ORIGINAL: Crg

We're all still waiting for a Notation program that will translate digital audio into notation. I won't be holding my breath.

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Scott

--
Scott R. Garrigus - Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series. Get Sonar 7 Power & Sound Forge 8 Power - Today! Go to: http://www.garrigus.com/ - http://www.musictechshop.com/ - http://www.cooltechshop.com/

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Good point! I work almost exclusively with notation to Midi for my orchestral compositions, and I use Finale 2010b instead of Sibelius for two reasons.
 
Firstly, I am of the opinion that Finale is way easier to use, and I love the humanized playback features (when used in Finale).
 
Second, I've had tremendous results by simply  "saving" straight to midi, and then importing the midi files into Sonar. The above mentioned playback features need to be disabled in the human playback menu (when saving), and the tempo times do not quite seem to match sometimes, but the saved midi files retain pitch, articulation, timing and dynamics from the score superbly well. Simply load the softsynths (Kontakt or GPO for example) into Sonar, import the saved midi files (all instruments to seperate tracks when saving) enter your tempos and changes into Sonar and it's one click and done. Stupid easy! You can also use Finale's GPO plugin and save straight to audio and import that way if you like (Finale's unique GPO samples are far inferior to LASS or Vienna samples though, particularly for that "in your face" TV and movie recorded scoring sound.)
 
Theres also several posts here concerning re-wire and using Sonar and Finale at the same time, similar to Sibelius. I've never done that because I like to micro-manage the steps in the process a bit more, but to each his own
 
It seems to me that DAW software and standard notation have never been good bedfellows simply because so few DAW users are standard notation users. I don't think it should be this way either, but standard notation has become a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to contemporary studio music. DAWs are midi/recording programs. How many "big studio" producers actually read standard notation, much less use it? Thats the question.
 
This simple Finale/Sonar workaround has done wonders for my notation work. Piano reduction sheet music? One click. Play 16 midi tracks as a reduction on a piano? One click. Print Parts? One click. Organ and bagpipe composition? (god forbid) No problem. With Win 7 and a decent sound card you can simply pop back and forth between Finale and Sonar, and compose a string quartet, print the parts, and burn cd's (or MP3s) for musicians, all in a couple hours. and the 64-bit recordings from sonar speak for themselves.
 
To think what I actually paid for "band in a box" when I was in college actually makes me a little ill...
 
Best-
W

OK my two cent's, I would love a fully functioning score feature.  This is because i can read music and as some of you may know i am doing my version of Strawberry Fields for my masters.  To be able to input from the score into Sonar would have made my life a lot easier.  On saying that no other program that is DAW have integrated things like a a step sequencer or arpeggiator or the matrix player, these functions make this program really flexiable.  These are really cool functions and can be used in a live situation.  So that's the trade off.  I was able to use the piano roll to input the score, it was just hard double checking things.

I’m not being conceited or arrogant, I just want to give away the formula for turning lead into gold.
Down with the false Gods. (Audio Schools)
Viva la Revolution
Sonar Forever, Pro Tools Never
Ben B.C.T (Bachelor of Creative Technology)
http://www.myspace.com/audiomystics

slartabartfast


I did not know this:

http://www.cakewalk.com/Support/SWOV/default.asp

In that case, it is possible that Cakewalk signed a sales agreement incuding language not to compete with the company they sold their stuff to. It would be very unlikely that they could use the work they put into a product they sold to improve a product they retain. They might even be inhibited from developing in this area because of considerations of being accused of violating their sales agreement or re-using code that they had ostensibly sold.

ORIGINAL: Vovchik

Cakewalk once had a program named Overture, now it belongs to some different company. It was not top-notch notator, but definitely did the job. So no need to reinvent the wheel, just use old development.

For me, it would be enough to improve only two aspects of the notation department in Sonar: A) tuplets and B) note spacing.

This above sounds like a very logical explanation to this. That would be very normal busines procedure. Who knows...
 
I can't read music,  that's why I would be very happy to have a reliable
notation function in Sonar. Nothing fancy, just reliability.
 
No matter what the kids say, notation is the international languge of music makers. In practically any serious musical activity, sooner or later, notation reading skills are needed (that you find a workaround and somehow manage without it, doesn't mean it isn't needed).
A fluent use of notation opens a whole new world to a musician compared to tabulatures and learning by listening.
 
When I print a staff  of a piano part in a song of mine, I would like to be reasonably sure of that the notation makes sense to a piano player. You don't go to a session with a recorder and ask the pianist to start listening and learning (well...of course you can do that). An instrumentalist with normal skills can play stuff of mediocre difficulty level almost prima vista. You can't and mustn't underestimate the importance of notation, no matter if you actually need it yourself or not.
 
When a person about to buy music software is asking for recommendations, the ones, who's word has the most weight, recommend the one that fills the essential needs best. "That one is ok but the notation sucks, that other one is about the same what comes to feature list, but it's cheaper and has good notation." sounds like a convincing recommendation to me.
 
Like I said, I can't write/read notation, (I hope I could) so I'd like SONAR to do it for me.
 

Wotan PE


Good point! I work almost exclusively with notation to Midi for my orchestral compositions, and I use Finale 2010b instead of Sibelius for two reasons. 
 
...
Theres also several posts here concerning re-wire and using Sonar and Finale at the same time, similar to Sibelius. I've never done that because I like to micro-manage the steps in the process a bit more, but to each his own 
 
...
... With Win 7 and a decent sound card you can simply pop back and forth between Finale and Sonar, and compose a string quartet, print the parts, and burn cd's (or MP3s) for musicians, all in a couple hours. and the 64-bit recordings from sonar speak for themselves. 

I live almost exclusively in Sibelius these days, since Sib's orchestral mockups are good enough using the EWQLSO sound sets, and the parts I prepare are for live musicians to record.  I'm unable to ReWire Sibelius, since Propellerhead refuses to come into the 21st century and develop for 64-bit platforms.  Also, Sibelius does not allow other apps to share the ASIO drivers while it's running, so I can't simply switch back and forth between Sibelius and Sonar.  I would love to be able to do useful quick sketches in Sonar's notation so I could make use of all the other things that Sonar is good at, but for my requirements at the moment, Sibelius wins out.
 
On a related note, I have Notion, and have many friends who use Finale, and I've concluded that all notation programs suck in their own way.  I just happen to think that Sibelius sucks the least :)