jsg

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

I think one of the difficulties will be to not "break" anything that is already working and piss off users like Jerry who are "basically" happy and productive with the tool (except for the existing bugs). The root issue as I see it is that how users would use Staff View varies according to what they do and what they need. While I read music well, I am more comfortable editing in PRV than in staff view, and only use staff view as a context view of a fairly basic arrangement, and to print out a rudimentary lead sheet. I think a lot of users just want to be able to print out a captured performance once they get it right (for copyright reasons, etc.) For this reason (the fact that when it comes to staff view, users' needs are going to vary greatly) - Echoing Bill's opinion from a few days ago, I am hopeful that Cake's path forward (of on-going small fixes via a monthly membership) - will yield a better approach than would have been possible previously - i.e., start with fixing small bugs, bringing back icons, buttons, etc. that facilitated workflow, and working through those workflow issues  that might arise as a result of a change.

vintagevibe

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.  

I think Sonar's notation view IS easy to use, bugs aside.   I wouldn't and couldn't work in it as prolifically as I have if it were as difficult as you say it is.  Some say all DAW notation editors leave something to be desired, and if one's standard is a program like Sibelius, which is not a DAW or a production tool, but solely a notation program, they'd be right. 
 
There are many tricks in using Sonar's notation editor that I've discovered and invented over the years.  For example, if you lasso a selection of notes and move them, the controllers and patch information will not move with them.   But if you select the notes via F9 and F10, all the information is selected, including controller and patch information, and they all can be moved (or deleted, copied, etc.) together.   Also, setting up your main windows so that you have 3, 4 or more tabbed (and locked) staff views, will allow you to completely bypass the need to be constantly adding or subtracting instruments to the view.   Cubase and DP cannot do this. 
 
For those who want the note icons back, no problem there either.  I was dependent upon the note icons too and when I first saw they were missing I hated it.  But if you use your keybinding and bind all the notes to specific keys:
 
w = whole
h = half-note
q = quarter
etc. etc. 
 
Now you have a faster way to input notes, even faster than using note icons.  
 
Since music notation has evolved over a 1000 years and the fact that many of the finest musical compositions in the world could not have been created without it, I wish that Cakewalk would consider the cultural, artistic, intellectual and musical value of it and fix the bugs.   It will only make their software better.  They've spent the past 10 years trying to please those who don't use the staff view or don't care about it.  How about now devoting a few releases to improving the notation editor?   If CW does this, Sonar will be without question the finest DAW on the market and people will talk.
 
Jerry
www.jerrygerber.com
 
 
 
 

microapp

jsg
 
I think Sonar's notation view IS easy to use, bugs aside.   I wouldn't and couldn't work in it as prolifically as I have if it were as difficult as you say it is.  Some say all DAW notation editors leave something to be desired, and if one's standard is a program like Sibelius, which is not a DAW or a production tool, but solely a notation program, they'd be right. 
 
There are many tricks in using Sonar's notation editor that I've discovered and invented over the years.  For example, if you lasso a selection of notes and move them, the controllers and patch information will not move with them.   But if you select the notes via F9 and F10, all the information is selected, including controller and patch information, and they all can be moved (or deleted, copied, etc.) together.   Also, setting up your main windows so that you have 3, 4 or more tabbed (and locked) staff views, will allow you to completely bypass the need to be constantly adding or subtracting instruments to the view.   Cubase and DP cannot do this. 

 
Jerry,
I admire you persistence. I really like your ninth.
But...
In the mid 70's I built my first computer. It had paddle switches on the front to thumb in address and data bit-by-bit and a write button to store the switch data. I wrote thousands of lines of code by keying in hex code...no assembler... direct hex code. I did this because nothing else was available.
I have no desire to EVER,EVER,EVER do anything like this again even though it is possible.
 

If you guys really want to know about a notation program that was incredibly difficult to learn and use, try SCORE.  Score came out in 1988, it was created by Leland Smith at Stanford.  It was the first real notation program for the PC.  It worked under DOS and did not use any mouse or pointing device.  It took me 6 months to learn it and after using it for 10 years I was about to go completely lunatic.   For example, you want to change the curvature of a slur?   Easy, just type:
23 11 0 14 02 19 ENTER.   (you had to memorize these numbers or you'd be looking it up in the manual)
That's how cryptic it was.  Yet, it produced printed output that rivaled anything that Sibelius or Finale can do, the output was stupendous.   So, working with Sonar's notation editor, for me, is a breeze compared to something like that! 
 

Brando
While I read music well, I am more comfortable editing in PRV than in staff view, and only use staff view as a context view of a fairly basic arrangement, and to print out a rudimentary lead sheet.

Another poster made the suggestion of being able to view the PRV and SV in the same window, so I put that down as a feature.
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Piano-View-and-Staff-View-in-the-same-Window-m3153522.aspx#3153522
 
I think this could be a great way of becoming more comfortable with what is happening in SV, whilst editing PRV.but also vice verca when thinking about harmony. I the past I have tried having both windows open at the same time, but it was fiddly.

Mark Ellis
Turns out Reaper is really putting some effort into a quality notation view for editing. 

Wow even Reaper has notation now?!?  So they feel it's important enough to start from scratch to add it.  Reaper, Avid, Presonus, MOTU, Steinberg, Magix and Apple/Logic think it's important but Cakewalk doesn't.  I don't get it.  
 
When Cakewalk for Windows 3.1 came out it was a feature of the program and the best notation on Windows at the time.   Then they orphaned it.  Very little was ever done since somewhere around 1992 ish.   

Mark Ellis
 
 
Turns out Reaper is really putting some effort into a quality notation view for editing.

I'm not sure this is correct. there is discussion there, as here, about the merits of staff view, and a small but vocal contingent of users pushing for one, but to my knowledge they don't yet have it. They may or may not be working on it. I am a casual member of their forum, just in case I decide to migrate, so I 'm not privy to any inside info, but from what I can gather it's not out yet.

jsg
Really?  I went to their site and looked over the user's manual and the website advertising, no mention of a notation view.   Is this inside information they haven't released yet?

Upcoming release, check their forum.

Please go and vote for it?

I would, but I think a SV improvement at this time is a waste of resources.  There is a TON of new technology that CW has been adapting to, including vst3, which I think is more important to the software environment as a whole - because that will give them 5-10 years to focus on other functionality.  Personally, I would rather Sibelius make midi recording more accurate because I simply cannot use it reliably. 
I do not think SV has been abandoned by any means, I just think that there have been so many advances in music tech over the last 5 years that triage and allocation of resources has likely been very demanding.  One thing I'm sure of is when Cake does an update to SV, it will be done right the first time.

It is difficult at best not to be cynical when we have been waiting for almost two decades. SV worked better in pro audio 9 than it does now.

rabeach
It is difficult at best not to be cynical when we have been waiting for almost two decades. SV worked better in pro audio 9 than it does now.

How so?  There have been minor improvements such as adding and eventually darkening the color of the staff view track pane, but everything else is pretty much the same.  The disappearance of note icons actually sped things up for me, using keybinding for note values turns out to be faster, although I still think they should return the icons because they're very useful too, and they offer visual cues.  That's the only real change I know of.
 
I think there are two camps here wanting changes to the staff view, the 1st camp, which I am in, sees the notation aspect of a DAW solely as a MIDI input and editing tool, one that satisfies a composer's need to visualize music in an evolutionarily successful symbolic language that has evolved over a millennium and that today is still highly relevant to music composition whether it be scores for film, TV or games, or Broadway, opera, orchestral and chamber music, religious and secular rituals, music education. It doesn't have to be too sophisticated, just display notes (including dotted and tied triplets of course) correctly, have a functional and flexible snap function and allow for easy access to note properties.  Maybe a display that could turn off and on patch/controller info on same screen would be nice, but not necessary. In this sense the function of the notation view and the PRV is quite similar:  to manipulate and add/remove midi data, controllers, patch changes, etc.   They display that data in very different ways.  
 
The other camp sees the notation editor also as a way to print out scores and parts to give to musicians.  Whether they read music or not, having a printed version of what you sequenced or recorded helps communicate ideas to others.  This is essentially asking software designers to combine the complexity, depth and ergonomics of Sonar with a powerful and comprehensive notation program like Sibelius.  I wish more musicians wanted something like that, but I think the ones that do don't constitute a large, global market.  We've never had that in the history of DAWS, and if some brave souls want to do that they sure win my respect.  But in reality, if you're writing for live players, do the score and parts in a notation program instead of a DAW, you'll be a lot happier. 
 
I hope the second camp understands that a dedicated notation program is not, at least up to now, a DAW, it is not a production tool, it is not designed for producing master CDs and/or wave files, nor to handle VST instruments and signal processors or to create a finished recording. Only a finished, publish-quality score and parts. 
 
No matter how useful the PRV may be to some, music notation allows for deeper contemplation and clarity of harmonies, harmonic progression, voice-leading and contrapuntal movement and orchestration.  Is that just my opinion or is it objectively true?   It is true for me, but verify for yourself, try to manage a simple four-part harmony exercise or a Bach choral in the PRV and then try it in the staff view.  
 
I realize that today's hip-hop, dance, rock, and numerous other styles and genres of pop music do not depend upon or need a written score.   That speaks to the power and flexibility of music itself--a piece does not need to be born in notated form to be a highly meaningful, expressive artistic experience.   My own bias tells me though that when a great musical composition is born as a notated score, it can contain qualities, subtleties, complexities and variations that would be difficult to give expression to without the written language of music.
 
Sooner or later, perhaps we'll see a DAW with the score capacities of a great notation program.  But in the meanwhile, I wish Cakewalk would re-do the snap function to make sense. 
 
JG
http://www.jerrygerber.com/symphony8.htm
http://www.jerrygerber.com
 

I want a sv that can read these!!! http://blog.wfmu.org/free...1/gallery_of_musi.html

vintagevibe

Mark Ellis
Turns out Reaper is really putting some effort into a quality notation view for editing. 

Wow even Reaper has notation now?!?  So they feel it's important enough to start from scratch to add it.  Reaper, Avid, Presonus, MOTU, Steinberg, Magix and Apple/Logic think it's important but Cakewalk doesn't.  I don't get it.  
 
When Cakewalk for Windows 3.1 came out it was a feature of the program and the best notation on Windows at the time.   Then they orphaned it.  Very little was ever done since somewhere around 1992 ish.   

Presonus has a notation Program called Notion. It is not integrated into their other software namely Studio One v2.6.5

mudgel

vintagevibe

Mark Ellis
Turns out Reaper is really putting some effort into a quality notation view for editing. 

Wow even Reaper has notation now?!?  So they feel it's important enough to start from scratch to add it.  Reaper, Avid, Presonus, MOTU, Steinberg, Magix and Apple/Logic think it's important but Cakewalk doesn't.  I don't get it.  
 
When Cakewalk for Windows 3.1 came out it was a feature of the program and the best notation on Windows at the time.   Then they orphaned it.  Very little was ever done since somewhere around 1992 ish.   

Presonus has a notation Program called Notion. It is not integrated into their other software namely Studio One v2.6.5

Notion is already somewhat integrated into Studio One and they state they are working on more integration.

microapp
I was looking at Reaper earlier this AM.
Personal or biz license (for < $500K biz income) is $60.
Free updates for same version number.
Their development does seem very aggressive. Updates sometimes every few days.
I think the free eval is 60 days.
Not 100% sure the current version has notation but it is coming soon.
 

One thing I don't get about Reaper.  It looks like their copy protection is basically the honor system.  I wonder how many "loyal customers" haven't paid for it.