jsg
I suspect Cakewalk's user base consists of a small number of people who actually read and write music,

 
 This can be said of all audio recording software programs.
 
But all the big boys have been working extra hours to fix it.
 
Apple taught us long ago, "you wanna build lifetime market share, get kids to use your product before they get to play with anybody else's."
 

vintagevibe

cparmerlee

vintagevibe
If you think anyone wants or needs Sibelius level notation in a DAW you don't understand the issue.  DAWs need usable notation.  That has nothing to do with stand alone notation programs.  They serve a different need.

I think you may be the one who does not understand.  All of Cakewalk's major competitors have made an investment in high-end notation.  There is a reason for that.
 
Many people may be perfectly happy using their DAWs for laying down tracks of their own creations.  That's terrific.  All DAWs are pretty good at that.  But increasingly, professional musicians, composers, and educators are integrating the DAW with the performance, either as live use of the DAW or through publication of the music created in the DAW.  Many universities have formal curricula on "Music Technology".  Some universities even offer majors in that field, and it includes synthesis, recording, and notation.
 
There is a convergence ahead, not unlike when recording hardware merged with sequencing software to become what we now know as the DAW.  It is a question whether Cakewalk will be a player or not.  I would suggest the companies that excel in this convergence will attract the professional musicians and producers and the other products will find themselves more in the garage band tier.  Nothing wrong with that, but it seems to me the Platinum is well above "garage band" level today and Cakewalk ought to be thinking about a strategy that will allow them to thrive as this next convergence takes place.
 
In simple terms, the convergence is composers who orchestrate in the notation world will seamlessly render their music using the most powerful DAW technology.  And people who compose interactively within the DAW will have a seamless pathway to publish their work as a high-quality manuscript.  That convergence opens the door to a whole new market of customers.

I did misunderstand you point.  So to your point…any convergence is not right around the corner.  Going back and forth between a DAW and Notation app is currently a horrible solution.  No one has taken advantage of rewire in a way that facilitates workflow.  If Yamaha comes out with their product with the Cubase audio engine, as reported by Daniel, we might have something that one could work in from start to finish.   That is years away and will be a 1.0 product when released.  Currently if you are working on a large orchestral score you can compose in Sibelius and use MIDI or MusicXLM to transfer into a DAW.  If you need to tweak harmonies etc… (as is usually the case) you need usable notation inside the DAW.   If you are working on a pop tune with horns or strings you shouldn’t have to leave the DAW.  All of this requires usable notation inside the DAW.  That’s why, if you need notation Cubase, Logic, Performer and Protools are far superior solutions to Sonar.   My guess is that Cakewalk is really designed for and marketed to semi-pros and hobbyists and they (Cakewalk) have concluded that that market doesn't need notation which is why they not only won’t enhance notation but will not even fix the bugs.

Before composers had DAWs or computers, a composition would be written, often in sketchbooks or large writing pads, and in pencil with lots of erasers. When a piece was finished, it would then go to the publisher to be edited, engraved and proofed before sending the corrected manuscript to the printer (I'm not referring to film scoring, that's a different process).  My point is that composition and the creation of a finalized score have generally been two separate processes, with of course some overlap for corrections, omissions, etc. 
 
The idea of using a DAW's notation editor for composing and a notation program such as Sibelius for actual final score preparation makes perfect sense.  When I am in the thralls of composition, the last thing I am thinking about is whether what I am writing conforms to professional graphic and notation standards.  That comes later, as it always has.  Exporting a SMF into Sibelius is easy, that's where the focus becomes how does the score LOOK, up till that point I am only concerned with ideas and sound, as well it should be.
 
You keep trumpeting Cubase's notation, but most people disagree with you, professionals generally know that Sibelius, Sonar, Cubase, Logic and Pro Tools notation cannot hold a candle to Sibelius.  My own experience with Cubase left me indifferent.  Yes, Cubase has more dynamic symbols and some other features that are unnecessary when actually composing and producing a recording (dynamics are programmed into the MIDI sequence so of course they are present).  And Digital Performer also has issues with nested triplets and dotted triplets. 
 
In other arts, such as photography, most professionals use one program to make nondestructive edits to RAW image files, and then the remainder of the editing, touch-up work and post-processing is done in a program such as Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro; once again, using two programs for different tasks. 
 
I wish you'd get off your horse about how much better Cubase's notation is than Sonar's because it is not. Yes, it is a little better, but the difference is small compared to the difference between what Sibelius or Finale can do and what any DAW is capable of, notation-wise.   I don't know if you hang-out in Cubase forums (it seems like you would considering how often you bring it up in notation discussions on the Sonar forum) but there are lots of complaints, bugs, and issues as well. 
 
I am living proof that complex orchestral music can be written and produced in in Sonar using the staff view, and it is not any more complicated than doing it in DP or Cubase, I think even less so.  
 
I want CW to fix the bugs as much as anyone, but when I used Cubase and Digital Performer I also found bugs, awkward implementation and other issues.  If Cubase is the program for you, great, but why spend so much time bashing Sonar?  Why not use Cubase and be happy?
 
JG
www.jerrygerber.com/symphony9.htm
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Actually if you read all posts concerning this, you will see it overwhelmingly is about fixing the bugs. It is certainly NOT about "your" option A 
And further, it is also definitely not about Cubase v Sonar. It is all about fixing the bugs so it works as it is expected to and as it should. Not about trying to create a silk purse from a sows ear.

I can use Staff View as is and I do not expect a full notation program embedded in Sonar.
 
That said, Sonar is for creating music and started as a MIDI sequencer.  Regardless of the number of people who do or don't use Staff View, notes on a staff has been the way of writing and composing music for hundreds of years.  It is no disgrace to be unable or unwilling to use a traditional score, but it would be nuts to say it has no place in a music program.  (If you hand a piano roll to a lab band or orchestra, be prepared to run.)
 
If Sonar does not improve Staff View, I will survive.  If Staff View goes away, however, I will immediately look for another DAW because I compose music on a staff.  I would hate to keep swivel-chairing back and forth between Finale and Sonar to create every part for a song.
 

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

Buggletts? Are those like Chiclets?

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.

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.  I mean, with such a poor solution for notation, you wouldn't really expect many people to be Sonar users if they valued notation more highly, would you?
 
With each passing month, I think you can expect more and more notation-oriented musicians to take up an active interest in DAWs, but they aren't going to choose Sonar very often if it is at the back of the pack in this area.
 
Maybe that base of potential customers isn't important to Cakewalk/Gibson.  IMHO, it should be.
 

vintagevibe

Anderton
 
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.

Exactly.  But merely fixing the bugs will get it to nowhere near that state.  (Jerry Gerber not notwithstanding;>)

You like Cubase better for scoring.  So what?  What does that prove, that you're a serious musician and composers who use Sonar are not?   Why spend time bashing Sonar when you could be using Cubase?  What is your motive here, to rag on how much you like Cubase?  Just use it.  If you don't have any positive suggestions, specific suggestions as to how to improve the staff view as a MIDI input tool, then what good is your criticism doing?
 
JG

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.

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...

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.

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.

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.  

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.