cparmerlee

BobF
I've searched and even purchased some Notation apps ... I've noticed that the major players all support score playback via VSTs. 

Please tells us more about that.  To my knowledge, NONE of the major notation apps are integrated with any DAWs at this point.  The best you can do today is painstakingly follow a very manual, tedious process to move information from the notation program into the DAW, one instrument at a time, by exporting MIDI.  And that is not a 2-way process.  If you want to make any changes in either platform, ti will not be reflected in the other environment.
 
That's one of the two big problems discussed on this thread.  It is an obvious, practically a no-brainer requirement that notation and DAW programs work more seamlessly.  We have technologies like Rewire to integrate programs.  Something like that is needed to make DAWs and notation play together better.  That is what serious notation users need.
 
The other need expressed here is for Cakewalk to fix the long-outstanding bugs in the lightweight notation that is built into Sonar.

Sonar can already be Rewired to a notation program. I do this between Notion and Sonar. Sonar can already export/import music XML files.

mudgel
Sonar can already be Rewired to a notation program. I do this between Notion and Sonar. Sonar can already export/import music XML files.

Can you set up a template in Sonar with all your VST instruments and VST effects, and then use Rewire to cause Notion to send its MIDI to Sonar for rendering?

mudgel

Sonar can already be Rewired to a notation program. I do this between Notion and Sonar. Sonar can already export/import music XML files.

Sonar can work as a rewire client - anything extra to install for that?
I see no sign of that in help.
 
Or you mean rewire Notion into Sonar?
 
If that works, problem solved with notation if you can get any number of midi tracks sent to Notion and get a nice assembled score for those with minimum amount of work.
 

Regarding Sonar rewire with Notion, is the following work flow possible :

- Using Sonar as main system to record midi tracks, in order to use all my existing VSTs.
- Rewire it to Notion, for staff viewing / formatting purposes (rewire sending midi tracks possible ?)
Some touch up on Notion is done for title, etc.. but subsequent update to the arrangement is done at Sonar.
 
Using music XML may be good for one time import :
After exporting music XML from Sonar, and import it to Notion, one proceed to edit the Title, corrects the tuplet, etc..
 
However, if there is any update and another music XML export/import is done, all the previous edit done at Notion needs to be done again (entering the Title, corrects the tuplet)...
 
 

cparmerlee

michael diemer
Orchestration is the one thing that nobody is born knowing how to do. You can study books and internalize rules, and above all, listen to the great masters; but only hearing what you have done, with as much realism as possible, is going to give to give you the necessary feedback.

My work flow is from the other end (beginning in the notation product), but we converge on the point that high-quality playback is really important for today's composer.  I have two colleagues who are both good arrangers and both work with Finale a lot.  In the span of 2 weeks, one of them advised me that it was best to play back in Finale's simply MIDI playback because that was the only way you could really hear the harmonies well.  The other one was even more extreme.  He said that he was most successful playing everything back as piano parts only.
 
I would never dream of doing that.  That may make is easy to head bad notes (notes that are simply mistakes.  But voicings must be carefully crafted to get the most musical effect.  Those simple playback modes don't have a chance of helping us hear the nuances of how instruments blend and how voices work together (or not).  Using the simply MIDI playback, one risks producing a poor quality orchestration that may require multiple readings by the ensemble and multiple revision before the arrangement is suitable for public presentation.
 
Indeed, you actually can get very realistic playback directly from Finale by using good VST libraries, and I do this every time.  This allows you to hear the timbres and the interaction of overtones.  Often I can produce a score that requires no revision at all -- or only minor revisions after the first reading.
 
In other words, it is about time and quality.  Isn't everything?
 
The problem with the notation programs is not that they are unable to use VSTs.  They do use the VSTi products if you are lucky, and that can do a good job on the viocings.  But there are many other nuances that are not so successful directly within the notation programs.  For example, swing feel or breathing/bowing just may not sound quite right without some detailed adjustments to the MIDI.  And of course, some additional DAW-style processing can help tremendously.  For example, it would often be desirable to use a ducking compression technique if a piece features a solo instrument or voice.  And I have often wished I could have automation of track volume/velocity within the notation program in order to bring out the important lines a little more than is indicated by the printed dynamic markings.
 
Basically, I see this as two sides of the same coin.  One world (DAW and notation), not two separate domains. That's the kind of flexibility we need regardless of which platform we use as our base for composition.
 

Thanks to both of you for taking the time to help me understand.  I'm getting the idea that no matter which you go with this, you end up with a lot of painstaking fiddly details to tweak in order to get articulations to sound correctly.
 
You have way more patience than me!
 
 

BobF
I'm getting the idea that no matter which you go with this, you end up with a lot of painstaking fiddly details to tweak in order to get articulations to sound correctly.

Yep.  And I am not a person who particularly enjoys fiddling with details like that.  Finale, with its Human Playback, gets about 97% of the articulations and rhythms to sound acceptable for my purposes.  In theory, I could twiddle with the remainder at the MIDI manipulation level in Finale, but I'd surely go insane.  Sonar is much better for that level of editing.
 

BobF
You have way more patience than me!

I have never produced anything that I would say is "fully realistic".  I don't have that kind of patience.  My main goal is for the playback to be good enough that the client will be happy, will want to perform the music, and will really get the musical concept.
 
I finished an arrangement last week for a big band.  I did this entirely in Finale (no transfer to Sonar).  There were two big flaws and a bunch of little things I would have changed in Sonar, but I just didn't have the extra three hours to go through that tedious process.  One was a ritard that was way too slow.  In theory I could have modified this timing in Finale, but I had already had some serious strangeness in the playback tempos on this file and didn't want to chance that.  That was so obvious I thought I could easily explain that.  The other big problem was one measure where Finale, in its wisdom, decided to interpret a rhythm completely wrong.  I didn't figure that would be so evident, so I didn't mention it.  Sure enough, after I played it for the band, the alto say player said "In measure 74, do you really want beat four to be late like that?"    Grrrrrr.  It shouldn't be this hard.  But I was impressed she caught it.  I guess that means that my efforts toward a decent playback were mostly worthwhile.
 
These two specific problems are things that could be considered Finale errors or weaknesses, so I am not blaming Sonar.  But if there were a more integrated solution, I could easily fix these things in Sonar.  And while I was in Sonar, I'd make a bunch of other refinements for a really polished presentation.

As a totally impartial, non-Staff View user, I will be happy to take input and compile a prioritized list of specific Staff View fixes you're looking for. 
 
I will start a new thread for this along with ideas on how to get the list prepared.

BobF
As a totally impartial, non-Staff View user, I will be happy to take input and compile a prioritized list of specific Staff View fixes you're looking for. 
 
I will start a new thread for this along with ideas on how to get the list prepared.

Sounds great to me, Bob! Thank you also for taking the time to understand! Ah, the spirit of cooperation. A beautiful thing.

Update on Presonus Studio One: They just released Version 3. I've been waiting to see if they have integrated Notion into Studio One. They have not. You still need to use Rewire. Good news actually for Cakewalk, they still have the opportunity to beat Presonus to the punch. I haven't given up hope. I can't, I love Sonar too much. I refuse to believe that the Bakers can't at least equal the notation in Rosegarden, the free DAW for Linux.

Years ago, I too was frustrated by the notation feature in Cakewalk.  This was before it was even called Sonar, so you know I am going back more than a decade - like late 1990s.
 
I wrote maybe two, possibly three songs in the space of a few years.  The reason was that I dreaded the process of composing on Cakewalk.  I searched all over the web for solutions.  I tried both paid and free programs.  Then, thinking it was more me than the suite, I went into the discussion fora and found one on this very topic.  The user revealed the secret that has made me stick with Cakewalk products to this very day. nearly twenty years later.  The earth-shattering revelation was that the Cakewalk gods had revealed to the faithful that Cakewalk was far less for notation than for mastering and engineering.  He then gave me the sign of the baritone clef and departed in The Cloud.

After this epiphany, I returned to my quest for notation software and I was guided to a place that is Noteworthy where a faction of only slightly lesser music software gods had created a tool for which those who desire may compose with much ease and accuracy.  It came with a limited-time fully operational free preview period, which would be easily transformed into permanency for less than a Centadollar (US). 

I have since composed well over 200 songs, now only slowed by the fact that I returned to Rutgers University to finish a degree in Music (class of 2013). 

The software is called Noteworthy Music Composer.  It is still available for less than $100.  It is well-supported, as the developers are constantly posting updates.  Whole number updates are discounted to current licensed users.  Decimal point updates are free to licensed users.  Every update adds and improves the utility of this program which I have given as gifts to classmates.

I have tried Finale and whatever other uber-costly graduated notation packages are available and highly touted.  However, none of them has approached the intuitive ease of composing that Noteworthy provides.  For me, Noteworthy Music Composer is as simple as using Microsoft Word.  The developers were smart to use as many keystrokes common to Microsoft programs as possible. Copy, paste, edit.  Save.  Ctrl-A by default does something different than it does in Microsoft, but you can also customize keys and key combinations to perform specific functions. I compose in Noteworthy.  Save it to its proprietary format and/or export it to midi.  I open it in Cakewalk and dress it up there, then release it.  I am now preparing to release a self-produced CD using Noteworthy and Sonar.   If I were to be forced to choose two programs for music, they would be Noteworthy Music Composer and Sonar.

I see a note regarding restrictions on hyperlinks, so just search for the software name, Noteworthy Music Composer.