Earlier today I came across this interesting post by czyky :
 
Notation/Staff view can help your mixes, even if you don't read music
 

vintagevibe

microapp
 
Interesting that Cake now thinks nobody is interested in SV.
I am curious as to how they are arrived at that.
 
 

Especially since all the other major players came to the opposite conclusion.

I assume it is a decision to focus on core competencies, which is probably a wise move, considering the shape SONAR X2 was in under Roland.  I am glad they prioritized as they did.
 
However, today is a much different situation.  The DAW core is excellent.  Very reliable, high performing, and competitive feature-wise.  It seems like a good time to look ahead.
 
The whole notion of a "DAW" came abut as a fusion of sequencing and recording.  I see another such fusion ahead.  Most people who use notation programs heavily are not exposed to DAWs at all, or at least don't integrate them into their work.  But most professional musicians (the kind that get paid decent salaries in Broadway, Nashville, Hollywood, and the professional symphony orchestras) are extremely notation-oriented.  You don't walk into an LA studio and say to the 40 musicians you have hired, "I have some concepts we want to try out today."  No, you put charts in front of them so they can lay down the tracks and get out of there at the least cost to you.
 
And the DAW can be an essential part of the preparations for those expensive sessions.  A good rendering in advance of the studio date allows the producer and arranger to work out virtually 100% of the issues before they pay their first studio pro.
 
None of the DAW-based notation programs have 5% of the power that a notation professional needs.  The exception on the horizon could be Steinberg, with their new notation program being developed by Daniel Spreadbury, who previously headed the development of Sibelius.  While I am sure there are various little tweaks that could improve the existing notation views in the DAWs, the real opportunity lies in integrating the major notation programs with the DAW.  That is what can realistically lead to the next market fusion point.
 
Gibson can't control (and maybe not even influence) the plans of Finale and Sibelius, as both of those products are more or less on life support.  But there actually are some interesting opportunities with the products as they currently exist.  I'll speak from the point of view of a Finale user.  I have a Sibelius license, but don't ever use the product.  Finale has rich support of MusicXML.  If you export your score to MusicXML, that contains practically everything that is needed to produce a full printable score (i.e. the notes, articulations, expressions, slurs, etc.)  And importantly, it contains the score's schema, which defines exactly what instruments are used on each staff.  It should be possible to write a SONAR import function that would read the MusicXML file and create a ready-to-use Sonar project.  That would be a huge benefit.  If I had that, I would do all my rendering directly under Sonar instead of within Finale.
 
I don't believe the MusicXML includes the MIDI commands per se, so that import process would have to translate note information into MIDI, and to do a good job, it should take into account the effects of articulations and expressions.  That brings up a potential second point of integration.  With Finale, you can certainly save the MIDI file that corresponds to your notes.  More importantly, Finale has a mode called Human Playback, which does a really good job of interpreting all those articulations, expressions, tempo marks, and adding MIDI controller commands to make the playback even more life-like.
 
There is a tool in Finale where you can force Human Playback to save all of its adjustments into the MIDI file.  So it would be really cool if Sonar could process the MusicXML project to set up the project, attach the synths, etc, then import the full MIDI file including the human playback information.  That would put the producer in the position of just needing to do final MIDI tweaks, a little mixing, and some VST effects to bring this around to a very nice playback.
 
My point is this is likely to be an area of convergence in the future, and I'd hope that Cakewalk can recognize that and take some strides in that area.

I would think that there should be some sort of fusion with Hal Leonard that could really benefit from a great SV.
 
Imagine if the published stuff that Hal Leonard distributes has SONAR files that included the music clips WITH STAFF aligned to the tempo of the sound clips etc.   (and probably "TAB" for some people).   Maybe have a SONAR "player" version that was free but could read only these files.
 
I but a LOT of music books / instruction books from Hal Leonard.  If they came with that type of file - it would be amazing for education.  I for the life of me can't understand why it hasn't been done before.
 
Basically - SONAR can do this NOW.  But it would make SV a much more "important" part of the puzzle and give it the focus for more resources.
 
 
 
 
 
http://www.halleonard.com...d=6961&subsiteid=1
 

Hal Leonard Senior VP of Sales Doug Lady states, "Although Cakewalk's roots go back over 25 years, they've always remained on the cutting edge of innovation with products like their flagship recording program, SONAR. Their current product line complements what we offer, is ideal for instructional bundles, and presents new opportunities for retailers by offering a product family that spans the range from beginner to recording professional."

cakewalk would have better served the staff view in the X series by allowing the child (staff view notehead buttons) to write to the parent (control bar and tools module) while the staff view was active. Instead they got rid of the noteheads which makes it much more difficult to work in the staff view. Just my opinion though.

cparmerlee

 Finale has rich support of MusicXML.  If you export your score to MusicXML, that contains practically everything that is needed to produce a full printable score (i.e. the notes, articulations, expressions, slurs, etc.)  And importantly, it contains the score's schema, which defines exactly what instruments are used on each staff.  It should be possible to write a SONAR import function that would read the MusicXML file and create a ready-to-use Sonar project.  That would be huge.  If I had that, I would do all my rendering directly under Sonar instead of within Finale.
 
I don't believe the MusicXML includes the MIDI commands per se, so that import process would have to translate note information into MIDI, and to do a good job, it should take into account the effects of articulations and expressions.  That brings up a potential second point of integration.  With Finale, you can certainly save the MIDI file that corresponds to your notes.  More importantly, Finale has a mode called Human Playback, which does a really good job of interpreting all those articulations, expressions, tempo marks, and adding MIDI controller commands to make the playback even more life-like.
 
There is a tool in Finale where you can force Human Playback to save all of its adjustments into the MIDI file.  So it would be really cool if Sonar could process the MusicXML project to set up the project, attach the synths, etc, then import the full MIDI file including the human playback information.  That would put the producer in the position of just needing to do final MIDI tweaks, a little mixing, and some VST effects to bring this around to a very nice playback.
 
My point is this is likely to be an area of convergence in the future, and I'd hope that Cakewalk can recognize that and take some strides in that area.

Then you should go and vote for FULL musicXML support in my post in Features and Ideas.
http://forum.cakewalk.com/FindPost/3152945
A reasonable solution would be to fix the current Staff View bugs for people who use it primarily for MIDI entry and then add musicXML support for the people using external notation programs for serious composition and score publishing.
While you are at it you should look at the Staff View bug fix requests and vote for them.
TO vote, click the stars on the right of the original post in each thread.
 
 

mudgel
HVintagevibe. Do you actually have Studio One or are you speculating on what might be at some future time.
I have and use Studio One V2.6.5
I'll say it again.

Presonus have bought Notion and sell it in their store but it is not in anyway integrated into Studio One 2.6.5 which is the latest version of their DAW. Notion is now version 5 which was due to be released when it was bought by Presonus. They have done nothing visible with it certainly not to the point of integrating it in their DAW. What they maybe doing in house or the intending to do maybe another thing but 'going to' and 'already done' are entirely different perspectives.

Using misinformation doesn't bolster your arguments at all. It just shows that you'll say what you want to strengthen your point of view whether it's accurate or not.

If he's talking about "some future time," I asked a PreSonus representative when 3.0 was coming out. I was told "later this year." If VintageVibe knows something about 3.0 integrating notation, he's probably violating an NDA, If not, then it's just speculation based on nothing other than a press release that was non-specific as to any potential aspects of integration. They could have just meant rewiring, as you can do with SONAR (and Studio One Pro) now.

mudgel
HVintagevibe. Do you actually have Studio One or are you speculating on what might be at some future time.
I have and use Studio One V2.6.5
I'll say it again.

Presonus have bought Notion and sell it in their store but it is not in anyway integrated into Studio One 2.6.5 which is the latest version of their DAW. Notion is now version 5 which was due to be released when it was bought by Presonus. They have done nothing visible with it certainly not to the point of integrating it in their DAW. What they maybe doing in house or the intending to do maybe another thing but 'going to' and 'already done' are entirely different perspectives.

Using misinformation doesn't bolster your arguments at all. It just shows that you'll say what you want to strengthen your point of view whether it's accurate or not.

I don't have Studio One but I do have Notion and on the Notion forums a Presonus representative said that integration is their plan.  

Anderton
I don't see what's so hard to understand about this statement from SONAR's project manager, who took on the job shortly after the acquisition:
 
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.
 
I read that as it has not been a priority in the past, and although he's not making any promises, things are different now.

We understand perfectly what Bill has said.
It's just we have heard this many times before. In fact with each new release, Cakewalk assures us SV is not dead, it's just not a priority.
I didn't see anything different in Bill's post, except, he DID admit there are no current plans to work on it.

Anderton
I don't see what's so hard to understand about this statement from SONAR's project manager, who took on the job shortly after the acquisition:
 
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.
 
I read that as it has not been a priority in the past, and although he's not making any promises, things are different now.

Craig, now that you work for Cakewalk, perhaps the capacity for objectivity and for being completely honest with your customers has been curtailed a bit.   You know, or should know, as well as I do, if not better, that something is seriously wrong with a software company that refuses for over a decade to improve a part of the program that has been there from the early days of Pro Audio.  Just getting CW to address basic bugs in notation has proven to be a total failure.  Even in CW's advertisements, they don't show an image of it, they don't say anything about it at all, except that it's included in the software.  I realize money makes the world go around, but there is such thing as integrity--not your's specifically, but the company's.  Is there some kind of disdain or contempt for notation?  Why wouldn't the developers be energized and eager to make improvements and fix bugs in such a core aspect of sequencing?  Is the bottom line more important than creating the best DAW available?  It's a drag for me, I am professional, classically trained composer who has scored for film, TV, games, dance, concerts, albums and animation.   Sonar has always been promoted as a professional piece of software, has that changed?   Are you not interested in selling software  to professional composers, arrangers and orchestrators as the opening of the user manual has stated for decades? 
 
It is sad to say, but nobody believe CW anymore about the staff view.  Too many releases go by where the same old "We're going to get to it" has been repeated.  At some point people just stop believing words when the actions associated with those words don't ever pan out.  You can attack the messenger if you wish, but my message is pretty much the same as many other users who use notation.  CW's attitude is childish and deceptive.  I don't know what the company politics are (and I don't want to know) but I think pride of craftsmanship is important and if CW wants to create the best DAW around, upgrading the staff view (or at the very least fix bugs) would certainly add to Sonar's value. 
 
JG
www.jerrygerber.com
 
 
 

Jerry,
Well said, I agree 100%.
 

I am stunned!!! When I started this thread I had no idea it would spark this long discussion! In the past, someone would start the legendary "FIX THE STAFF VIEW" thread. The ones of us who didn't use it pounced on us like a cat on a rat! We don't need no stinkin' SF!!! The thread would quickly disappear in a matter of hours. I hate to think of disinterest.
NOW, there seems to be real interest in getting this thing fixed! Or maybe there's more members now that have use of the SF. Whichever, it is! BRAVO!!!
I can't remember ever having a SV thread run this long other than when it broke in X1.
Maybe there is still hope.
It is rather sad that a new buyer pays $400 for Sonar and then finds out that a critical portion of the program for him is antiquated and in some aspects unusable and the company's reaction is "Well, that part of Sonar is not a priority."
Everyone who knows me here and in my life knows I am a Caker. I just hope that all these buyouts and restructuring
will eventually lead to a stable company with the best product for the money out there. A program that has now weaknesses when it comes to ALL it's features.
I, for one, can't express how impressed I am with the Platinum rollout. I just hope the dedication and expertise stays on this level.
Holy Crap! I feel like a motivational speaker at a real estate class! 

microapp
I just wonder what the critical mass is for Cake to take SV fixes seriously.

I doubt we're anywhere near that.
 

Sidroe
 The ones of us who didn't use it pounced on us like a cat on a rat!

I resemble that remark ....

Sidroe
NOW, there seems to be real interest in getting this thing fixed! Or maybe there's more members now that have use of the SF. Whichever, it is! BRAVO!!!

Maybe there is a growing recognition that music technology as a "proper" field of education is being recognized these days.  Perhaps many institutions are no longer viewing this as some little enclave of enthusiasts that like to make strange noises with synthesizers, and now it is being seen as an essential skill for the modern composer.  Certainly fixing the bugs with the notation features should be a priority, but the field of notation is much broader than the current scope of Sonar notation.  This merging of notation, sequencing, and recording should be seen holistically as the field of music production.  And it doesn't stop there, because the real field is media production, including video.  A vendor that doesn't want to be pigeon-holed as just a play-thing for hobbyists needs to broaden its vision here.
 

"Build it and they will come" is a valid comment on any aspect of the program.
 
I think it is possible the staff view is not used by most Sonar users because those who would like it to work are not Sonar users. Especially given how the other DAW publishers do promote it.
 
And/Or, those who would like to use it do not because it does not work so good.