Thanks Sean, interesting coincidence regarding Plato; he certainly did have his strong ideas regarding music - as expounded in The Republic, and wasn't shy about them either.

@dshertz: I don't know how much autocorrection you have applied to the general buzz since I don't think you got the point. My uneducated contention is based on logic, instinct, and whatever experience, but as I have never made any money from programming, I don't know the logistics and time needed for such projects. Be that as it may, I feel that VSL shouldn't have that much to invest, at least financially, in order to offer a DAW (perhaps excluding notational facilities). However, when I mentioned the open-source/cheap sequencers, by that I meant that perhaps a sequencer's development does not require untold billions of investment, especially if it is developed for a specific kind of use instead of trying for a more universal application. And VSL already has the sounds, the mixer, and the plug-ins for symphonic composition. If only they can secure a Nobel prizewinner to design Gianna's timeline and grid-warping intangibles, all that remains is the Arrange page and the work that's done there, the Piano-Roll, and the Automation lanes.

Two questions:

Does anyone know of a DAW (excluding pro tools) that has a decent notation editor? or instead...

Does anyone know of a notation editor with more midi capabilities/friendly features than Sibelius? I only of know of notion, which only supports 4 midi channels. I want notation, but in Sibelius I can't do any sort of automation. I like notion's automation abilities and it's sequencerstaff. GREAT features... and I'm not expecting other editors to have those... but I would like an alternative program with more midi channels. That or if anyone knows how I can use Sibelius in a way that would serve the same DAW-like purposes. it would help.

-Sean

@Errikos: Please go to LilyPond's web page and just look at the size of the development team (and notice how they are begging for additional help).

And all LilyPond does is to convert script into printable notation. What I am trying to suggest is the reality of the scope of the effort to develop a Notation/DAW hybrid.

Which is why I suggested that VSL is very close to a DAW - perhaps excluding notational facilities. And that's why I suggested they perhaps went with an already established developer as far as notation is concerned - or even an established developer for the remaining DAW features - but not household names who wouldn't be interested. Lilypond was one of my suggestions but just as an example.

@dshertz said:

Please go to LilyPond's web page and just look at the size of the development team (and notice how they are begging for additional help).

First, LilyPoind is a text-based editor, which has a lot less interest from the masses than programs like Sibelius or Finale. Second, it is cross-platform. How many programs like these have more people in their developement than in the private market? Just because more people develope Firefox, doesn't mean that 10 people can't make something like Chrome. (Not that less is always or ever ideal, but it certainly doesn't prevent VSL from having a notation editor. What would determine this is cost, user demand, and how much work will need to be put into developing a score editor, based on how fully-featured or semi-featured it would be.

Those things are up to VSL to determine; the only thing worth doing is letting VSL know whether we'd desire such features (and other feature ideas) and if we'd pay for them. Let them worry about if it's doable, through a VSL-DAW or some other method, and so on.

-Sean

Errikos, you keep refering to your desire to work with only a full-featured notation editor, that if VSL implemented any notation at all, it should be fully featured. Have you looked at Rosegarden? I normally don't care for most Linux offerings. I firmly believe that Linux has potential, I simply think many aspects have not yet matured enough (or in the right way) for my liking.

All that aside, I'll have to install Ubuntu again to test it out. I was reading on their page and they promote the notation editor as being much more capable than other DAW offerings. Looking at the screenshots, it seems they aren't lying. I'm wondering (if it works decently anyway) if something like that would work. Just thought I'd mention it as I just found it.

-Sean

My reason for "insisting" on a comprehensive notation editor is very simple, maybe I haven't expressed myself adequately so far... 95% of the time I compose in Sibelius. Most of the time I wouldn't even call what I do sketching. I write straight on a full score (depending on instrumentation), and work from there. Most trials and errors take place in Sibelius - including changes in orchestration, material, anything really - and of course all audio feedback takes place there as well. When I transfer my work into Logic, all composition/orchestration is already "finalized" (there will be some minor material or orchestrational tweaks, emphasis on "minor"). Basically, I need to use the DAW for all the engineering reasons in the world, but very few creative ones. I don't need the arpeggiator, I don't need the transformers (99% of the time), I don't need Ultrabeat, etc. I need the external libraries' sounds, the EXS, the timeline (there, I said it...), the automation, and the plug-ins. Whatever minor tweaks in the material itself can easily be performed inside the Piano-Roll. I have never used the DAW notation editor, I wouldn't know what for...

So, since all composition takes place in the notation editor, I need it sophisticated enough to score The Phantom Menace - not Inception, not TRON 2 - The Phantom Menace, to the point where all parts can be extracted and given to studio players for performance with every detail, straight from my printer; conductor's score too. I don't care for Sibelius' 'Ideas' feature, or its education packages (although I have used them occasionally for some of  my private tuition), and generally any of its beginner-features or plug-ins (not that they shouldn't be there, just that I don't need them). I do need however the majority of its notational and layout capabilities. I have to be able to follow my complicated score like I follow a Boosey edition - if not better, and as I compose, I don't want the hassle of having to constantly stop thinking music and try to move everything into place, etc. And I do want the easy access, the clever palettes; basically everything that makes me compose as hassle-free as possible, and with the best audio feedback possible. Since I work on the page from scratch, for the life of me I can't understand how the standard DAW notation editor (say Logic's) would be of any use to me - and no one tells me!

P.S.: I was always peripherally interested in Linux (since my days of learning Unix at university), even this OpenOctave thing they've done with the VSL. However, one look at this Rosegarden notation jpg. tells me that one just couldn't do The Phantom Menace with it (sadly). Be that as it may, I do like to know what's happening with all platforms, thanks for the link.

Errikos, that cleared up a great deal for me. I agree with your first paragraph almost entirely. The only reason I brought up the DAW notation in Rosegarden was that I thought it might address some issues. After reading that paragraph and realizing how much I agree with it, I would be plenty happy with two things taking place.

1) VSL having far better integration into Sibelius, as discussed.

2) A VSL-DAW (notation or not) - Although, the first one would be more important to me in the end, but I'd still want both.

@Errikos said:

for the life of me I can't understand how the standard DAW notation editor (say Logic's) would be of any use to me - and no one tells me!

I only want this as a means of hybrid'ing notation with good performance, like what notion attempted. If I could simply use Sibelius will complete and automatic integration and get decent playback results... then I'm satisfied, all DAW discussion would end for me at that point. After that, I'd simply export the midi into the DAW for fine tuning the performance if neccesary.

Having a full-featured Sibelius inside a daw, with notation and performance kept separate, would accomplish the same thing to me. Where I could draw things in sibelius, and fine-tune the performance in the piano roll. I'm basically wanting notion. The only reason I don't use notion now is that it has only 4 midi channels, a ridiculous hinderance for big templates. Now that Notion is dead, what other option do I have? This is why I would like either Pro-tools to add more of Sibelius in it's editor, or for VSL to have a notation editor, or Sibelius to have full integration with VSL, etc. But like I said, in the end I could sacrifice all my views posted here if I could have a more automatic Sibelius integration with decent playback results. (I still feel this thread is valid. Like I said, A VSL-DAW could offer more integration than Cubase, so I'd still want such a thing to happen. I'd simply use Sibelius, then use VE instead of Cubase.

I have never even heard of OpenOctave until now... looks VERY cool! I'll have to look into it. Thanks!!

-Sean

Errikos, totally off topic, but the Sibelius Ideas thing is very handy, when you have unorthodox (according to Sibelius) rhythmic notation that appears at various times in the piece. I find that if I have a motif or fragment (that I've spent time re-beaming and putting articulations to) that is likely to appear at various times in the music, storing it in Ideas is much quicker than searching the score to be able to copy and paste. Obviously it is much quicker to re-pitch this Idea than create it from scratch.

DG

Thanks Daryl, I had never considered that. I always looked askance at that feature, thinking "I have my own ideas thank you..."

Sean, let me know if you get anything interesting through Linux.

@Errikos said:

Thanks Daryl, I had never considered that. I always looked askance at that feature, thinking "I have my own ideas thank you..."

Sean, let me know if you get anything interesting through Linux.

I will, I probably won't do this for a week or two cause my schedule is about to get flipped upsidown then lit on fire, lol, but I'll post if I find anything useful and relevant to this discussion. The OpenOctave thing was cool, but there were a few issues I had with it. It looks fairly complicated to set up. I'll figure out anything if I want it enough, but the time doesn't seem worth it so far. The only thing his work seemed to impress me with is some of the editing features Cubase lacks, and the fact that he seems more interested in developing it for VSL than others, which could obviously have great potential. I'll keep my eye on it. So far, Rosegarden (after more Google-ing than I'd care to admit) seems to be the only viable linux notation/daw package. LMMS was the only other DAW 'featured' enough to be worth the time, but without notation, so I'll primarily be comparing those two in features, ease of use, midi setup, and stuff that will eventually serve VSL, as I see it anyway.

Have you looked at Musescore? I just tried it and it seems fairly well built for a notation program. It's definately not as powerful as Sibelius in some regards, but it is clean, runs very smooth (something Sibelius hasn't quite accomplished, though I realise why and don't blame them), and is feature-filled enough to that seems a viable option for most every-day notation needs, and them some. It certainly fails in midi though, in every way. But when you made the suggestion that VSL should buy a notation software none really came to mind that I thought was viable. Musescore is opensource, but I wonder if VSL could use that source to make a VSL version that would only have changes in midi or VSL-related things... it's a thought anyway. The only problem I'd see would be that it's open source and VSL obviously isn't in anything. I don't imagine they could charge for it. Maybe they could for a VSL-version...? I don't know how that could work. But it seems a good enough editor for what you'd require, am I right in that or no? I figured something like this (if plausible) could save VSL most of the development and programming time necessary for a notation editor in this VSL-DAW. The hard work would be done. If not in a DAW, it could still be a stand-alone. Any thoughts?

And fyi, I LOVE the 'ideas' feature... because 1- DG's reason and 2- it's like a clipboard. Sometimes I'll come up with something that's amazing, but not for this peice... so it serves that purpose too. But I do agree, the second I saw the 'given' ideas I reacted the same way.

-Sean

Hello,

Pertaining to what have been discussed, I would like to stablish a distinction between composition and publishing. My view of composing in notation precludes any form of layout or print-oriented editing, for instance, in Sibelius I work only in Panorama and I really don't care if an item is marked red because it cannot fit the layout ditribution.

Making each part clear and print friendly, I regard as a separate step. In fact, in Sibelius, I find the concrete world of printing to get often in the way of the abstract world of composition. Taking as an example the Phantom Menace, composing the parts using notation symbols is all that is needed, having the symbols be accurately interpreted and the sounds correctly played back to the composer. Then we could always export everything as MusicXML and do all the layout tweaking in another platform.

There's a large distinction between audio and desktop publishing and I believe the latter is very distant from what VSL currently provides, is a different world and technology. For my needs, this software would only require:

1. Integration between notation symbols and VSL playback

2. Easy way of controlling midi, akin to what happens in a DAW CC lane.

3. MusicXML import and export.

On another topic, I would like to add that I've been trying MusicXML between Sibelius and Notion. I've been doing some tests, composing in Notion and then exporting everything to Sibelius for printing and I'm very happy with the results, at least for small ensembles, I'm yet to try a full orchestral score.

iscorefilm, you've said that Notion only supports 4 midi channel, but that is not accurate. Notion supports only 4 midi channels for "general" use, but you can load as many instances of VSTs as you want, an example: you could load 8 VE instances with 16 channels each.

@Another User said:

iscorefilm, you've said that Notion only supports 4 midi channel, but that is not accurate. Notion supports only 4 midi channels for "general" use, but you can load as many instances of VSTs as you want, an example: you could load 8 VE instances with 16 channels each.

Okay, I thought that might have been the case. I just reinstalled notion3 SLE and today was planning on setting up a score template to my liking. I'll have to give that another go then.

-Sean

@Tralen said:

2. Easy way of controlling midi, akin to what happens in a DAW CC lane.

@Tralen--This to me is the current achillies heel of the current DAW/Notation software. It falls just at the dividing line between DAW and Notation package. The Notation packages don't have enough editing control over velocity, expression and crossfade and the DAWs don't allow easy CC data thining or copying. Neither package really takes into account the fine tuning which must be done here to make a mockup as realistic as possible.

@Tralen said:

2. Easy way of controlling midi, akin to what happens in a DAW CC lane.

@Tralen--This to me is the current achilies heel of the current DAW/Notation software. It falls just at the dividing line between DAW and Notation package. The Notation packages don't have enough editing control over velocity, expression and crossfade and the DAWs don't allow easy CC data thining or copying. Neither package really takes into account the fine tuning which must be done here to make a mockup as realistic as possible.

I think it's very easy to become institutionalized with the current software paradigm. Piano-roll editing didn't even exist 100 years ago, while notation did. 100 years from now, something else may even exist. I'm not saying we should abandon what we have, but that piano-roll editing clearly lacks the versatility of notation and notation clearly lacks either the ability or the level of ease in digital fine-tuning that automation lanes give us. The ability to serve both ends is with any doubt a neccesary goal, maybe not for everyone, but for how notation and playback ultimately should work to best serve users. If notation could do everything a piano-roll w/automation offers with ease, I wouldn't even see a need for piano-roll editing.

Your 'neither package' bit hits this right on the head! That's why I think a VSL-DAW is the best route to go. If VSL made it, it would automatically work with everything VSL (that alone is worth it), but to have a midi/notation/automation/piano-roll editor (or whatever would be a functional tool in that area) would make it all the more worth the effort.

I've been reading into this very issue on other forums for the past couple days and I've found a common pattern. 1/2 the people want exactly what is mentioned here, a clean notation editor that works with our samples automatically and ultimately serves as a composition tool (something no notation editor has accomplished in light of playback capabilities). The other 1/2 say 'no, I want midi because notation has never served DAW's very well, no one uses it'. The problem here is that most DAW notation editors hardly qualify as even being called notation. You can't say 'it has a staff and a clef, so it's good enough'. A real notation editor should at least have the common notation sybmols, lines, etc. we all know and use, and the computer should simply play that back to us. This would serve notation users very well. Then the DAW problem. - A VSL-tailored DAW would solve many issues VSL users face and ultimately would save people a lot of time and effort. If VSL made a DAW, they'd be insane to not include some sort of notation involved. Other sample companies? Fine... VSL? The most orchestral-focused library in the market? VSL makes VE DAW and includes no notation editor? It would be counter-intuitive in many ways.

Essentially I've just said that we would benefit from a VSL-DAW and if made then notation would be expected and probably demanded in the end. Who better to balance notation / automation / piano-roll editing capatilibies than the same people who make the samples that those editors will be performing?

-Sean

Another feature idea [I]

So I mentioned earlier (either in this thread or 'Sib7') that based on the tempo in the VSL-DAW, the time-stretch tool could be made to automatically create the sample based on a certain articulation (I can't remember which one I used).

But this could apply to glissandi's very well. Whether time-stretched, or if VSL made 10 different length glissandi patches (maybe still a little time-stretching even then)... then I can notate a glissandi line in this VSL-DAW notation editor and imagine dragging the line to change the slope The longer the line is diagonally, VSL would just use a longer glissandi patch, or time stretch the closest one available.

That idea might seem crazy or stupid to people, I get that. I'm just saying that 1- it has merit, and 2- the idea in general would be best served in a VSL-made DAW / Notation package. Am I crazy? I think it's great! (and not just glissandi's, I just mean to show another example of how VSL-tailored could serve people)

-Sean

@Tralen said:

2. Easy way of controlling midi, akin to what happens in a DAW CC lane.

@Tralen--This to me is the current achillies heel of the current DAW/Notation software. It falls just at the dividing line between DAW and Notation package. The Notation packages don't have enough editing control over velocity, expression and crossfade and the DAWs don't allow easy CC data thining or copying. Neither package really takes into account the fine tuning which must be done here to make a mockup as realistic as possible.

There is one basic difference between notation software and a sequencer. With notation software the MIDI information is derived from the notation, but with a sequencer the notation is derived from the MIDI information. Therefore notation software is not linear, which makes things like automation lanes well nigh impossible to implement (as I understand it).

DG

I think the culprit in this whole discussion is the expectation that DAWs (Piano Roll) are designed for composition. Somehow in the circles of digital composition, I often see people regarding this as a given. Well, they are not, they are designed primarily to handle audio files, and to "interact" with VSTs. Composition itself, happens trough the preference of the composer, which more often than not, includes experimentation through a midi-controller. This midi-controller is more aptly recorded in DAWs, and so I believe here is where that expectation starts.

If we were to accept that the Piano Roll is the main instrument of composition, becomes easy to delegate the role of notation software to an aftertought, to print the score for live performance. The point I make, and that several posters made here, is that this is not the case, the Piano Roll is a necessity we adhere to, only because we are unable to achieve the same results within our notation packages. And we are unable to achieve this because of a third part of the digital music pipeline: performance.

So, splitting the composition process into three segments, we have: composition, performance, publishing. The problem we face is simply that neither DAW or Notation Software covers the three segments adequately, precisely because they are not designed to do so. Notation Softwares are forcefully locked into the latter segment, with glimpses of the first, without ever touching the second. What is lacking is the acknowledgement that the second segment, "performance", is as crucial for "composition" as the ability to input notes itself, and much more important than "publishing", for certain. And that "composition", at least for me and others here, is more easily achieved through traditional notation than piano rolls.

Summing all up: in digital orchestral composition, there should be no distinction between the first two segments, composition and performance. And honestly, the only way I can see this division being removed is if a quality provider of "performance" (an orchestral library such as VSL) takes the whole of providing "composition" as well. There are two reasons for this: First, the library holds all the minutiae of how the samples work and how to make them sound good without hassle; Second, the big assumption I make that composition and performance must be united, only stands when we think about orchestral composition, which I doubt is the primary market for either DAWs or Notation Softwares, but it certainly is for a provider of orchestral samples.

Tralen! Where have you been all my life? lol

You have just provided a perfect summation of the problem. I can't add to it. 'I got nothin!' [:D]

-Sean

What makes performance tweaking difficult in a notation package is the fact that dictionary translations (in the current state  of the art) are static. For example, the dictionary may hold a rule that sfz may may boost the expression by 10 and the xfade by 5. If you wanted a bit more edge on the voice you would have to go edit the xfade value. After this edit, how would the change be reflected in the Notation since the sfz is no longer "standard"? And how would you be able to switch between a standard and a non-standard interpretation of sfz? I believe a better Notation/DAW solves this problem.