I can confirm that when I am dealing in channels exceeding 16 in Qtractor, I split them to multiple MIDI busses. I actually have made a habit of just separating orchestral sections by MIDI busses and this leaves me with a solid margin for each section to add to without accidentally crossing MIDI data points on the different channels.
As for Qtractor v. Ardour. Ardour 7 has caught up nicely and I have been using Ardour via the UbuntuStudio Backport repos for most work lately (I have not paid for Ardour). But I absolutely keep an up to date install of Qtractor (which definitely updates more frequently) on my system. I also use LMMS. They each have their advantages in particular situations.
Like you, I have been using audio export from Musescore 4 for my orchestral tracks since it came out last December. I just see no reason to use anything else to render general orchestral instruments right now. So even with my Ardour use... it's for audio and film score sync (tempo and meter mapping). I'm writing almost exclusively from notation at the moment.
I can confirm that when I am dealing in channels exceeding 16 in Qtractor, I split them to multiple MIDI busses. I actually have made a habit of just separating orchestral sections by MIDI busses and this leaves me with a solid margin for each section to add to without accidentally crossing MIDI data points on the different channels.
As for Qtractor v. Ardour. Ardour 7 has caught up nicely and I have been using Ardour via the UbuntuStudio Backport repos for most work lately (I have not paid for Ardour). But I absolutely keep an up to date install of Qtractor (which definitely updates more frequently) on my system. I also use LMMS. They each have their advantages in particular situations.
Like you, I have been using audio export from Musescore 4 for my orchestral tracks since it came out last December. I just see no reason to use anything else to render general orchestral instruments right now. So even with my Ardour use... it's for audio and film score sync (tempo and meter mapping). I'm writing almost exclusively from notation at the moment.
-Carl