Kamikaze
C) camp for me, B) would be nice.
 
Posting, because it looks cool
 
 
 

Wow! What is that machine and when was it made and used?  I've never seen it...

I agree with Mr. Anderton wholeheartedly. What Sonar has now is sufficient for midi editing, for those (like me) who prefer to do it in notation vs PRV. Some modest improvements are needed and are doable. What would make me happy is the ability to then easily export the notation from Sonar to a dedicated notation program. I used to think that the merging of DAW and notation was desirable, but I'm learning that the result would probably be so bloated it would be too difficult to use. They are different animals.

Anderton
Also consider the changing nature of the market. It's very difficult to get people to switch from an existing program they've used for years. I doubt very many users of programs with more developed notation would switch to SONAR unless it had notation editing that was so superior it could not be ignored.

 
I agree.  That is why it is so important to improve the seamless interoperability with the major notation programs.  There aren't that many.  Finale and Sibelius have the lion's share, then there is MuseScore and a few others.  The only product that has the potential to cause heavy notation users to switch is Cubase with the Steinberg notation product.  But that is years away, so the operative word is "potential". 
 

Anderton
Again, the bottom line is this. Fixing bugs and making current users generally happy is doable. To devote resources to create something that goes way beyond that would prevent dedicating those resources to something like VocalSync or Mix Recall, which is useful to a wide variety of the user base. Also remember that notation has no relevance to people who do primarily audio recording, which is how many people use DAWs.
 

Yes, and again, this is why a focus on seamless interoperability with the major notation platforms is the better strategy for anything beyond the basic score view.
 
There are pieces that are out there.  It is possible to use MusicXML and MIDI in a much more seamless way to implement bi-directional interoperability with any of the major notation programs out there, and this need not interfere with the continuing development of recording features.  The reason to do this is because a) people with notation backgrounds are beginning to use DAWs -- that's a lot of potential new customers, and b) Presonus, Steinberg, and Avid are in a position to establish a new standard for DAW notation, leaving SONAR and the others at a lower tier in due course.
 
I don't understand Rewire well enough.  It seems to me that the interface between Rewire client and host is an audio file.  It would be ideal if there were a "MIDI Rewire" where Sonar could call for the notation program to send its MIDI stream instead of its audio stream.  Maybe that is possible with Rewire, but I haven't seen it.  And Rewire support in the notation programs is spotty.  Finale doesn't support it at all.

There are two underlying assumptions behind a lot of the arguments put forward in this thread that I believe are wrong:

1. Staff View is only for specialists and not for most users.
2. Nobody uses both Staff View and Piano Roll View. It's got to be either one or the other.

Staff View is a useful midi tool. Why ignore it? It works well for all music, not just classical.

Track View and Console View have a lot in common with each other but nobody thinks that using one rules out using the other. They complement each other and show different perspectives. Similarly with SV and PRV. If you are not using both of them, you should be.

Anderton

cparmerlee

Anderton
I think the majority of the staff view fans probably feel the way you do, they want to be able to compose easily in staff view and are less concerned about...

 
This is the kind of thinking that gets companies in trouble.  The current users are certainly important, and the bugs ought to be fixed, but when companies start to assume the current users are representative of the whole market, that can be a big mistake.

 
If you take a look at the whole market, then notation is not very important based on the sales of Ableton Live, FL Studio, Reaper, Bitwig Studio, Reason, Acid, and Studio One. Other than Pro Tools (which despite losing market share remains on top at least for now for a variety of reasons), Ableton Live, FL Studio, and Reaper outsell any non-SONAR program with a notation solution; Studio One Pro and Reason outsell most of them. Reaper is starting to implement the Lua plug-in for notation but based on reactions in the forums, it's not ready for prime time. 
 
Also consider the changing nature of the market. It's very difficult to get people to switch from an existing program they've used for years. I doubt very many users of programs with more developed notation would switch to SONAR unless it had notation editing that was so superior it could not be ignored. Also, many people choosing SONAR now grew up with piano roll editing and are comfortable with it. 
 
Again, the bottom line is this. Fixing bugs and making current users generally happy is doable. To devote resources to create something that goes way beyond that would prevent dedicating those resources to something like VocalSync or Mix Recall, which is useful to a wide variety of the user base. Also remember that notation has no relevance to people who do primarily audio recording, which is how many people use DAWs.
 
Of course it would be nice to have wonderful notation in SONAR, but you have to look at the cost/benefit analysis based not only on surveys of current users, but market trends in general. I would hope that getting the notation to the point where a professional like Jerry is happy with it would take care of the needs of most current users, as well as most who will adopt SONAR in the future.

"Current users" are asking for many enhancement.  Are you are saying that Sonar will continue on the path it has been on: no improvements to stave view except possibly bug fixes?  In that case I've been correct all along.

vintagevibe

Anderton

cparmerlee

Anderton
I think the majority of the staff view fans probably feel the way you do, they want to be able to compose easily in staff view and are less concerned about...

 
This is the kind of thinking that gets companies in trouble.  The current users are certainly important, and the bugs ought to be fixed, but when companies start to assume the current users are representative of the whole market, that can be a big mistake.

 
If you take a look at the whole market, then notation is not very important based on the sales of Ableton Live, FL Studio, Reaper, Bitwig Studio, Reason, Acid, and Studio One. Other than Pro Tools (which despite losing market share remains on top at least for now for a variety of reasons), Ableton Live, FL Studio, and Reaper outsell any non-SONAR program with a notation solution; Studio One Pro and Reason outsell most of them. Reaper is starting to implement the Lua plug-in for notation but based on reactions in the forums, it's not ready for prime time. 
 
Also consider the changing nature of the market. It's very difficult to get people to switch from an existing program they've used for years. I doubt very many users of programs with more developed notation would switch to SONAR unless it had notation editing that was so superior it could not be ignored. Also, many people choosing SONAR now grew up with piano roll editing and are comfortable with it. 
 
Again, the bottom line is this. Fixing bugs and making current users generally happy is doable. To devote resources to create something that goes way beyond that would prevent dedicating those resources to something like VocalSync or Mix Recall, which is useful to a wide variety of the user base. Also remember that notation has no relevance to people who do primarily audio recording, which is how many people use DAWs.
 
Of course it would be nice to have wonderful notation in SONAR, but you have to look at the cost/benefit analysis based not only on surveys of current users, but market trends in general. I would hope that getting the notation to the point where a professional like Jerry is happy with it would take care of the needs of most current users, as well as most who will adopt SONAR in the future.

"Current users" are asking for many enhancement.  Are you are saying that Sonar will continue on the path it has been on: no improvements to stave view except possibly bug fixes?  In that case I've been correct all along.

Vintage Vibe, I am curious as to exactly what you cannot do that you want to do with Sonar's staff view.  If you could be very specific as to what that is, perhaps I can help you to do it.   Is is writing nested triplets, tied triplets, etc?  If so, you can do that and Sonar will faithfully play them back; they won't look right, but as soon as you export the file to Sibelius, they will look exactly as they should.  Maybe some other problem inputting notes?  Making changes to what is already there?  Please be specific.
 

Anderton

jsg
 
I've always been in the C) camp; fix the bugs.

 
+1. That would make a lot of people happy. I think the majority of the staff view fans probably feel the way you do, they want to be able to compose easily in staff view and are less concerned about...
 

...preparing a publish-ready score that conforms to the standards of music notation graphics...

 
+1
 

Look at the many handwritten scores of composers throughout the ages, they notated their ideas accurately and expressively, only when that score was published did the nuts-and-bolts of finalizing (from a graphics standpoint) the score for players take place.

 
+1
 

That's not composition, that's graphic design. 

 
+1000 
 
I also see an analogy to mastering. SONAR will take you up to the stage where you can do mastering, and you can indeed make a stereo mix sound better with SONAR's tools to the point where it has the "look and feel" of mastering. But if you need to do restoration, noise reduction, analysis, waveform surgery, and sophisticated album assembly, you need a program dedicated to those tasks.
 
I think most of the people using staff view in SONAR simply want it to be able to take them fluidly to the point where they can then think about the "last step" of graphic design. They basically want to be able to work more or less as easily as one can with audio, or piano roll view MIDI.

Excellent.  So now that there appears to be general consensus on what is in and out of scope for fixes / functionality enhancements, how do we effectively communicate this to Cakewalk?
 
We have been told that the official method is through the Feature Request forum.  To get the most traction, a very specific feature request would need to be created which would be satisfactory for the bulk of us. 
 
I nominate Craig.  If they don't listen to him, they won't listen to anyone.  

I am a moderate in most things, including this topic.  I am highly dependent on Staff View, but a full-blown notation program would probably be annoying as most such programs are very deep and take a long time to learn.
 
When I am elected ruler of the Unified Earth next month, I will decree that the bugs will be fixed in SV.

Anderton

cparmerlee

Anderton
I think the majority of the staff view fans probably feel the way you do, they want to be able to compose easily in staff view and are less concerned about...

 
This is the kind of thinking that gets companies in trouble.  The current users are certainly important, and the bugs ought to be fixed, but when companies start to assume the current users are representative of the whole market, that can be a big mistake.

 
If you take a look at the whole market, then notation is not very important based on the sales of Ableton Live, FL Studio, Reaper, Bitwig Studio, Reason, Acid, and Studio One. Other than Pro Tools (which despite losing market share remains on top at least for now for a variety of reasons), Ableton Live, FL Studio, and Reaper outsell any non-SONAR program with a notation solution; Studio One Pro and Reason outsell most of them. Reaper is starting to implement the Lua plug-in for notation but based on reactions in the forums, it's not ready for prime time. 
 
Also consider the changing nature of the market. It's very difficult to get people to switch from an existing program they've used for years. I doubt very many users of programs with more developed notation would switch to SONAR unless it had notation editing that was so superior it could not be ignored. Also, many people choosing SONAR now grew up with piano roll editing and are comfortable with it. 
 
Again, the bottom line is this. Fixing bugs and making current users generally happy is doable. To devote resources to create something that goes way beyond that would prevent dedicating those resources to something like VocalSync or Mix Recall, which is useful to a wide variety of the user base. Also remember that notation has no relevance to people who do primarily audio recording, which is how many people use DAWs.
 
Of course it would be nice to have wonderful notation in SONAR, but you have to look at the cost/benefit analysis based not only on surveys of current users, but market trends in general. I would hope that getting the notation to the point where a professional like Jerry is happy with it would take care of the needs of most current users, as well as most who will adopt SONAR in the future.

It would be interesting to know whether "the market" has anything to do with what's put out professionally. My guess is that what the market shows and what professionals use are two entirely different things.

vintagevibe
 
"Current users" are asking for many enhancement.  Are you are saying that Sonar will continue on the path it has been on: no improvements to stave view except possibly bug fixes?  In that case I've been correct all along.

I'm not on Cakewalk's dev team and frankly, most of my time recently has been spent with Gibson's guitar and microphone divisions. I'm giving my opinion on a practical course of action for the short term, taking into account how I perceive the sentiments expressed in the forums, and having a general awareness of Cakewalk's resources.
 
Besides, in general it's best to complete step 1 before proceeding to step 2.