SONARtist
I give up ... I was not speaking about a fully-blown and public distributable immaculate sheet music printout.  All I need is a basic "handout" print-off which is given to musicians and then discussed (and manually corrected) before recording.  I could accept what is currently available in SONAR .. IF it printed correctly (e.g. triplets).  But there could be further enhancements, not just bug fixes, and I have voted on most of the ones submitted.
Thanks to all who added their requests.

This is all I am after really. Having done a few searches about MusicXML, I started to realise that even asking for a PNG file requires formatting and Rasterisation processes, something probably outside their skill set, and whilst this could be developed, maybe a can of worms. A workable MusicXML file is different though. It''s seems their are programs like LilyPond that could handle them, that are free, and probably some cheep basic notation programs. Without Music XML I can screen dumo and edit in MSPaint, but it's a fudge.
 
A few years back, when VVocal came out, someone posted a string quartet performance by by a non-pro quartet that was loose to say the least, it sounded all right. Then V-Vocal fixed it, and it sounded pretty damned good. Tools like these mean that for non professionals, amateurs can be an assett, but if they are educated through school, they will most likely need printed music. In Brighton, UK I'd see trombonist's on the bus, and think if they would be interested. I won't find them here, but maybe a cellist. I'd need a print out to have them play. Just to tell them to concentrate on there tone, would probably be enough for me to fix anything after

Staff View is dead.  No matter what Cakewalk says publicly it will never be addressed.  People need realize that.  This same thread has appeared in every release cycle since the 90's.  If you depend on notation Sonar is the wrong DAW.  There are other programs that have functional staff views that have not been abandoned.  

Most of this thread isn't talking about the past, it's talking about the present. Discussion may may raise awareness for users that don't see the validity of SV.
 
There's no reason to lock this thread, no one is being rude.
 
It's a Sonar discussion in the Sonar Forum, it's right to be active if people want to discuss.

michael diemer

vintagevibe
Staff View is dead.  No matter what Cakewalk says publicly it will never be addressed.  People need realize that.  This same thread has appeared in every release cycle since the 90's.  If you depend on notation Sonar is the wrong DAW.  There are other programs that have functional staff views that have not been abandoned.  

I know about Cubase. Are there other DAWS that have a decent staff view?

Jerry Gerber (jsg) has compared the staff views of all the major Window DAW's and I consider him to be the most knowledgeable when it comes to working with Sonar's SV. Do a search on his posts.

michael diemer
 
I know about Cubase. Are there other DAWS that have a decent staff view?

The best DAW staff views are found in:
 
Cubase - (my favorite) even does some cool things Sibelius can't do.
Protools - Sibelius code - need I say more?
Logic - I own the last Windows version - really nice staff view
Digital Performer - started long ago with a staff view (just like Cakewalk did) but they have always been serious about it
Studio One - they bought Notion and are slowly integrating it into Studio One.

michael diemer
Thank You PBOGNAR, Elffin and vintagevibe. I checked out Studio One, a lot of DAW for the money, but one review said midi editing is not its strength. DP very expensioso. Logic's for Macs. I will check out the threads you mentioned also. My preference is to stay with Sonar. If they don't improve SV, how hard is it to use Sonar and a notation system simultaneously?

You can rewire a notation editor from Sonar but you can't send the midi back so you have to drive all of the VSTis from the notation editor. I don't know if notation editors can load VSTis when running as a rewire slave.

But folks have been asking for just such a result for years, way before you (or Gibson) came on the scene. CW "know" the numbers already. so re-asking folks to re-state positions and re-vote on things is pure obfuscation imo. Having a working staff view and associated tools is not that much to ask, especially if programmers (read CW staff) actually have a desire to do so in the first place, and stop having people coming to the forum creating "spin" as to the reasons against.
 
So you now wonder why after yet another release, and no change, that folks are "banging the drum" yet again. It is simply not good enough for you to come here as a CW apologist, and saying we don't know the future. So it MIGHT happen...that's just so much b.s. tbh.

joden
But folks have been asking for just such a result for years, way before you (or Gibson) came on the scene. CW "know" the numbers already. so re-asking folks to re-state positions and re-vote on things is pure obfuscation imo. Having a working staff view and associated tools is not that much to ask, especially if programmers (read CW staff) actually have a desire to do so in the first place, and stop having people coming to the forum creating "spin" as to the reasons against.

 
I don't understand why people have such a hard getting my point, so I'll try once more and put it all in one post. (And by the way, not a lot of people at Cakewalk now were there in the 90s or even the 2000s.) 
 
1. In the past, staff view never ended up as a big priority among the user base as a whole. Period. Cakewalk has to prioritize. The company uses surveys and other methodology to glean what's most important to the MAJORITY of users. Look at how many people noted the improved stability of X3, and now it looks like Platinum represents a further improvement. It does no good to have a staff view, or any view, if the program has problems that impact the quality of the experience for all users.
 
2. Count up the number of unique people posting in a six-page thread about Staff View. That's partially responsible for why it's considered a vocal minority. However...
 
3. Situations and user base needs change. I already mentioned that Cakewalk signed a distribution agreement with Hal Leonard, which has a strong reach into the educational market. The educational market likes notation. If there's an influx of interest from educators, that would have a high probability of tilting the user base toward considering staff view more important. Therefore it would move up in the list of priorities.
 
I don't know why everyone is automatically discounting what was said very clearly and openly at the beginning of the thread by the person who is SONAR's product manager:
 
We frequently (annuallyish) investigate Staff View improvements, or even an overhaul. It's not "dead" nor "abandoned." It has just been "deferred" due to other priorities that impact a larger group of customers. Don't lose hope. We understand there is room for improvement and intend to tackle it eventually. Our new release model will allow us to budget time and resources more easily, so it's more realistic now than it has been in years. Thanks for being patient.
 
To assume the future is going to be like the past seems like not a safe assumption, given what's happened in the past 16 months.
 
Sylvan also sums it up well:
 
Maybe they will get around to notation later on. I hope they do for people like you. But for now, I am happy they are concentrating on the core of being a audio and MIDI recorder/editor/mixer.
 
Those core features impact ALL users. Staff view, by definition, impacts a much smaller group of people. I'm sorry, but I am not apologizing for anyone, I am explaining the reality of a situation that has to balance user needs, resources, and priorities that affect the greatest number of users.
 

It is simply not good enough for you to come here as a CW apologist, and saying we don't know the future. So it MIGHT happen...that's just so much b.s. tbh.

 
I specifically responded regarding the source of the definitive statement that "No matter what Cakewalk says publicly it will never be addressed." That is a direct contraction to what Bill Jackson posted. I would have much preferred  a statement like "I'll bet nothing will ever happen" or "I highly doubt anything will happen" rather than essentially calling Bill a liar, especially because as far as I know the poster has no inside knowledge of Cakewalk's plans whatsoever. So you are in the unusual position of believing a statement about the future of the program from someone who has no connection with the future of the program, and discounting the statements of someone who became product manager very shortly after the acquisition occurred, and is looking at this from a fresh perspective. And frankly, I think he's done an excellent job in improving the core functionality of the program on which EVERYTHING, including enhancements to staff view, depend.

Anderton
2. Count up the number of unique people posting in a six-page thread about Staff View. That's partially responsible for why it's considered a vocal minority.

There really has been little interest over the last few years in improving it, I mean you can count the number of people that have bothered to express an opinion to have it improved or at least fixed in the life of the X series on 25 hands, It's just the same old vocal minority.
 

Not to sound too harsh but there has already been a clear statement from cakewalk regarding this. I'm observing some posters stating the complete reverse with what they said. To say that cakewalk has no intention to fix it is ridiculous right now esp after what they have said. I understand it is frustrating but I know where I'd rather get my information from. Discuss away but it does not change that statement.

subtlearts
I'm in the relatively non-vocal and probably somewhat larger minority of people for whom it's not ever going to be a deal breaker, but who would dearly love to see some shine on the staff view - making tuplets work in a robust and flexible way would seem to be a great place to start. I will not give up hope that under the new model at least that much will happen at some point. As Craig points out, stranger things have happened along the way!
 

 
I'm in the same group. Bug fixes and improvements would be appreciated and useful but it's not a deal breaker.
 

subtlearts
I will also give an enthusiastic plus one to MuseScore, which is free, multi-platform, open-source and much deeper and more complete than most people realize. Scoring does not form a core component of my work or career, but I need to spin up arrangements at least a few times a year, for a variety of styles and instrumentations, and I have yet to run up against something I needed to do that I couldn't get done in Muse. I don't know if it does ReWire so that might be a limitation, but you never know - someone in the user/coder base might be working on it as we speak...

If I remember correctly they can't use ReWire because of the open source situation. (I might be wrong on this)
MuseScore does however support musicXML.  Version 2.0 is in beta2 status by the way, have tried it briefly and it seems like nice improvements.
 

How many unique people does it take before a point becomes valid?
 
BTW, its 31 unique people in this thread and it's not even 6 pages yet!

This thread has become very interesting. I would think, as a longtime dedicated user of Cakewalk products, that it would be a no-brainer for Cakewalk to just look at the competition out there and see that if Cubase, Logic, etc. has a strong working notation editor, so should we. Again, I feel like a troll for all the havoc raised by starting this thread but to me even if we are referred to as a minority, it is quite comforting to know that the number of people interested in getting this fixed is growing.
I am quite happy for my uses with Notion. I hopped on it when Cakewalk was backing it. Cake should have snapped it up like Presonus. I have Finale. I use Sibelius in a friend's studio when working there. Wouldn't it be nice as someone else suggested that if you worked at another studio and the musicians or arrangers wanted to see the proper notation of a part, they could jump on line and get a month of subscription, add the cost to the studio bill. VIOLA! Because the Staff View works right, we can print out the score without jumping thru all the hoops of XMLing to another program. Not to mention that Sonar just may impress the studio guys enough to jump on board.
I just feel that the SV is so close to being right, how could fixing it be wrong!
I just had a funny thought. The year is 1826! Beethoven has just brought in his string quartets to be published. The print manager opens up the manuscript satchel and out pours.................................PRV screenshots! LOL!
 

michael diemer

vintagevibe
Staff View is dead.  No matter what Cakewalk says publicly it will never be addressed.  People need realize that.  This same thread has appeared in every release cycle since the 90's.  If you depend on notation Sonar is the wrong DAW.  There are other programs that have functional staff views that have not been abandoned.  

I know about Cubase. Are there other DAWS that have a decent staff view?

DP's staff view is OK, but it too cannot handle either dotted or tied triplets correctly (one or the other, Sonar doesn't display either correctly).   Cubase's staff view has many more options than Sonar's, but to me it's very clunky and I don't like the interface.   Most of Cubase's notation features assume the user wants to print edited scores so lots of markings are included.  I don't need that, I print my scores from Sibelius,  I just want a decent notation midi editor.  I don't know anything about Logic and though Pro Tools notation view is using some Sibelius technology PT still doesn't support any VST so I don't want to buy into that system.  Finally Sonar has the capacity to have multiple staff view opens at the same time--no other DAW can do this, it is an amazing time saver to have my winds, brass, percussion, synths and strings all in different windows where I don't have to be constantly switching individual instruments within one view.  That's why I put up with Sonar's notation, plus the fact that there are so many things about Sonar I love, including the event list, which is better than DP and Cubase.
 
One user keeps insisting that "if you are using Sonar for notation you're using the wrong program".  He's totally wrong.  Go to the link below and  listen to some of my work done in the Sonar staff view--it works, it just needs some bug fixes. I've produced 11 albums and 8.5 symphonies (working on new one!) with staff view, so I know what it can do and I know its limitations. It just needs some bug fixes.
 
Jerry
http://www.jerrygerber.com/symphony9.htm

jsg
 
One user keeps insisting that "if you are using Sonar for notation you're using the wrong program".  He's totally wrong.  Go to the link below and  listen to some of my work done in the Sonar staff view--it works, it just needs some bug fixes. I've produced 11 albums and 8.5 symphonies (working on new one!) with staff view, so I know what it can do and I know its limitations. It just needs some bug fixes.
 
Jerry
http://www.jerrygerber.com/symphony9.htm

Hi Jerry how are you?  I applaud your ability to compose in Sonars staff view.  That speaks more to you ability and patience than the functionality of Sonar.  It is actually pretty amazing to me that you do such sophisticated work in Sonar's staff view but that doesn't mean that it is an easy or powerful tool compared to the the others.  The point that you are prolific in SV is not the issue here.  It is the capabilities of SV compared to other DAWS.  This thread shows that most people think it it needs work.  I know people who could build a house without power tools.  But I need power tools.  IMO if you depend on notation Sonar is not the best tool.