Anderton

microapp
 
For the most part this thread is about Cake listening to users and in particular the state of Staff view.
But here is a rough price comparison.
Bought outright by a new user
 
Sonar Platinum $499
Studio One Pro $399
Cubase 8 pro $549
Reason $399
Protools 11 $699
Digital Performer 8 $499
Logic Pro X $199
FL Studio $139
Reaper`$60
Ableton Live 9 $749
 
But on a strictly cost basis you should be using Reaper, yes?
 

To loop back to the topic...not if you want notation. Not only should you avoid Reaper if you want notation, you should also pass on Studio One Pro, Reason, FL Studio, and Ableton Live. in other words, half of the DAWs in that list DON'T have notation.

Yes, but the ones that do, have really good ones, except for maybe one. I think that's the point that people are trying to make. To me, a good notation editor is a significant incentive. It may not be everyone's cup of tea but it should do the basic stuff correctly.
 
I suggested a number of basic improvements that would make the tool more useful, without going overboard, and accurately described some of the most annoying bugs in the current implementation in the features and issues forums respectively. No one is really asking for Sibelius (actually, I did once... hahaha). Even if Cakewalk does just one or two of the highest priority ones, they will win with some of their most loyal customers.
 
I've been pleasantly surprised by the number of people who want the staff view fixed. It's been kind of like a mini-revolution. I think the feature may be more important to a larger segment of the user base than was previously thought. Cakewalk should be ok with that, it's always good to have better information.
 
 

tecknotI would hate to say, but I think perhaps the time to change passed some time ago.  I know we saw a small exodus before.  In fact, I think Susan was one of the last of that group.  I'm sure she can see the evident change since she has returned.  We have been loyal to a fault.  It seems unlikely that they are going to keep their promises.

Hi tecknot-
 
I do see some changes, for sure, and I think many of them are positive. I'm still just testing the SONAR waters again, though, which is why I opted for month-to-month for now.
 
I remember when I first encountered "the triplet problems" firsthand years ago when I was trying to create a simple lead vocal sheet for my Dad.  He wanted to follow along with a song I'd written and I had to jump through all kinds of hoops to make it make musical sense to him. I remember to this day how I agonized over that (what should have been a) very simple score!
 
I also remember talking about "opening a can o' worms" with notation and Alex Westner (remember him?) saying something encouraging lo those many years ago. I don't remember any "promises", though.
 
It seems to me that there's actually a better chance now than there has been in a long time for something to happen with notation.  I don't expect anything huge, but I think incremental improvements might be coming. 
 
I've also always appreciated that no matter how many improvements are made to the SV, there will always be requests for "just this one thing" more.  That's why I called it a "can o' worms" because even the "big boys" of notation get constant FRs.
 
Thanks-
 
-Susan
 
 

I think Alex W is with iZotope now.

As for Staff View I'm happy to have my name added to any list that is for the enhancement of Sonar's Staff View.

It has been mentioned before but I'm kinda worried they'd have to write it from scratch since all the people who wrote the current version are gone now. Perhaps a reason why they haven't dared tackling it so far. It's easy to say "just fix triplets" but when it's someone else's code and they don't even work there anymore, good luck finding out even where to start.

I still don't get the need, even though I'm a literate musician who uses some form of score almost daily. I do however respect the wishes of such a large number of folks who have felt ignored for a long time now. Let's see what the coming year brings.

I read today at the Presonus/Notion forum that they too will have a connection to Hal Leonard.

From Here On Is All Speculation
I wonder if there's a connection with Cakewalk there. Celemony developed ARA in conjunction with Presonus and very quickly thereafter Cakewalk implements ARA in Sonar. Notion was being sold through Cakewalk store but snapped up by Presonus. Perhaps there's some joint effort going on behind the scenes, that culminates with something to do with Hal Leonard. Maybe a very deep integration of MIDI data deeper than rewire so that a DAW and Notion could work together seamlessly.

I'm just looking for a silver lining. It's been a very cloudy day.

Sanderxpander
It has been mentioned before but I'm kinda worried they'd have to write it from scratch since all the people who wrote the current version are gone now. Perhaps a reason why they haven't dared tackling it so far. It's easy to say "just fix triplets" but when it's someone else's code and they don't even work there anymore, good luck finding out even where to start.

I still don't get the need, even though I'm a literate musician who uses some form of score almost daily. I do however respect the wishes of such a large number of folks who have felt ignored for a long time now. Let's see what the coming year brings.

Well said. I feel the same way, and I make most of my living by doing orchestrations (Sibelius).  On the flip side, much of the ****ing about Sibelius (and there isn't a ton) has to do with sounds/mixing capabilities. Comments at the Sibelius forum are often "How can I get Sibelius to do this and this?" when the best answer is "Buy PT/Sonar/Cubase etc". 
 
Like you, I respect the wishes of others and hope they get what they want/need out of their DAW. However, as a pro composer I don't mind using separate programs, and I can see certain advantages in doing so. Workflow is everything: dealing with automated mixes in Sibelius would be great...unless the chart has to be turned in by yesterday. 
 
The irony of course: Sibelius hasn't made any substantial notation improvements since version 6 (6+ years ago). Version 7 comes with a large sample library and no doubt that it sounded better than 6, but the same problematic notation problems still remain. The grass is always greener...

Anderton
 
I don't make up stuff to prove points.
 It's hard to find threads using search right now because it brings up newer threads about the actual mix recall feature; this is what I could find within a couple minutes. If I really wanted to dedicate myself to the task, I could find more. But you get the idea.
 
Also bear in mind I've given a lot of workshops on using music software, not just SONAR. Feature requests that come up under Q&A sessions, even if not specifically for SONAR, count AFAIC.

And besides what Craig said, we don't simply transcribe user requests and implement them or just copy what other DAW's do. We're also do features that innovate and push the envelope to enhance productivity of the user base in ways people never thought of before. Mix-recall is definitely one of those features. 
The primary reason for Staff view stasis is resource balancing features that affect the widest user base and those that our dev resources can implement in the fastest time. Notation is a very specialized area of programming and most of us here are not very expert in that domain so its a longer process for us to add features to that area. And to clarify its not sufficient to just have people who can read and write music, just as most mix engineers wouldn't have a clue how to write a DAW even if they were expert in their field :) 
 

mudgel
I read today at the Presonus/Notion forum that they too will have a connection to Hal Leonard.

From Here On Is All Speculation
I wonder if there's a connection with Cakewalk there.

The Hal-Leonard thing seems like nothing more than a marketing agreement where Sonar is sold through the Hal-Leonard channel.  If so, that is barely more newsworthy than announcing that Sonar is available at Sweetwater.
 
Am I missing something significant here?

Cakewalk should just be upfront with SV fans, and tell us once and for all, that they just don't have the resources to work on Staff View. Instead of giving us lip service with each new release.
Another example of CW ignoring SV users was the implementation of Take Lanes. A great feature, by the way.
However.
It is totally impossible to use Staff View with Take Lanes. When Take Lanes were introduced, it was just as impossible to use the PRV to edit them. PRV users were very vocal. CW jump on it and fixed the issue with PRV, but not SV.
 
 
There are only two possible scenarios that I can think of.
 
1. The bakers never even looked at or tested Staff View and Take Lanes. Therefore were not aware of the issues.
2. They did test it, saw the problem and decided there aren't enough users of SV, and even fewer using SV and Take Lanes, so it didn't need to be fixed now.
 
Either way, we feel marginalized.
 
 

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
Notation is a very specialized area of programming and most of us here are not very expert in that domain so its a longer process for us to add features to that area.

To try to match Finale or Sibelius in capability would be a vast undertaking, and a very expensive one, both in terms of money and in terms of the focus it would take away from the current product, which still needs to move forward.  The Spreadbury project at Steinberg definitely intends to take on head-on the best of the notation products, but they are probably spending well over $20 million, and that would initially just yield a stand-alone notation product, not improved notation in Cubase.  Of course, one assumes that they would marry those functions eventually, but we're probably talking 2020 for something like that.
 
While the notation world should welcome the Steinberg project (given the limited pace of development on both Finale and Sibelius), it would be insane for Gibson to try to do that.  But fixing some basic bugs and weak features in the Sonar notation engine doesn't seem like an impossible task, nor one that requires an exceptional amount of expertise in the notation field.  It is a limited thing.
 
OTOH, nobody understands MIDI better than Cakewalk.  All the high-grade notation products can export and import MIDI.  And many of them can export and import MusicXML in a comprehensive way.  Even if you don't have MusicXML experts on staff, nearly all competent programmers today are knowledgeable of working in XML, and the MusicXML schema is well defined.  It isn't that complicated, and you would be able to ignore 80% of it anyway.  With a strategy of more seamless interoperability with the major notation products, you would have access to most of what Steinberg might be able to do by 2020, and I bet an import/export process could be built a lot faster than building a whole new notation product. Such a project would give you greatly improved interopberability with all the important notation products out there.  As a strategic planner, I would think that such integration would be a minimum requirement for competing against Steinberg as they do begin to bring their new notation product to market.  (Hint: the Spreadbury product will undoubtedly support MusicXML and MIDI interfaces.)