Lily# Sound Font (MuseScore General)

The sound Lily# plays your scores with. It is one file and nothing else: no commands, no settings, no code.

What is in it. MuseScore_General.sf3, version 0.2 — the General MIDI sound font that MuseScore 2.2 and 3 shipped as their default — exactly as its authors published it (SHA-256 5b85b6c2c61d10b2b91cddd41efcce7b25cd31c8271d511c73afafbef20b6fa3, the file at https://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/musescore/soundfont/MuseScore_General/). It holds every General MIDI instrument — the 128 from piano to sound effects, and the drum kits — with some more from Roland GS and variations of its own; its authors' README, below, lists them.

Whose work it is. Not ours. MuseScore_General was made by S. Christian Collins from FluidR3Mono (Michael Cowgill), itself from Fluid R3 (Frank Wen), with instruments from Ethan Winer and Michael Schorsch, and is shared under the MIT license. Their notices, their README and their changelog are in this package as they wrote them: the license, the README, the changelog.

This is not an official MuseScore distribution. MuseScore is a trademark of its owner; this package is published by the Lily# project, which is not affiliated with it. The name stands here to say what the file is.

Why it is a package of its own

A sound font is large (38 MB) and does not change. In a package of its own it is downloaded once, and Lily#'s own updates stay small.

Using it

Lily# versions after 0.16.0 bring it with them and play through it by default; with an earlier one, installing it changes nothing. It is Lily#'s to bring and yours to keep: remove it on its own and Lily# plays on without it; remove Lily# and it goes too. It gives way to a font you choose yourself (lilysharp.playback.soundFont, Lily#: Choose Sound Font…) and to a MIDI port (lilysharp.playback.midiOutput, Lily#: Choose MIDI Output…). Without it, Lily# plays the General MIDI bank your computer has (Windows, macOS) or plain tones.

Recordings you make with it

A sound you export through this font is made from its samples. The MIT license asks that its copyright notice go with "copies or substantial portions" of the font; whether a recording of your own music is such a portion is not for this page to settle. MuseScore's users have published recordings made with this font for years. If it matters to you, credit the font — "MuseScore_General sound font, S. Christian Collins et al., MIT license" — or ask someone who can advise you.

Something wrong?

How Lily# plays is Lily#'s to answer for: https://github.com/yotsuda/LilySharp/issues. The font itself is its authors' work, and this package does not change it.