tfkeel

we do still hope to enhance the Staff View more substantially in the future under the framework of the new Skylight interface

 
I'm one of the "old" guys around here who learned to orchestrate on a paper score.  Does the new Skylight interface allow me to "dock" a few staff views?    My "scoring pad" has far too many staves to be viewed in a single staff view, and I must constantly be changing my staff view to different groupings of instruments in order to complete my work.  This would be worth the 99 bucks to me ALONE.  It will save me HOURS and HOURS and HOURS.
 
I have learned to live with the idiosyncrasies of the staff view, it is essentially unchanged since Pro Audio 9, which I think is about 10 years now.  I do my scoring in Sonar then export to Finale for the human players and singers. 
 
One REALLY NICE FEATURE would be the ability to introduce a new clef in the middle of the piece, or an 8va, 8vb, loco marker set.   I already drive some  people crazy by using tenor C-clef for my French horns.  It lets me write them in concert pitches, never could think transposed.  Drives me bananas.  I quit playing the saxophone after a week in the 5th grade and switched to the tuba.  Couldn't think transposed then, either.   Been the same for 49 years.  Had bad chops then, have bad ones now.  My timing is atrocious.  I know what to do, and what it should sound like, but doing it with my hands escapes me.
 
Sonar is very bad at leger lines, and so am I 
 

Thank you for this post, you seem to have hit on the answer. Export midi files to Finale, and get your scores there.  Sure it's extra money, but you get a nice professional scoring program that'll do the job at a reasonable cost.
 
Problem solved.

 

Thank you for this post, you seem to have hit on the answer. Export midi files to Finale, and get your scores there.  Sure it's extra money, but you get a nice professional scoring program that'll do the job at a reasonable cost.
 
Problem solved.

No problem not solved.  I have Sibelius and Notion there are 2 problems with this scenario:

1) What I need is the ability to compose with usable notation INSIDE A DAW.
2) Without an export to Music XML function this process is a huge time sucking nightmare.

I'm a late comer to Sonar and I initially thought I wouldn't really care about / need serious notation.  Well, I am finding that everything I do for a client now absolutely requires the accompanying printed and/or digital scores.  Can't really do much with Sonar's staff view.  It really is a big disappointment to learn that nothing has changed in this department for a decade.

The new workflow features look interesting, and the videos of the new interface look nice, but it seems composers have been really overlooked for a while.  I don't really see a compelling reason to upgrade.  Not really sure where to go for Windows software from here ...  man, I hate installing trials.

"No problem not solved.  I have Sibelius and Notion there are 2 problems with this scenario:

1) What I need is the ability to compose with usable notation INSIDE A DAW.
2) Without an export to Music XML function this process is a huge time sucking nightmare."

 
As vintagevibe says, the problem is not the quality of the notation produced by the Staff View after composing is completed. We know that we need to use Finale/Sibelius etc.. to produce scores coz professional players would laugh or throw things at us if we gave them a printout from the current Staff View .
 
We use the Staff View during the creation process and there are things it can't display properly which make it hard for those who write notation to easily see what they have programmed in a track VS. what it says is there in notational terms on-screen.
 
Perhaps we should come up with a MOST WANTED features list for the Staff View? (So Cakewalk can have fun burning it on New Year's Eve!)

What I don't get is cake will (presumably) pay 3rd parties to write or adapt plugins to include as "bling" selling points. So why don't they contract out the staff view notation programming, not to fix the current staff view; but scrap it and start from scratch.

paulc

"No problem not solved.  I have Sibelius and Notion there are 2 problems with this scenario:

1) What I need is the ability to compose with usable notation INSIDE A DAW.
2) Without an export to Music XML function this process is a huge time sucking nightmare."

 
As vintagevibe says, the problem is not the quality of the notation produced by the Staff View after composing is completed. We know that we need to use Finale/Sibelius etc.. to produce scores coz professional players would laugh or throw things at us if we gave them a printout from the current Staff View .
 
We use the Staff View during the creation process and there are things it can't display properly which make it hard for those who write notation to easily see what they have programmed in a track VS. what it says is there in notational terms on-screen.
 
Perhaps we should come up with a MOST WANTED features list for the Staff View? (So Cakewalk can have fun burning it on New Year's Eve!)

Yes DURING THE CREATION PROCESS!  That what some people don't get.  I would still use Sibelius for printing and formatting scores.

Also, several years ago Cakewalk sent out a survey asking about all the things we wanted for the staff view.  So... we've been holding out hope.  It appears our hope is wasted.   It it is doubtful that they will ever develop the staff view.  It's really sad.  I've been loyal to Cakewalk since the EARLY 90's!!!  As said above they spend their time on bling and then lower the price.  The market they want is clear.

vintagevibe

  As said above they spend their time on bling and then lower the price.  The market they want is clear.

Yes, they've made it quite clear, which is a good thing because now it's clear to me that SONAR has absolutely no interest in implementing better notation and/or scoring to video functions (and at this point, saying that it's "in the works" is like saying "the check is in the mail"). Anyway, this now leaves me "clear" to start looking elsewhere. If everybody else were to do the same, maybe they would finally wake up, or be relieved to finally get rid of us annoying "we want actual professional features" pests (which is probably more likely).

At this point, it almost feels like if they could get rid of notation altogether and scrap it from the package once and for all they'd do. And maybe they should cos in it's current state, it just infuriates people who need it, and it doesn't look like it'll get better any time soon.

To add my $.02...

Very, very frustrating.

First, it gets really old to keep reiterating that the issue is NOT one of wanting quality printed scores, but wishing for the ability to create within ONE program, rather than needing, beyond a certain point, to end up working concurrently in two different programs.

Second, as for the Notion bundle: IMO, Notion's display quality is not even remotely close to either Finale or Sibelius.

Third, as for triplet issues, that is just the start... what about groupings like 5 into 4 or 7 into 4?

Another concern: due to some uncommon circumstances (won't discuss the "what" here), a critical factor in favor of Sonar for me was the ability to control almost all aspects of screen color.  Now, in X1 we can only control "some aspects" of screen color.  Hopefully clarification will follow.

In the end, it is very possible that CW's market focus really does lie 100% elsewhere, and I should no longer have hope that Sonar/X1...X3.14159 (hoping for future version notation "pie" [cake?] in the sky <smile>) will ever meet some of the basic core requirements of at least some aspects of music content creation.

I think it should be optional. I rarely have any use for written music, heck I don't even have a printer connected to my computer. (Any printing I want done, i just e-mail it to myself then go to the library and use the printer there to do my printing jobs. This saves me a fortune on printers and ink !!) But it would be nice to see my music scored out occassionally.

If the need arises, I'll buy a copy of Finale.