I agree 100% with you about Finale.

@Another User said:

Does the ribbon solve everything? Absolutely not. The keypad is horrible. They coule have easily kept the same keyboard shortcuts and implemented either a ribbon section for inputting notes (like notion has) or something similar. They could have even done something else. They could have even let users choose between the ribbon, keypad, or other in the 'user preferences'. Any improvement would have been good. The ribbon is only meant to solve one specific thing in programming, and it does that very well. AVID's problem is that 1- the ribbon is a VERY easy thing to implement, so the fact that it is their primary 'new feature' is unacceptable. 2- while the ribbon solves many problems, they simply took no time to address some of the major problems in Sibelius, as you mentioned (keypad, etc.)

[quote=CLAUDE MARC BOURGET]Notion 3 I think is the future.

Yes and No. I agree in that what notion3 does, that no one else attempted, is the right way. It is good and solves many issues. However, you may not know this but notion has become a secondary program now. They have decided to slow development on notion, in favor of the ipad app.  This is the worst news I could have heard. No more notion? It's horrible! We finally got a good thing (although it still needed more work, like notion4 or notion 5) but now that may never happen. Horrible!

I created a thread under 'Vienna Instruments and Ensemble' titled "VSL DAW anyone?" Where several people are debating whether VSL should create a DAW, as Vienna Ensemble is already 1/2 of a DAW already. And the idea of VSL creating some sort of notation editor in that DAW, or a standlone notation editor- we have talked about that. If VSL made a notion program there are a lot of potential benefits as they could integrate playback very automatically, saving users a lot of time. I even list examples of how. The thread is more DAW focused than notation, but you may find it interesting.

No worries about your English. I know people who natively speak English who make less sense than yourself. [;)]

-Sean

Hi Sean,

The idea of ​​the ribbon is not bad, but its realization, yes. Any interface Sibelius is a mess in terms of graphics. The keypad has a style, mix another, ribbon on another, the left column, under Files, another, and so on. No unity. It's very distracting to the mind. If we add the disparate colors, like a Christmas tree (instead of towards a calmer monochrome), which attracts the eye more than the score, and more ridiculous icons as the lightning, the funnel or the head conducting grotesque is catastrophic. The design of Sibelius 7 is a mixture tasteless flavor. Look at the menus at Adobe, and even on Pro-Tools. Look at the beauty of VSL. Notion 3 is also very successful in this regard. With Sibelius 7, it's like every day I go to my work in an office mauve, with silly drawings on the walls and an ill-digested blend of styles. But Sean, I talked a lot about the Sibelius Forum, and I did not want to repeat the route. However, I am disappointed in the issue of Notion 3. I thought it represented the future. VSL should probably buy it because there's still a lot of work done, right? You think it works less well than the Sibelius Playback? I remain so with Sibelius 6.2.

Thank you for your detailed response.

I also tried Notion (SLE) and notationally I wasn't happy, although I didn't give the program enough time to impress me. Yes, it did play VSL sounds, but buggy there too. So although I do have the program, I still do my work on Sibelius 6.2, grudgingly accepting the GPO4 playback (I never had much luck with setting up successfully VSL within Sibelius either). I dislike Sibelius 7's GUI, as anything else eating room from the vertical page is annoying, especially when it is visually so busy as well. I know one can move everything to the right but then you lose space that way... I don't doubt the functionality, but I'd have been a lot happier if people developed programs on Macintosh first and then translate into Windows or whatever (yes, I know, I know...). 

 I realized from your Sibelius 7 comment that you may not want to start a long discussion here...lol so don't feel the need to reply to this.

I agree! Unity is a big problem in Sibelius. Playback configuration is in one place. Midi inputs are elsewhere, under preferences. Nothing is where it should be. It's disorganized. 1- I doubt it will happen, but if VSL bought notion, I'd be very happy. 2- Notion playback is definately better than Sibelius playback, I probably didn't word it very well. I like Sibleius more in most ways, except for specific GUI problems and serious disorganization- but playback in Sibelius is horrible.

-Sean

For my part, Errikos, VSL works well with Sibelius 6.2. After adjustments in Sibelius (16 bit), I enter the midi file into Pro-Tools and I adjust (24-bit). I felt that Notion3 (you tried the version 3?) Had a little this dual function score and DAW. I wish someone could tell me what is wrong with Notion3. Not feelings, but specific details. People sent me Notion of presets to quickly VSL Cube. I have to see if it's ok with my bundle solo strings. As for GPO, I have never heard anything good from this side. I also Xsample Estwest and platinum, but I am happy just with VSL, its seriousness, its quality and more classical direction.

Sean,

1.Thank you for your understanding.

2, It's important what you say. Thank you. Now, even though my music is played by the instrumentalists, I want to do mixes with real piano and virtual instruments. Not demos, but as the final results. There is always a place for musicians, but there is also a place for this new approach. For this, the playback is very important. But we must spend much time, probably as much time as a musician on his instrument. I'm not ready yet, but with VSL, I approach. Few months ....

I have ask Notion a song that uses there "Full orchestra using 3 VE" ...... the answer is : we dont have !!! !

How can you have "full orchestra using 3 VE" setups if you do not have try it with a "full orchestra" song ?

I agree it will be great that either VSL talk to APPLE to interface the score of Logic with the articulation changes of VSL, either VSL wrote there own DAW.

The cheapest and the fastest will be to interface the score of Logic !  but it is many year that users are asking for it, but Apple Logic's team only develop feature that users don't need !!!!!

Best

Cyril

@Cyril said:

The cheapest and the fastest will be to interface the score of Logic

Logic? I can't understand that at all. For VSL to address the needs of most users, they should integrate it with something neither Apple or Windows exclusive. Better integration with Sibelius would make a lot more sense than with Logic. Don't get me wrong, we're probably on the same page with what we want in the end, regarding notation integration with VSL... I just don't think Logic is the proper route.

Either VSL should work on integration with the most used notation software (Sibelius), the most sample-compatible notation software (Notion) or create their own. Those are the only notation advances that VSL should focus on, imo anyway.

-Sean

Hi Sean

The problem is the "Engine", looks that Notion engine is quite bad, I have heard it is mono cpu (to check) it is sluggish if you have large score

I have gave a score to Notion (from the new world of Anton Dvorak) they say to use it I should cut it into pieces !!!

I dont know about Sibelius engine !

The "engine" of Logic does not have those problems and it is also a full recording program. So it should be simple to add articulation support to Logic.

To re-write a Logic equivalent that fully supports VSL will take years of programming 

Hello!

I've been quite successful in developing a personal ruleset for notion, at least I managed to achieve all articulation changes I needed. Notion has a sheer advantage of Sibelius in handling its ruleset, because it can store a ruleset per document, or even have a set of documents share a single ruleset and be uploaded with it.

All you need to do is create a folder called Rules in the same folder with your document (or documents). Notion will reference this file before referencing its default files. One of the first things declared in the ruleset is to which VST it should apply, so it won't mess with other rulesets that may be in place. For instance, as I still don't own all VSL instruments that I would like, I use Miroslav as a replacement, with the rules being VST dedicated, I can fiddle with my VSL rules as much as I want without messing the rules for Miroslav, which, by the way, are quite decent from default. This dedicated ajdustment is not possible with Sibelius dictionary. For instance I can say that if Miroslav is the VST it should play sforzandos by increasing the velocity by 10, but if the VST is VSL it should look for the sforzando patch instead, in Sibelius is either one or the other.

Making my VSL presets consistently I also managed to have a good response from Notion for all instruments I have, so, it doesn't matter which VSL instrument I load, the rules are applied equally, so the articulations work. It should work with all instruments, but I cannot do anything more advanced as I don't own very much from VSL, only brass libraries. I'm afraid the complexity would rise if the ruleset had to deal with percussion.

Notion website has a set of videos explaining custom rules, I followed it and managed to build my own, articulation by articulation, copying and pasting the instructions from the provided pdf. I don't think I should share the ruleset, as it's very specific and quirky, I think you would be better off building your own or actually improving from the VSL SE ruleset, which already handles percussion. Still, I plan to improve my own ruleset after I actually BUY Notion, all this experimentation I was doing happened while I was demoing it, and sadly the demo expired!

About handling heavy loads, I found that Notion is a crashfest when handling Vienna Instruments instances. At first, when I was doing simple tests with few articulations, I decided to use VI directly because it's simpler, each staff is linked to an instance. With my VSL brass section in place (10 staffs), Notion would crash everytime I attempted to change anything in VI. Using Vienna Ensemble through VST instruments, which creates a new staff which you have to manually create other staffs for each channel, this problem went away, using VE I did not have a single crash. Miroslav on the other hand, would also crash when I had 15 or more instances, but I assume this problem would go away if I had VE PRO and I could load Miroslav in it. The computer I was using is an i5 with 16gb RAM, which is not stellar but should fare better than that.

The problem is, I was away for a week and didn't work on my Notion projects again before the demo expired and I didn't manage to test a score that was, besides heavy in the VST department, also several pages long. I believe the problems would reappear.

Tralen, I lucked out big-time as I got it for free from Notion during their promo period. Sadly, I haven't utilized it very well but for one drawback.

I want to load things MY WAY! lol I am going to create rules as I have designed a from the scratch template, keyswitches, humanize, and anything else you can imagine, all in VE. With only 4 midi ch's in Notion3 I have to save things in sections to create a notion template... then I'll have to create my custom notion setup how you referenced. I am embarking on that very task tomorrow. :(

However, with that in mind... I'm concerned. You said it is a crashfest with VI, but that you will use VI directly because it's simpler...? I'm lost. Did you mean VE one of those times? Should I do VE or VI? I want my own custom instruments in the end as I want to create one for Fanfare trumpets, etc.

-Sean

Ignore my post... Somehow I just overlooked half of what you typed. I know, I'm crazy... but still. I have my answer, lol Thanks!

-Sean

Well, if I try to balance all the interventions, the best for now is to stay Sibelius 6. 2 (and Pro-Tools in my case) and wait for developments. The good thing is that have good tools, although you always want to improve. The other advantage is that they are there, known and controlled. In addition, VSL handles very well integrated with Sibelius. While working with that.

Thank you all.

iscorefilm, I believe you already understood what I'm going to explain. I used VI because the setup was simpler (one instance per staff), but Notion failed when handling a large number of instances. When switching to VE, setup becomes more work intensive, having to setup the extra staffs and assigning midi-channels for each, but the crashes went away.

Now what I'm failing to understand is why you are using the midi-outs to communicate with the VST. Are you opening VE as standalone and then routing the midi to it? This should not be necessary. In "Score Setup", instead of going to External MIDI, go to VST Instruments, and choose Vienna Ensemble.This will create a staff with a VE instance linked to it, then you can create the extra staffs and distribute the 16 midi-channels. Make sure that your ruleset is configure to "plugin" instead of "midi-out", the plugin ID for VE is 1448299589.

No, I understand all that. I worded it wrong. I called it midi, even though it's essential 8 'internal midi' channels to the VST.

I want more midi channels so I can keep VE running with my template loaded... this way I could go from Cubase to Notion and back when I need. Sadly I can't do that though. I know VE Pro will let people preserve an instance, but sadly I don't have it yet. [:'(] Soon, but not yet.

Although, I still doubt whether VE Pro will solve this problem also... as in Notion, I'd have a few instances of VEP, will the preserve function keep all of them preserved? Can I then tie them to Cubase after? I don't know. But I can't use the actual midi ports cause I have LoopBe30 installed on my system, because I needed at least 5 at first. No my template uses 9 midi ports (and is starting to grow again, lol)

Thanks for the VE ID.... that will definately help me, I'm sure of it. Sorry to pester you, but do you know anything about the VEP preserve bit? Any other thoughts that might help? 

Thanks!

Sean

Sorry, I don't own VE PRO either and I'm waiting until I get a reasonable amount of free time before I demo it.

But, I don't understand why would you need to actually preserve the instances, won't saving and loading the viframes accomplish the same? Are you planning on working on the two programs concurrently? I'm having trouble understanding your pipeline.

On a separate note, Notion released an update, which means the program isn't dead!

Here are the release notes from their site.

NOTION 3.2 Update Release Notes:

3.2.9925
OSX Lion Compatiblity
Fixes and Enhancements to Sample Library
Support of New Sound Kits
Compatibility with Progression for iPad
Addition of iPad/Mobile Distortion VST
Guitar Pro File Import (versions 3-5)
UI Fixes and Updates
New Score Layout, Page Margin and Printing Options
Fixed lyrics tool to avoid collisions
Score rendering fixes including TAB notation improvements
Delete function fixed for TAB staffs
Fixed playback of muted open notes on fretted instruments
Arpeggio playback timing fixed
Note on/Note off message timing fixed for VSTi plugins
Fixed playback of Fermatas and Cesuras in NTempo Mode
NTempo Vamp issues resolved
Fixed false entrance after repeat bar
Fixed Gliss Note Off in NTempo
Made Sounds Update an optional process
Importing of Brass and Woodwind sections with XML

This does give hope for the future!

Yes it would accomplish the same thing, but with a few drawbacks. 1- loading time. I have to wait for my template to load each time; not horrible, but inconvenient when 'ideas' are running about in my head. 2- Different templates. I have 1 master template with everything in it. For Notion3 I have to have 8 mini-templates to accomplish the same thing. Load 1 template file for cubase, load 8 files for Notion3. It's a bit absurd in the end, as I see it anyway. 3- That's still only 8 midi ports essentially. I use 9 in my template. So now, I have to reduce my template. It's not a horrible problem, A limited template will still work for Notion3, but I'm not saying it's my favorite restriction either.

To me, if they simply allowed for as many midi ports as most software programs do, it wouldn't have been a problem. I just worry that I'm going to take the time to build a new template scheme for Notion, only to find that VSL releases a VSL-DAW or something, making all my efforts here a waste of time, Not good! lol

-Sean

And this version sounds great. It's hard to have an objective view. Notion3 that this orientation is as perfect. In its implementation, in practice, I do not know. It would take a month's work and comparison, and I do not have the time. Overall, according to users, Sibelius 6.2 is still higher. That's true. But if Notion3 still evolving, with its customers, I think the composers would choose. There are some well thought choe at the base of Notion3.

@Tralen said:

On a separate note, Notion released an update, which means the program isn't dead!

Here are the release notes from their site.

NOTION 3.2 Update Release Notes:

3.2.9925
OSX Lion Compatiblity

.....................

This does give hope for the future!

Hello

Where did you get this.

The version to download is 3.1.277

It does not say 64 bit and multiproc support !!!

Best

Cyril