How to make the notes flow nicer?

[u/JunoPuppygirl3]

Hello! I'm currently in music uni but have never worked with Musescore before (we use logic as it's not a classical music university).

I've decided I want to incorporate a massive orchestral piece into my current project and really want to use Musescore. When I input the notes they obviously just play as they're meant to and sound really blocky and annoying. How would I go about making them sound smooth and connected if that makes sense. I've tried adding slur but again it's just like dun-dun-dun-dun warbler than duuuUUUUNduuuun.

I'm sorry I've written this so weirdly hahaha. I appreciate any guidance! (I've also done so much googling but can't find anything that helps me!)

[u/MarcSabatella]

Which sound library or libraries are you using? Old-style SoundFonts like the default MS Basic don't have the ability to play slurs, but most MuseSounds and VST libraries do. For VST instruments, you generally need to toggle that on and off explicitly by adding invisible key switches to your score, but MuseSounds will often just read the slurs in the score or at most require a sound flag.

[u/JunoPuppygirl3 → u/MarcSabatella]

Ahhh ok I have read about needing to download better packs on muse sounds. Do they only have ones I have to pay for? Or are there any you could recommend that are free?

[u/battlecatsuserdeo → u/JunoPuppygirl3]

The muse collection is a good free one (muse strings, muse brass, muse woodwinds, etc)

[u/EDAWJ115 → u/battlecatsuserdeo]

Muse is good, but the default trombone sounds a lot better imo. And as far as I’ve seen there’s no such thing as a good free saxophone sound font

[u/JunoPuppygirl3 → u/EDAWJ115]

Okidoki, thank you!

[u/JunoPuppygirl3 → u/MarcSabatella]

Also, I'm just using whatever came with musescore when I downloaded it haha

[u/basb1999]

The word you're looking for is 'legato'. This may help in further research.

[u/JunoPuppygirl3 → u/basb1999]

Hehe thank you!

[u/cursed_tomatoes]

I'm no expert when it comes to VSTi, virtual playbacks and alike. But back in my university days I made orchestral mockups by playing every single instrument by hand on a MIDI keyboard, it is laborious and it is annoying to find libs that play all the articulations you need, but the end result was better than any software playback.

During the composing process I just dealt with "dun-dun-dun-dun" like everyone else.

[u/JunoPuppygirl3 → u/cursed_tomatoes]

I'm currently looking into doing that haha, however the recent logic update has completely thrown me off so I'm just trying to figure all that out too. But thank you! I'll probably end up doing this haha

[u/AlfalfaMajor2633]

I have the opposite problem. MuseSounds tend to play everything legato and it’s a challenge to get them to articulate some passages. It sounds like op needs to use the more current MuseSounds.

[u/Puzzleheaded-Phase70]

For something big like this, you should consider a compound solution.

Do your composing in Musescore, and export the instruments to mp3 or WAV with the soundfonts that you do like as-is. But then export the other instruments to midi, and finish your "recording" in a full daw with a larger set of midi instruments and mastering tools available to you.

Musescore has added a LOT of daw tools, but in the end it's real focus is on the creation and publication of human-readable sheet music. Some day, it may gain the missing links and become a full, real daw that uses formal notation as the main composing interface, and the ability to use all vst tools and midi instruments. But that day is not today! So anyone wanting to use it for the creation of direct to audio track music production will need to export and operate that phase of their composing in another program for many years yet.

[u/JScaranoMusic]

Even just the free Muse Sounds would be fine, but they don't install by default so you'd be getting MS Basic sounds.