MuseScore Studio 4.6.2 Release

MuseScore Studio 4.6.2 is now available!

This update builds on the major 4.6 release with a number of important fixes and refinements. It also restores compatibility with macOS 10.15 and 11, while remaining fully compatible with the latest macOS Tahoe 26.

If you haven't yet updated to version 4.6, you'll also gain access to the huge set of new playback, engraving, and workflow improvements introduced in that release.

Note: There is a known issue with keyboard shortcuts not working in the Braille panel. We recommend that Braille users wait for version 4.6.3, expected in the coming weeks, which resolves this problem.

Highlights from version 4.6:

• Greater control over showing and hiding empty staves
• Dramatically improved real-time playback performance
• Major new features for piano, voice, and guitar notation
• Completely reworked chord symbol handling
• Support for any SMuFL-compliant music font
• VST3 plugin support on Linux
• Many workflow refinements, and much more

Read more about this update at musescore.org/4.6.2, and see the full 4.6 release announcement here.

MuseScore Studio 4.6.1 Release

MuseScore Studio 4.6.1 is now available!

This update includes critical fixes to improve app stability and performance. It also includes everything that was new in 4.6.

For more details, see https://musescore.org/en/4.6.1.

MuseScore Studio 4.6.0 Release

MuseScore Studio 4.6.0 is now available!

Playback

• Realtime note preview now supports duration and velocity control, as well as the sustain pedal, allowing an intuitive playing experience with a connected MIDI keyboard
• Count-in is back! (Playback toolbar > Playback settings cog)
• MuseSounds playback no longer fades-in when pressing play
• Play count for repeated sections can be controlled in Properties, with options to add appropriate text to score (e.g. "Play N times")
• Fixed regression where instruments were muted after undoing their deletion with Ctrl+Z

Engraving

• A comprehensive new system allows localised control over showing and hiding empty staves
• Any SMuFL-compliant music font can now be applied
• Measure numbers are now treated as system markings and can also be shown below the system, with many new options for customisability in Styles
• All system markings can now go below the bottom staff
• Better alignment options for repeat & jump markers, voltas, etc.
• Better alignment of rests in multiple voices
• Better rhythmic grouping of rests and beams in local time signatures
• New properties for frames to control padding to notation above & below
• Harp pedal diagrams can be anchored at arbitrary beat positions (not just on notes and rests)
• Enharmonic spelling: new options added in Tools menu
• Fixed regression where slurs from grace notes were placed incorrectly and not saved in the MSCX file
• Fixed issue saving and loading of scaling/spatium size in parts
• Fixed regression in placement of whole measure rests in secondary voices
• Adding breath marks no longer hides courtesy clefs in cutaway staves
• Barlines are no longer masked by invisible text lines
• Ties are no longer shortened by chord symbols that contain a slash
• Hairpin ending on final beat of final measure is no longer excluded from parts
• Collision avoided between dynamics and left barlines
• Collision avoided between arpeggios and clefs
• Added 19th century French tenor clef (G clef ottava bassa with C clef)
• Repeat-dot position in these fonts was tweaked for better SMuFL compliance: Gootville, MuseJazz, Emmentaler

Guitar

• Engraving support for hammer-on, pull-off, and tapping techniques (playback supported in MuseSounds Guitars Vol. 2 and upwards)
• Fretboard diagrams now auto-fill based on their associated chord symbol
• Fretboard diagram legend can be automatically generated based on chord symbols in score
• Any text font can now be used for tab numbers
• Improved engraving and playback support for bends to grace notes after main notes
• Fret number in fretboard diagram is not repositioned unnecessarily when text is edited
• Circular markers are no longer added to fretboard diagrams when masked by barrés
• Fixed spacing of minimum length ties, glissandos, and frets
• Fixed adding and masking of parentheses around fret number in TAB staves
• Import TablEdit v3.00+ files — thanks to Leon Vinken (PR author) and Matthieu Leschemelle (TablEdit creator)

Chord symbols

• Chords galore! New individual scaling, offset, and alignment options for extensions and modifiers, plus the ability stack and parenthesise modifiers
• Ability to create polychords with the pipe "|" character (N.b. playback support is planned for a future release)

New style options

• Volta alignment relative to key signatures and barlines
• Partial slur shape across repeats and breaks
• Minimum header distance (used when clefs are only shown on first system)
• Show barline before key & time signatures at start repeats
• Tuplet bracket position

Text

• New text formatting popup appears when characters are selected in a text element
• New editing shortcut Ctrl+Delete (Mac: Cmd+Fn+Backspace) to delete entire word after caret
• Square brackets and multiplication signs are allowed in time signatures
• New lyrics styles for hyphens/dashes
• Lyric extender lines no longer extend over rests
• Fixes to header, footer, page number & copyright styles
• Fixed overlapping '6' and '9' characters in chord symbols

Workflow improvements

• New welcome screen enables quick access to tutorials, free MuseSounds, and other relevant information
• Selection filter now enables selection of individual notes in chords
• New mouse shortcut Alt+click to paste the current selection elsewhere
• Improvements to 'Repeat selection' command when used with 2 or more voices
• Fixed issue preventing diatonic shifting of enharmonically equivalent notes
• Slurs entered from the palettes can now be resized
• Joining/splitting measures no longer corrupts ties at the measure boundary
• Durations are better accounted for when merging rests
• Pasting notes near a page break no longer spoils engraving of slurs that span the break
• Fixed crash on closing score after undo of dragging a measure with partial tie
• Fixed crash on range selection over multi-measure rest

Percussion

• The number of drumpad columns in the Percussion Panel can now be modified
• Added Handbells palette and playback with MuseSounds
• Added Handchimes instrument

UI

• Removed delay in showing three-dots (...) context menu icon when switching panel tabs (Palettes, Layout, Properties, etc.)
• Element colors are now inverted in the palettes when score color inversion is enabled via Preferences > Appearance
• Improved appearance of rounded corners on popups and dropdown lists

Import/export

• Support for importing TablEdit files (v3.00+ only, see Guitar section above)
• MIDI: Exported lyrics now have a space appended after each word
• MEI: exported title page receives func="first" attribute to show it's the first page
• MusicXML
  • Import for string mute element, harp pedal diagrams, colors for more element, various other fixes
  • Export fixes for TAB & percussion clefs
  • Import & export support added for guitar tapping, hammer-on, pull-off, hairpin styles

Accessibility

• Screen reader announcements for more in-score actions (e.g. adding articulations, changing voices)
• Fixed input and viewing announcements in the Braille panel

Linux

• VST3 support (please raise an issue on GitHub if a specific Linux VST is not working for you)
• Enabled fractional scaling (previously disabled to avoid an element offset bug—possibly in Qt—that appears to be fixed now)
• Fixed Linux-only crash on Alt+Left/Alt+Right navigation in continuous mode
• Distributions released prior to Ubuntu 22.04 can no longer run the AppImage due to an outdated GLIBC version

Performance

• Significant performance gains when saving and loading large scores
• Changes in Page settings dialog are more efficient and properly undoable (press Ctrl+Z after closing dialog)

Plugins

• Retrograde: Fixed handling of consecutive ties
• Plugin API: Now includes all new elements and properties added between MuseScore 4.0 and 4.6 (thanks @XiaoMigros!)

Qt fixes

Updating to Qt 6.9.1 has resolved these issues:

• #22416 Right-aligned text is not properly aligned
• #24690 Some toolbar buttons don't work with pen / touch input on Windows
• #24232 Menus appear on wrong monitor on Windows
• #24579 Transparent UI on second monitor on Windows
• #24613 Score draggable behind Staff/part properties dialog
• #24667 Changing UI accent colour breaks Qt Widget dialogs
• #23970 Crash at launch on macOS Sonoma

See our GitHub Project for more details.

Upcoming

• Support for online MuseSounds added for Windows & macOS (will become functional when applicable sound libraries are released)

MuseScore Studio 4.6.0 Beta

MuseScore Studio 4.6.0 Beta is now available!

This 4.6 beta brings stability improvements and bug fixes, as well as some new minor feature improvements. See the full announcement for more details.

MuseScore Studio 4.6.0 Alpha

MuseScore Studio 4.6.0 Alpha is now available!

The 4.6 alpha includes numerous improvements to playback and engraving, as well as an update to Qt version 6.9.1. See the full announcement for more details.

MuseScore Studio 4.5.2 Release

MuseScore Studio 4.5.2 is now available!

This update brings stability improvements and bug fixes. It also introduces playback support for partial ties at repeats and jumps.

For more details, see https://musescore.org/en/4.5.2

MuseScore Studio 4.5.1 Release

MuseScore Studio 4.5.1 is now available!

This update brings stability improvements and bug fixes, as well as some new minor feature improvements.

For more details, please see announcement on musescore.org.

MuseScore Studio 4.5 Release

MuseScore Studio 4.5 is now available!

This update introduces major workflow improvements, a brand new percussion input panel, and significant new engraving features.

Engraving

See Engraving improvements in MuseScore Studio 4.5. Highlights include:

• Large time signatures
• Laissez-vibrer (l.v.) ties
• System locks (force measures to appear on a particular system, prevent reflow)
• System markings: control which staves tempos and other markings appear on via the 'Layout' panel (formerly 'Instruments')
• Automatic creation of partial ties and courtesy clefs, key, and time signatures at repeats and jumps
• Options to extend slurs and lyric extension lines over repeats and jumps
• Automatic masking around text and dynamics when they overlap barlines
• More style options for multi-measure rests
• All text items are now anchorable at any rhythmic position
• Improved horizontal spacing and lyric spacing
• Various fixes for local time signatures

Percussion

• All-new percussion panel with 8 columns of input pads (now fully accessible; replaces the old drumset panel)
• Improved percussion note input: notes are now always entered at the cursor position, and can be input at any available stave position with the mouse 
• Ability to customize the layout of the percussion panel 
• Keyboard shortcuts and MIDI pitches are displayed on the percussion pads (keyboard shortcuts can also be assigned using any key)
• New Percussion and General MIDI Percussion instruments (replaces the generic Percussion instrument and the Percussion Synthesizer) with full mapping for Muse Percussion (MuseSounds)
• Minor changes to various percussion instruments

Interaction

• New 'input by duration' mode
• General refinements to note input: improved discoverability, relocation of legacy modes, and a new option to set accidentals, augmentation dots, and articulations to apply to either the next or previous note entered   
• New rapid entry system for dynamic markings, including in-score popup, dedicated keyboard shortcut, type-to-enter dynamic markings, and option to draw hairpins from dynamic markings
• Click and drag a range selection to move it to a different staff, measure, or beat; hold Alt/Option while dragging to copy the material
• Copying and pasting multiple individual elements together is now more reliable and preserves the relative positions of the elements (and other improvements to copying and pasting)
• Improved selection behaviour
• Option to input MIDI as written or sounding pitch for transposing instruments
• The playback speed control is now also available by clicking the tempo indicator in the playback toolbar (without needing to undock the playback toolbar)
• New 'History' panel available in the 'View' menu

Playback

• Improved "let ring" playback for guitar with MuseSounds
• Support for l.v. ties for MS Basic, VST (limited) and MuseSounds (Muse Keys, and Muse Guitars Vols. 1 and 2, with other libraries coming soon)
• Muse Percussion sounds for Mixed Percussion and General MIDI Percussion instruments
• Numerous fixes for tied notes

Import/export

• SVG: page size is now measured in millimetres instead of pixels
• MEI: support for voice assignment of dynamics, staff line color, harp pedal diagrams & MuseScore element IDs
• MusicXML: various fixes and improvements

Accessibility

• Style files for various sizes of Modified Stave Notation (MSN) are included with the program (courtesy of RNIB)
• Convenient shortcut to built-in styles available via Format > Load styles on Windows and macOS

General

• New app icon and splash screen
• Fixed various crashes and corruptions

Linux

• Ubuntu users please note that this update requires at least v.22.04.

See our GitHub Project for more details.

MuseScore Studio 4.4.4 Release

MuseScore Studio 4.4.4 is now available!

This update brings stability improvements and bug fixes, as well as some new minor features.
For more details, please see announcement on musescore.org.

MuseScore Studio 4.4.3 Release

MuseScore 4.4.3 is now available!

This update addresses multiple crashes and resolves various issues related to interaction, playback, and engraving. Additionally, it includes a critical fix for Windows users, resolving several graphical problems. For more details, please see the announcement on musescore.org.