UncleRed99

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

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.)

Yes the intent was for the strings to be an accompanying role, while also having some small moments of independence, where the story being told is able to be heard through different voices, giving the imagery of multiple people uttering it. also, I agree with you on the instrument labeling. However, this video was rendered using MuseScore’s “Send to YouTube” function where their website creates the video for you and gives you a download link or the option to upload it directly to YouTube so unless I screen recorded it then edited and published it myself, that’s just the way it wants to be 😅 however at the time I didn’t have any spare time to sit and wait for it to play thru, only for my audio to do “the thing” that it likes to do at the end of the piece 🤦🏼‍♂️ so I just did it the easy way. if it’s easier for most other users as well, I’ll stick to the MP3 + pdf upload from now on lol

Okay now two people are saying it so I must be crazy 😂😂😂 also I’m glad that I was able to create something that worked both with a strings orchestra accompaniment and without that you were able to enjoy 🙂

You know, Peter mentioned that, and that is something I did in this update 😅 as it sits, listening to the playback, Personally I don’t see how much louder the right hand could be without it overpowering the left since I’m using musescore with VSTs, there isn’t any settings for velocity on each note like there would be if I were using SF3 or SF2 sound fonts. So what I did was copy/paste the piano part on a new grand staff, selected all left hand notes removed “pedal lines” from the selection filter, silenced them by unchecking “Play” in properties. Then I isolated Piano 1 and piano 2 to their own part tab, and adjusted the timbre / Reverb / Tightness in the Spitfire LABS windows, and added MuseFX EQ To the master track in muse mixer.

It definitely could be. Depending on the amount of time you have for rehearsal prior to performance. Most of the time I was on a time constraint with the ensembles I performed with, resulting in 4-5 hour sessions, with 1 hour break, then back to it, twice a day for 3-4 days. It can definitely be hectic lol

I appreciate the insight. I felt the exact same way about it. I'm still more or less just throwing sounds onto the paper for purpose of a road-map. Just wanting to get the gist of what I want it to sound like after finalization. I restored the video link, as I deleted the old one due to having made a new one for current progress. Feel free to listen and commentate on it as it sits currently. Of course, while we both keep in mind what's already been mentioned. 😅

oh no, I got that the sounds were muse, but the animated score video is what I was looking to know more about lol

Man, how did I miss this reply!!! What program did you use for the animated score playback? That's awesome!

Post moved - New post link: (incoming)

Hello and welcome! id like to add my $0.02 in! the piece feels very imaginative, and the composing… well, without it being an insult (because it isn’t!) I can surely tell that you’re still learning. There’s nothing wrong with that by the way! That being said, I concur, if you have anyone who’s able to mentor you in music theory and composition, it would be beneficial for you! however the sound of the piece’s playback definitely sounds as you intended for it to, despite the actual notation. However, if I had to say anything about it negatively, I’d like to point out that there is such a thing as too much reverb 😅😅😅 When I began using MuseScore, I also had that problem, as a beginner composer. I was still planting my roots in composing with Musescore and in general, right around the time that Musescore 4.0 released, and MuseSounds was introduced. Muse Reverb sounds great when used correctly, however, too much as you have here, can create a “muddiness” in the sound, making it hard to pick up on articulations, intonation from the different parts, and it allows sounds to bleed between chords, which prevents the music from having distinct separations between each chord being played, making it a bit difficult to follow well. So I’d definitely look into improving the mixing/mastering of your playback. Keeping the reverb at its default position on the mixer is usually perfectly fine. The only time I’ve ever increased reverb was specifically for soloist parts, as it helps them to ring out a little more. However, I’ll rarely have that reverb dial turned to more than 50%. And your “Aux 1” channel next to the Master channel is the reverb gain control and pan control. Pan it to 0, and set the gain to ~+2.0, with each instrument’s reverb either at its default 15% position (most instruments are at 15 by default, but some are at 5%, such as Piano and percussion instruments. Those should also be left alone), or a maximum of ~25% but do so selectively. This will help your playback to be more legible in my opinion. It also helps to do this with headphones in, and to avoid adjusting individual instrument gain +/- at all, and solely rely on the panning function for volume control and balancing. (I.e. higher voices should alternate to max ~60% L or R pan, mid voices should alternate to ~25-40% L or R, and bass voices should stay relatively centered. It helps to spread the voices out a bit more so regardless of the gain, all will be heard easily!) that’s about all I got for ya.