musescore / musescore/MuseScore

We need better soundfont preset retention going from 3 to 4

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feature request
Dominant language
C++
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Description

Your idea

MS4 should better retain soundfont presets established in an MS3 file.
(Sidenote: maybe a checkmark next to presets which are selected using 'choose automatically' would eliminate the vagueness.)

Problem to be solved

Originally, I had a MS3 file which contained four keyboard parts.
They started as piano lines, but they had been changed to different presets.
(synth brass 4, fast strings, pan flute, halo pad)
The preset numbers were stored in the file; I checked.
When you open the same file with MS4 however, it ignores this and gives you four piano voices, with no indication of what they used to be.
This could be handled better, as the presets are there in the file in the format:
<Program=##>

Following advice received on the Musescore.org forum, I changed the instruments to have closer matching starting instruments.
I can make Halo and Pan Flute match exactly, the other two only with confirmation.
This is not helped by the 'choose automatically' setting in 4.
I see no way to know for sure that Fast Strings or Synth Brass 4 has been selected for instance without manually choosing them myself.

I include these small test MS3 files as an example (old version and new version):
bad preset retention.zip

Prior art

No response

Additional context

No response

Checklist
  • This request follows the guidelines for reporting issues
  • I have verified that this feature request has not been logged before, by searching the issue tracker for similar requests

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First steps

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  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by opening the attached bad preset retention.zip files and reproducing the MS3-to-MS4 conversion with the four keyboard parts. Then locate the import path for the stored <Program=##> values and compare the resulting presets. Done means the converted file retains the original soundfont presets, including Synth Brass 4 and Fast Strings.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
cpp
Domain
desktop
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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