Sequencers for PC & VSL

[Iki]

Hi, I am new to this community and I would like to have your opinions about the sequencing aspect of composing. I find there are so many tools out there. You, the users must have an idea of what suits you best... Nuendo is expensive and Sibelius looks like a better outcome if you plan to share your music with others... I don't consider Pro-tools being a sequencer. Actually not knowing any of these products in depth I'd appreciate to better understand your preferences regarding the hexadecimal conductor of your creations... I welcome any view concerning this topic. Oh well, I understand this is a sensitive part of your 'professional secrets' but hints will do also. Thankyou

[Sergino Futurino]

 If you most write your music, sibelius is a real good tool, to me is now better than Finale (that used for many years).

If you most play the music I think Sonar is the best in the PC world.

[Migot]

LKi,

If you wright music and want to get very good playback almost no effort have a look on Notion 3.

It is specifically design to work with VSL SE

Voilà

[Sergino Futurino]

 Notion looks like a great program but appears only designed for Vienna Special Edition. Isn't it?

[Migot]

Sergino,

I do not think so !

Take time and have a look here:

http://www.notionmusic.com/index.html

Sincerely

[Iki]

Thankyou both, Sergino and Migot for your valuable point of views. I appreciate it at a 100%. So I never heard of Notion and took a tour of the product last night. And there is a demo version ...! I'll be downloading and trying this product quite soon, indeed it looks like a very well designed product. Best regards.

[Iki]

http://www.myspace.com/maxleeroy Icarus Fisher Songwriter/composer AMD Athlon 64 Yamaha QY-100

[Beat Kaufmann]

Hello Iki

Please let me one thing to mention here as well because it seems you are at the beginning of a possible "music-with-samples-career".

If you are more the composer who has the final aim to produce scores then you should choose a score-program. 

You will get fantastic possibilities for getting scores of you compositions but not the top possibilities for getting fantastic sample music.

That's because the final mix isn't made in a real audio section with the possibility of track automation etc.

Nevertheless: The results are remarkable which you can get. In any case you get an idea of you composition.

Further the possibility of entering midi-controller-datas which are used for the X-Fade function within the Vienna-Instrument aren't that comfortable as you can have it in a sequencer, such as cubase, logic, etc.

If you are the composer who has the final aim to produce music-results in a quality as much as possible you should choose a sequencer-program.

You will have the most possible ways for controlling the Vienna-Instrument and its samples.

Further, you will have the same extensive possibilities within the Audio-Section for making a good finalmix.

Hope this information helps more than it makes you feel unsure.

All the best

Beat Kaufmann

[aural]

you were talking about nuendo before and mentioning its price...

i suggest you go for cubase... it´s basically the same program for not even half the cost... has great midi-editors and because of the vst-expression-maps it has a huge advantage on other sequencers...cubase also has quite a good score-editor. it can´t compete with sibelius of course, but depending on what you want to do, it will be sufficient.

i actually suggest you get both a decent sequencer AND a good engraving program, because in the long run you may find out that neither program can complete both tasks to a satisfying level. so my tip is: cubase + sibelius (which summed up is still cheaper than nuendo)

[Erik]

Hi Iki, Beat and all others here,

As regular user of Sibelius, Sonar Producer and many other programs I would like to add here to the list of mentioned products Overture (a product from Geniesoft). It often has been overlooked in several forums.

It has a lot of features that are absent in other notation programs as well as sequencers. It is the combination of scoring and midi-editing that makes this product unique.
1.It serves like a VST-host
2.Easy setup of your mixer/channels (less time consuming than Sibelius)
3.Simple change between score and further midi-editing
4.Detailed and high-level score editing is possible
5.Rendering your product to an audio file (real time however)
6.Detailed (manual!!) but simple and efficient midi-editing is possible for velocity, every controller, program change etc..
7.Combined with e.g. EnergyXT as plugin it is possible to implement more humazing options later (this is also possible in any other sequencer btw).

For the ultimate scoring program there may be nothing better than Sibelius, but I would wish, that Sibelius offers in the future the features that makes Overture so useful for us midi producers: proper manual CC editing. It is a pity that Notion3 doesn't offer any manual editing yet, because this is a very promising piece of software at the moment and not so expensive as Sibelius.

Concerning sequencing programs: don't overlook Reaper, it is cheap and does really tons of things.
Looking for a simple but very efficient VST host when using Sibelius (personally I don't like the Sibelius mixer from version 5 and higher at all) visit the site of Cantabile: it is very stable and gives you also many possibilities.

I hope this serves you a little bit.

Erik

[Migot]

Erik,

The Ultimate scoring program is FINALE.

Since 1989 I'm using Finale and I'm constantly seeking and exploring all

other both existing and new scoring program and I never find any thing as completed as Finale.

Just the fact that Finale is featuring the independent Time Signature since his creation make the difference !

Create 4 staff each one having his own Time Signature 5/8, 7/16, 9/4, 1/2, (no fake as Sibelius, its real) and

just wright music according to that and it's perfectly playback!

You might think about any Music Special Editing requested way from drawing to

your own fine contemporary music look, Finale will present and let you create a very good solution.

A deep Music editing resource...

Sincerely

[Sergino Futurino]

I've been using Finale for about 10 years and it makes the best sheet music.

But  I think the first problem here is making audio music, we are not score engraver.

Sibelius is far too easier for just making music with VSL, and Notion looks like that.

[Iki]

Once again to all of you who have contributed information to this forum that I opened recently many thanks for your insights on software applications, I found your pages very usefull. Tried the Notion 3 demo and found some really great things about it. It has a warm visual environment which contrary to a few other systems does really matter to me, it supports quantize in 1/128 and goes for video/music editing at 20 frames. I do regret however the sequencer staff approach (probably in development), I am so used of composing my measures from the keyboard that is to say I do not read or write notation music fast enough at this time to compose directly on a staff. They'll need to implement a Midi staff and keyboard function. It is so much easier to move or resize a bar then to look for the right notation when composing gets complicated and stuffed with notes...of different instruments. I'd say we live in A VST world and I have no such numerous musicians at my disposal (virtually I do), but the sound paletts have increased dramatically since the 18th century as the composer searches for the right note, rythm, pitch and so on... By watching videos of well-known composers I have noticed though that their favorite choice seems to be NUENDO, probably for the powerful video/music editing capabilities...

[aural]

since you mentioned nuendo again:

the difference between nuendo and cubase is that nuendo offers a lot of features that postproduction needs, but are superfluous for composition. like extended surround features (cubase also gives you the option to produce surround (up to 8 channel-surround i think) but not quite as many. nuendo offers sampling rates up to 384kHz (or was it "just" 192, i don´t remember) (you won´t need that for composition or music production in general), and more of the like... it also has extended features of synching to tape-machines, film-projectors (these are all things that cubase also does, but not to the extent that nuendo does it).

since i don´t know what you are after exactly, i hesitate to say "you will not need nuendo", i would rather suggest you try both nuendo and cubase and look for yourself if you really need to spend 3 times as much as for cubase. i guess, unless you are planning to produce a dolby surround mix haveing to synch to 70mm film-projectors while also handling 384kHz-files, you will bite your a+* because of the extra 800 or something euros spent.

cheers

s.

[gabriel81]

@Nuendo: Steinberg is just launching Nuendo 5 and they have some world tour for introductio

http://www.steinberg.net/de/community/community_events/nuendo_5_tour/nuendo5tourregistration.html

So in any case it might be worth checking out one of these events to get some idea. Cubase is already available as demo version so could be checked out for free.

Best regards

Gabriel