MuseScore
MuseScore Studio (formerly MuseScore) is a free software music notation editor with playback. Its built-in capabilities are already somewhat friendly to xenharmonic music (it supports many accidental shapes natively, supports subsets of 72edo natively, and the tuning of any note can be changed for playback), and it can be made an even more powerful tool with plugins. The most commonly recommended plugins are Azure's XenKit for MuseScore 4 and euwbah's XenTuner for MuseScore 3.
The following plugins only affect the playback of the piece—they don't do anything to the appearance of the score. Generally they have a "retune" button that retunes all or part of the piece to pitches computed from the score (so they do not work in real time—you have to retune again after any changes). This can be set to a keybind.
Plugins listed as 4.x on their pages may not work past MuseScore 4.4 if they were not updated since then since MuseScore's Plugin API has changed. Such plugins are marked correctly here as "4.0-4.3". Plugins marked 4.x work with the most recent version of MuseScore.
| Plugin | Author | Description | Compatibility |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fifths-based tuning | John Moriarty | As the name implies, you set the size of your "fifth" and then it auto-tunes your score based on that. Uses the MuseScore Tonal Pitch Class (tpc) enum, so it only supports the four "standard" accidentals: flat, sharp, double-flat, and double-sharp (x). Does not allow octave stretch - octaves are always 2/1. | Likely does not work in the current version |
| Porcupine tunings | John Moriarty | You set the size of the porcupine generator, and then it auto-tunes your score based on that. The natural notes are tuned to porcupine[7]. The sharp and flat modify pitches by the chroma from that 7-note MOS scale. Same implementation as Fifths-based tuning above. | Likely does not work in the current version |
| Accidental Tuner | Gilbert Yammine | Lets you define the amount by which any given accidental modifies a pitch, then you can retune all or part of the score automatically based on that. The seven naturals cannot be retuned. | 3.x |
| Microtonal EDO plugin | euwbah et al. | Retune + Transpose in almost any EDO. Supports microtonal accidentals in alternative symbols for ups and downs notation. Also see Flora Canou's fork, in which key signatures are ordered by fifths. | 3.4-3.5(?)
Deprecated. |
| euwbah's XenTuner | euwbah et al. | Successor to euwbah's Microtonal plugin for Musescore 3.4+. A MuseScore 3.6 plugin to give first-class support for microtonal/alternative notation systems. Uses external text files to store tuning information, which are imported via the plugin using system or staff text elements. | 3.6 |
| 11EDO Orgone[7] Tuning | Alexandru Ianu | retunes to 11edo using naturals based on the 4L 3s smitonic scale (Orgone temperament), which is compatible with a standard piano layout for a retuned physical instrument. | 4.0-4.3 |
| 27ED4 Nelindic | Alexandru Ianu | Retunes to 27ed4 using naturals based on the 6L 1s nelindic scale. Properly scales with tetrave equivalence. | 4.0-4.3 |
| 19 TET Tuning | AVgLink | Retunes to 19edo using standard circle of fifths notation. | 3.x |
| Quarter Tone (24 TET) Tuning | AVgLink | Retunes to 24edo using quartertone accidentals. | 3.x |
| Keenan Pepper's Xentuner | Keenan Pepper | Attempts to address the shortcomings of (a) Accidental Tuner which doesn't allow naturals to be retuned, and (b) plugins such as "Fifths-based tuning" that allow retuning naturals but don't make use of the nice palette of accidental symbols. Works by creating a JSON file saying what the naturals should be, and how much each accidental should modify the pitch. | 4.x |
| XenKit | Azure | Tunes HEJI accidentals and manages ups and downs/Wychnegradsky notation for edos. The most capable option for MuseScore 4.x. | 4.x |