Elffin


I wonder if the rumours about digital performer on windows are true? That could be a viable option in regards to notation /video work..

I hope cake give us a nice surprise in furure versions of X1

It's true.  I'd be very interested in this since Cakewalk will never address the notation issues.

backwoods


The "Staff" views on all DAWs are only suitable for "semi pro" "hobbyist". If you are dead serious you will fork out for Sibeliuis or Finale. 

You're misunderstanding something.  Sibelius and Finale are notation programs, designed for notating and creating publish-quality scores.   You're right in that serious musicians use these programs.  But this is not the function of the staff view in a DAW. The function in a DAW is to input and edit MIDI data, not to produce publish-quality scores.    Most musicians who are comfortable reading and writing music prefer the staff view for inputting MIDI data.  The legitimate complaints about the staff view in Sonar, as I understand them, are not that it doesn't do what Sibelius or Finale does, but that there are long-standing bugs, quirks and even new bugs (at least up to X1c) that need addressing.   Most users of the staff view would be more than happy, perhaps even ecstatic, if Cakewalk addressed these issues.   For creating scores with parts that are designed for performance/publishing, a dedicated notation program is the solution. 

Jerry
www.jerrygerber.com
 

A lively thread indeed !
Seems the Staff view has generated some pretty strong opinions, and I see it as an interesting insight into the many different approaches Cakewalkers 
have in using the program.

 . . . I find the Staff View incredibly useful for editing midi, especially drums, but I also realize not everybody's musical experience relates to Staff notation.
Of course I do still pop into Piano Roll, or Event Viewer to do some quick edits, but I always come back to my Staff View for main editing.

The one thing I haven't seen mentioned here is that Cakewalk actually has done a few recent improvements in the Staff View, though it's questionable whether they are anything worthy of note, nevertheless they have tinkered with it a bit, so that tells me they haven't totally abondoned work on the Staff View.

MusicXML Exporting

MusicXML connects SONAR X1 Expanded to your favorite notation software. Create your song in SONAR X1 Expanded and then seamlessly transfer all MIDI information to a dedicated score editor.


. . . and this from Brandon Ryan (Cakewalk Staff)  Nov 2010 . . .

"The UI was redesigned.
The Chord, Expression, Hairpin, Lyric, and Pedal tools now display shading to indicate appropriate draw locations for each.
Some minor bug fixes in the context menus.
We do realize Staff View is important to a good portion of SONAR users and we do still hope to enhance the Staff View more substantially in the future under the framework of the new Skylight interface."


 . . . the best thing we can all do is keep all the Staff View threads alive, so Cakewalk notices that people want more improvements, but we also need to be specific about what can actually be improved about it. It's never going to be a notation software, it's clear that is not Cakewalk's intention. As a midi editor, there is so much that could be done.
I'm a songwriter so . . . top of my list would be to make the lyric and chord inputting more intuitive, by being able to put them in freely and then move them around easier, to match creative processes . . . what's top of your list ?

noynekker


. . . and this from Brandon Ryan (Cakewalk Staff)  Nov 2010 . . .

"The UI was redesigned.
The Chord, Expression, Hairpin, Lyric, and Pedal tools now display shading to indicate appropriate draw locations for each.
Some minor bug fixes in the context menus.
We do realize Staff View is important to a good portion of SONAR users and we do still hope to enhance the Staff View more substantially in the future under the framework of the new Skylight interface."

It's been almost totally ignored since the mid 90's.  Cakewalk will never fix it but you will see more and more looping and other "paint by number" tools.  I think the
announcement about Digital Perfomer comming to Windows is quite exiting.

In the light of keeping staff threads alive, I'd like to add my two cents. Those that are tired of hearing about the staff view, and those suggesting to use Sibelius or Finale, you folks need to understand that it's not an all out fully featured score editor we are after. We would like a little more functionality, fix what is currently broken, and in my case, get rid of the universal snap to grid in favor of local snap to grid. The staff view in Sonar 4 functioned better than it does in X1, largely, from my experience, due to the now missing note length buttons in the staff window, and the snap issues. The kind of sorted out the triplets bug with X1d. Kind of. Introduced another triplet bug. :P With word that MOTU DP 8 coming to windows this spring or fall--whichever, I can't recall--and it's interesting film score related notation feature, Cubase's notation features, Pro Tools notation features, Sonar is falling further behind. I'm currently debating whether I should update to Producer or wait for DP 8. Those that suggest that because they don't use it, it should be discarded--well that argument is facetious. I don't use step sequencing or the matrix view. Should they be discarded? Of coarse not. Here's to hoping sonar at least corrects some of it's staff view issues and brings it up to par with even Sonar 8. :P Cheers

I'm not sure why anybody wouldn't support improvements to Staff View.  It clearly is an area of Sonar that has fallen behind somewhat, and is overdue for some attention.  

I just updated to Sonar X1 Expanded and dove right into composing, but haven't gotten as far as Staff View yet.  When I'm composing from scratch I use mainly Piano Roll and real-time playing.  But if I have a score in front of me, I'm going to want to enter it with Staff View.  From the few minutes I've spent with it so far...it doesn't seem like that's going to be very fun.

I don't think the Staff View folks are asking for the moon here.  There are some very basic, minimal improvements that could be made that would vastly improve Staff View workflow.  Simple things, like returning all the little tools for selecting notes and durations, adding a dedicated snap-grid like the one on Piano Roll, etc.  Entering music in Staff View should be quick and intuitive.  I don't think it would take much to make people happy, honestly. 

I will say that the ability to export to MusicXML is a nice feature and very welcome.  And what there is of Staff View is great, it just seems like they "forgot" some basic functionality.  I hope they'll fix it in this build and not use it as a selling point for X2...but if they do, they do.  They are in business to make money, after all, and who can fault them for that.  But, although I realize I'm coming to this conversation late, it appears to me that people have waited long enough. 

I still love X1 though, and I'm sure when the time comes I'll make do and figure out how to get it done.  That's what we do, right?  ;)

I too would love to not need to resort to a variety of programs to get a job done but it seems more and more that is no longer the case.

If I want to use notation as a means of data entry then I use Notion 3, save it to MIDI, then import to SONAR.

Having xml export is fine but if I've already got the MIDI in SONAR - well I've already got it. Of course if I need to print out the notation then back it goes to Notion 3.

Staff View is how I created 90+% of my music.  It could be better, but I can live with it.

The reason I am responding is the comment that Sonar is aimed at hobbyists and semi-pros.  Sonar is a very sophisticated application with many pro-only features and it compares favorably to Pro Tools, Cubase, and logic; so I am quite surprised by that statement.  A hobbyists can buy top-of-the-line wood working tools for his garage, but that does not make the tools less than professional.

Sonar does have products that are less expensive than X1 Producer and those may be more popular with hobbyists.  In a similar way, Garage Band is fun and I might use it to sketch a song, but I would be horribly frustrated trying to use it to make a record.

The whole reason I went to Sonar years back was because of the staff view. The thing that is holding me back from jumping ship is that I know Sonar fairly well, am comfortable with it. I hope to see a staff view update eventually, if not in x1e, then in x2. Otherwise, I may have to jump ship. I guess it's liveable. I've kind of adapted to using their note duration selection, but it was far more efficient in the past. But I also really want to upgrade to pro, for the pro channel! Dammit! Decisions, decisions.

General question for Staff View users:  How do you work with the limitations of Staff View?  For example, how do you select note durations?  Are there any useful tips and tricks you've found to improve your workflow?
 
I've found a couple ways to deal with note durations.  One is pressing "T" to bring up the tool menu, which has a little sub-menu for selecting durations.  Fairly easy, and keeping a finger on "T" has the added benefit of having the tools (especially erase) handy. 

Another idea is to assign the different durations to various keystrokes (ALT-NUM-4 for quarter notes, ALT-NUM-8 for eighth notes, for example).  The downside of that is having to take the hand off the mouse.  They could also be assigned to MIDI notes on a controller, which could be handy.  
 
Any other creative ideas out there?