[Solved] The nightmare of writing music In Sonar Platinum

Hi. Which view is this in?
All the best.

I think I see my error.  In order to replace the rest that is already there, you have to target it with the new note insert.  Aiming in front of it does not push it aside as inserting a whole note does.

Or perhaps try inserting notes in a separate notation program and importing the midi into Sonar. I know it's not ideal but then you're using programs that are excellent in what they respectively do. I've used Sonar's notation as well and, I agree, it's somewhat painful. I wish Gibson would buy Finale.

For viewing an arrangement, the staff view can be useful.  But for data entry, meh!
 
Much easier to enter notes in PRV.  Or another editor ...

I use the staff view all the time, learn its quirks and it is fine, though it could be improved.

How are you entering the notes? I do it with a midi keyboard, using the step recorder. You set the note length and play the key. you need to reset the note length if the value changes. I never had any problems doing it like this, but that was with Sonar 8.5. I don't know if things have changed.

PRV?  That's a piano keyboard and notes displayed as lines?  I must admit that I haven't looked at it since I play violin, Cello and Double bass.  In addition, I have spent far too many years hearing the sound in my head just by looking at a score that I really couldn't write like that.  The material I compose requires parts for a full orchestra.
 
My routine used to be where I would sit at my desk with a pad of paper, write the parts, present them to the orchestra and then spend countless hours revising to "tidy up" the accents, the slurs, etc to make it work.  Then I came across a $20 notation program that did everything.  With simple computer key strokes you could insert slurs, double dotted notes up to 1/64, and anything else that could be hand-written on a page and this was a tiny program.
 
Lee, calling the inserting of notes in Sonar, a "Nightmare", was not an exaggeration.  Let's face it.  Cakewalk has moved away from traditional music towards a more electrified platform.  When I thought I had lost my password to this forum a verification of being human question was asked: "Starting with 'S' what is the technique used by DJs to move a record backwards and forwards."  (Or something like that).  Obviously, Cakewalk doesn't expect too many 70 year-old Cellists.   You can insert guitar nomenclature into the staff view but not slurs, glissando, grace notes, double dotted notes or hemidemisemiquavers.  Not only that, but the entire process appears to be almost deliberately laborious.  And, I really don't understand why Sonar has a Staff view that is so backwards when my $20, 15 Mb notation program does everything I've mentioned with ease.  It's drawback is that it uses windows sounds which butcher anything I write.  While I can export files as midi from it and import them into Sonar I get corruption and driver issues when I do.  I bought Sibelius but when I launch it I get a BSOD and find my self in a support vacuum.  So I soldier on with Sonar using the eraser tool far more than I should.
 
I first used Cakewalk with Windows 95 when it was first launched back in the mid 90s and its staff view features were far superior to what they are now.  You could actually see all the tracks at once in notation form.  Editing was intuitive and straight-forward and allowed simultaneous editing of tracks as if you were altering a score.  That's why I came back to Cakewalk.  I love rock, some techno and trance but was creating a nightmarish experience writing music notation when Cakewalk had already charted these waters, a step forward?  I do appreciate the help that this community has given me - I certainly need it but that doesn't mean I can ignore what's obvious.
 
Thank you.  I realize this was long but there were many responses.   
 
 

djwolf
Lee, calling the inserting of notes in Sonar, a "Nightmare", was not an exaggeration.  

Well to be fair, yes it is an exaggeration, or at the very least its very inaccurate. If Lee had said inserting notes into the notation view of Sonar is a nightmare, that would be accurate. But inserting notes into Sonar is about as easy as falling off a log so long as you're doing it the way the designers intended it to be done. 
 
Its always seemed to me that the Sonar staff view was meant to be primarily an output tool rather than a composition or editing tool. As others said, if you want to do composition in notation view, Sonar really isn't a good fit for you.

Sanderxpander
If you really prefer writing by entering notation and do mostly orchestral stuff, Sonar is simply a bad fit for you.

I think Sanderxpander hit it on the head.  Like you, djwolf. I wish SONAR did staff view better than it does, but the truth is it doesn't.  In the end, I guess we can't expect every program to do everything that we want and need.

The usual recommendation for folks who like to work in staff view, and I include myself in that group, is to use either Cubase or Digital Performer. Of the two I believe Cubase is the better. I myself have found Reaper's new notation view very good, and improving along with the rest of the DAW . So now I'm using Reaper to work in, then I import the audio file into Sonar, where I can use the mastering tools it has. (For what I call mastering, although it is presumptuous on my part to call it that. But the presets on the LP64 plugins are a great starting point). 

I saw someone placed a graphic awhile back with the piano notes on the side replaced with a staff in PRV.  That looks like it would be so easy to do and fun to work in.
 
Could Panue do this??!!
 
 
 

djwolf
Sanderxpanda,  As I said, I had an accident only days after buying Sibelius and a 12 month support deal.  When I returned to work 18 months later I had the BSOD and the uncertainty of how to proceed.  To be frank, I'm not happy about their deals.

I'm sorry to hear that, apparently I missed that earlier. I would try to reinstall first.

The idea that notation view is the true view for "musicians" is no longer valid any more than taste can be measured.  I'm an old guy and I love my classical but I'm also a jazz fan and a rock fan (particularly Cream, Hendrix, Genesis and Yes) and some of the techno and trance that came out a few years ago was brilliant.  I've lost track for the last couple of years but I love music and we all work in different ways.  My preference for notation is simply about over 60 years of looking at a page of music and hearing it.  If I'm writing a techno piece and I want the sound of a particular instrument as an effect then it doesn't matter if that note could not be played by that particular instrument because of pitch or key - it is a sound effect.  However, whether I'm handing out score parts or just writing music using a sampler to sound like a band, an ensemble or an orchestra for an accompaniment or in the hope that a band or orchestra would be interested there is the question of including pitch ranges and keys the real instrument that it is emulating could not play or fingering no musician on Earth could duplicate.  Are we just creating music for non-instrumentalists to appreciate?
 
Now, I play the strings.  I can play the piano really badly and I'm aware of keys, pitch ranges, breath requirements and fingering parameters of other instruments.  I know these things but I can't play the instruments so this knowledge is part and parcel of looking at a score.  I can look at a dozen notes on a bass staff and say, "There is no way a bassoonist could play that."  Looking at a matrix or PRV view I'd have to visualize these views in their notation form and I have no experience with these views.  I need to see the notation.
 
Maybe DAWs like Sonar could look at the DLC model of games whereby for $100 or so, you could download the notation extension because we all have our own styles of working.  I actually come from the film world where everything is used.  For one scene you may need a 1920s style crooner with a megaphone, another you need to go full Beethoven and end up with a thumping dance track.   It's all music and it all has its own unique effect.