@stmiller said:

- Not as easy to work with in free composition like Sibelius

I hear this statement also the other way round...

I used Finale from 1997 to about 2004, then I started using Sibelius more often. Both have their strengths, but I'm doing most of my work on Sibelius these days. I also find it a bit more like working on paper, though I did like the way Finale would allow me to enter the accidental *after* the note in speedy entry, which Sibelius doesn't allow -- to me, that's more like paper, as I tend to draw in the note/notehead, then put the accidental in front of it.

But to be totally honest, I wish there was another genuine competitor. There are annoyances in both Sibelius and Finale. Maybe Sibelius 5 will cure some of these. Don't know. The ENP package in PWGL is very impressive, but it's not intended as a real typsetting program, but rather a notation interface for composition.

http://www2.siba.fi/PWGL/enp.html

What's even cooler is that it's free!

J.

Does actually any of you compose with the proceeding and the workflow this two programs offer?

.

Sorry Angelo, I don't think I understand the question. Are you asking whether any of us actually composes with Sibelius or Finale, rather than just using them for notation? If so, yes, I compose all my concert works in Sibelius currently, Finale up to a couple of years ago. The piece "reflectere" in the projects section was composed in Finale, and the playback is direct from Finale as well. For the occasional commercial project I will also compose directly into Sibelius now. It's just a matter of the sort of writing that's required. I never play/record anything into the notation programs, I just punch it directly into the score. So, if it's a project for which I feel I need to see it on "paper", I'll write it in Sibelius (or Finale), while if it's something I feel I want to play/record I'll use Logic or Live. If somebody would make a sequencer that really used notation as a foundation, I'd be ecstatic, since I could finally unify all this into one workflow (except for the fact that I've recently picked up Live, and am really enjoying it for certain projects). As it is, I can't stand looking at the garbled notation output generated by notation programs or notation interfaces (i.e., in Logic) when trying to record "live" input. It just feels like such a profound waste of time to unscramble it back into sensible notation... my keyboard skills are pretty awful, though, so I'm not helping matters in that department I'm sure.

There's a notation interface in the ftm package for MaxMSP which uses a clever combination of a musical staff to indicate pitch, and piano scroll-like bars to indicate duration. If something like this could be used in a professional sequencer, as a method for viewing recorded input and editing its rhythmic representation, it would be a huge step in the right direction. But I'm afraid that the music literate are not a huge priority for sequencer developers... which I don't quite understand... (well, I suppose I do: money, money, money.)

J.

@jbm said:

Are you asking whether any of us actually composes with Sibelius or Finale, rather than just using them for notation?

Yes, that's what I meant. Doing the composition soley in Sibelius or Finale, no other program involved.

But how you manage to render the stereo master out of the notation program?

.

Composing has nothing to do with audio tracks. For concert works I hardly ever produce anything but a score and parts. Obviously if I need to play a demo to someone it is easier to export a MIDI file to a sequencer and deal with that there, but a fair amount of the time a demo is not required.

DG

@DG said:

Composing has nothing to do with audio tracks. For concert works I hardly ever produce anything but a score and parts. Obviously if I need to play a demo to someone it is easier to export a MIDI file to a sequencer and deal with that there, but a fair amount of the time a demo is not required.

DG

Certainly. I just thought jbm said that he makes the demos out of Sibelius, but I guess that is not the case and also impossible.

.

You can export an audio file out of Sibelius as long as you are using the Kontakt player. Otherwise you just have to record it straight off the soundcard using something like Total Recorder.

DG

I copmose (I won't correct that typo) in Sibelius with the GPO studio as a playback device. For musicians that's enough quality to let them imagine what's going on. For less-musical minds like directors I go the pain-in-the-ass route and play every line in with my breathcontroller into the sequencer (in my case Samplitude) and produce a full-fledged demo..

@mathis said:

I copmose (I won't correct that typo) in Sibelius with the GPO studio as a playback device. For musicians that's enough quality to let them imagine what's going on. For less-musical minds like directors I go the pain-in-the-ass route and play every line in with my breathcontroller into the sequencer (in my case Samplitude) and produce a full-fledged demo..

Well, me, a fully grown adult plumage Comouchiteur (french for composer of hirsutism music), and Hydrantent (german for conductor who conducts an ensemble of water hyridants) would proceed and follow exactly the same Pogonotrophy as you do.

.

Angelo,

Sorry, haven't checked this thread recently. I don't actually play anything back "within" Sibelius or Finale -- I'm a complete VSL snob now, and I can't stand playing back my scores on anything but! [;)]

Sibelius or Finale outputs midi to either a host (like Bidule), or to Logic (I just "hard-wire" my midi inputs to the Instrument objects), or to my slave machines. An audio file output is rendered from whichever of the above I'm using to listen. I also use MaxMSP a lot, which makes it very easy to simply capture audio from a variety of sources and "mix" it into a stereo output file.
That said, the piece I mentioned from the Projects section is all Horizon samples, played using a score analysis and sample playback system I built myself -- which I gave up developing when the VIs locked up all the sample content in .dat files. It had a function to render output, so that's how I captured the mix. But using a notation program with a VI host is simple enough, and in most cases will allow you to capture the audio playback to a stereo file.

As far as whether a stereo file is necessary for a concert work, in my experience it's very handy, particular given the quality possible with the VIs. I use them occasionally (though *very* rarely) to "assist" an ensemble that seems to be having a particularly difficult time wrapping their heads around a piece, but also for general demos. This is particularly handy when a premiere is either not recorded, or is just too full or problems to be provide a valuable documentation of the piece.

cheers,

J.

jbm,

Thanks. Interesting how composers approach this two notation programs.

In my opinion, this two programs are not layed out for the way I compose, in fact, I think it does not support any proceedings and workflows of any composer I know and discussed the programs with.

Could it be that this folks who make this programs just don't know what the workflow of composers are when making a partitura?

.

@Another User said:

Could it be that this folks who make this programs just don't know what the workflow of composers are when making a partitura?

Well, I think it's dangerous to think in terms of such universals as "the workflow of composers", since I find the more I learn about how others work the less I can say that any preferred way of working even exists. Things that I may find absolutely intuitive are awkward or irritating, and possibly even taboo, for others. But certainly the primary limiting factor of most software is that it's engineered to *sell* -- it's a product for the commercial market, so it's designed for the lowest common denominator (which means pop and/or jazz arrangements, and film-scoring, in the notation world).
I've been bouncing around ideas for adaptive composition environments, which gradually learn a composer's workflow... but that's just dreamware! I do often wonder why all these platforms are so painfully similar, though. I mean, it seems to me that Ableton Live is about the only somewhat unique music creation app to have hit the market in the past decade. I suppose Bidule and Audiomulch are interesting as well, but they have little application for concert music...

cheers,

J.

IMO, its all about money. These programs are written for the masses not for the relatively few high level modern composers. A huge part of their market is music schools/teachers/students as well as, just as JBM mentioned, Pop, Jazz, Film, Theater, Recording Studios, etc. Every business tends to cater to the needs of the largest part of its customer base and, for music notation, that means standard practices of the general music creating public.

I'm not saying this is bad or good. However, its quite logical and to be expected. For a company to spend the time and money required to fulfill the needs of a group they would think of as "specialists" would only make sense if there were enough of them to make it worth the company's while. Even though you may only speak with people who do the same kinds of things you do, that doesn't mean such a group is large in the grand scheme of things. From a business point of view, its all about filling the needs of the many rather than the few. Otherwise, they won't be in business very long.

In time, I think these programs will reach the point where anything we can imagine will be possible and even easy. It's just that, for the more esoteric features we're probably going to have to wait a while.

Be well,

Jimmy

Obviously there is some truth in what you say, but I don't agree that the makers of these programs don't think about their professional users. There are many features that I would like that others wouldn't, and vice versa, but the problem lies in the fact that the higher up the professional scale one gets, the more personal the choice of features required becomes.

However, there are features that would make sense for all professionals, but it seems that they are rather difficult (read time consuming and therefore expensive) to implement. All any of us can do is continually pester said companies, so that they understand the importance.

DG

@DG said:

Obviously there is some truth in what you say, but I don't agree that the makers of these programs don't think about their professional users. There are many features that I would like that others wouldn't, and vice versa, but the problem lies in the fact that the higher up the professional scale one gets, the more personal the choice of features required becomes.

However, there are features that would make sense for all professionals, but it seems that they are rather difficult (read time consuming and therefore expensive) to implement. All any of us can do is continually pester said companies, so that they understand the importance.

DG

And i think you've hit the nail on the head here, Daryl.
The problem of ascending professional personal choice versus the cost and complexity of providing a much wider range of individually selelctive tools and components may well continue to be a pipe dream, as profit is quite naturally the desired end result, and those extra choices may well be viewed as 'academic' rather than a potentially 'profitable'.


Regards,

Alex.

yup. Very good points.

I suppose one has to know how a number of programs work in order to find them lacking, which already implies a certain level of experience or expertise. And the more you compare and contrast different apps, the more you'll find lacking in any given one.

However, with a little (read: a lot) of inventiveness on the part of software developers, I do think that a user-configurable workflow is quite possible... not simple, but possible. And this could have the advantage of appealing to novices and experienced professionals in (relatively) equal measure. Now, what does it look like? hmm... (head-scratching for the next decade, or so) [;)]

J.