABS sounds. They have an offline mode that works for 30 days at the time though, so can still go offline and use it on the go 🙂

Don't mind the out-of-place dynamics, missing parts in percussion, and instrument parts with lots of whole notes. Whole notes are place-holders, dynamics are from Mass-editing for the specific measures that they show up out of place in, and I've added percussion to the main-motif areas of the score, so far. i.e. where it will be most prevalent. with a little bit of it scattered around. UPDATE AGAIN (i'm bad about these im sorry) I've included a PDF + Mp3 for the more recent updates, since doing screen recordings takes forever... lol new untitled.pdf new untitled.mp3

Yes, I could tell musescore to only apply dynamics to the staff they're attached to, however, this would mean going back through the whole piece to add dynamics to both staves of the piano xD But yes, I use only Musescore to write music. Not so familiar with anything else, and the Muse Sound Engine is quite complex as it is. I believe it serves its purpose very well 🙂 Especially since I included the use of Spitfire LABS VST3 sounds on top of muse. I've also heard a lot about sibelius. How is that program? I understand it's a paid software. Muse provides their notation program for free, with a very solid team of devs on Github who are actively listening daily to the users. My old band director and I still talk time to time. He swears by Sibelius. lol Just wondering if it might be worth it to switch but I'm currently enjoying Musescore well enough... Only caveat I've noticed is larger orchestra scores tend to freeze quite frequently when making edits. How does Sib. respond to that?

Yeah, maybe less parts would've been better, or, more suited for a small chamber ensemble rather than a full strings group. Imo, can't really go wrong with having more voices to work with / emphasize emotion with 🙂 But to each their own! That's the beauty of music. And Yea, I may start to do that now. I didn't really think much of it with this one, as the staves' names are mostly a given for anyone who's even a little educated on music composition or reading scores. I also agree with you on the MuseScore functions. However, the video creation function is exclusive to their website, and the score must be uploaded/published to the site first prior to it being able to do that for you. Nevertheless, Muse Group has come a long long way since the day I started using their program, Musescore 2.0, back when I was in high school... Can't believe they're on version 4.5 now, and it's great that there's a very active and alive community of developers on their github who all actively monitor and engage with feedback left on that site. I don't think they've let any issue or suggestion go un-acknowledged even if it's trivial or "stupid" lol And the icing on the cake, is it's free! Including the pretty dang solid playback engine + MuseSound VSTs they include for free with it. (Personally, for the piano and viola sounds in the piece attached to my OP, I'm using Spitfire LABS Intimate Piano and Fluid Viola playback rather than Muse's sounds, simply because once I got my hands on the Spitfire sounds for those instruments, everything I didn't like about the Muse sound versions was able to disappear with ease. If you listen closely, you'll also be able to hear in the piano part, the sounds of the hammers striking and returning to their resting positions, and you'll also hear the pedal being depressed and released. I thought that was an awesome touch of realism.)