@clruwe said:

The main reason I didn't move to Notion, which at first looked quite exciting, is because it didn't do either job (Cubase and Sibelius) well. The scores were unacceptable and the tweaking limited and complicated.

If they create a notation software that you can truly tweak for realistic performance it would be a major bonus in the sense that I can tweak from an actual score (instead of a piano roll that I just find confusing)

Agreed! I think that Notion doesn't do either job as well as it should. Note entry in Notion (via mouse) is more work than Sibelius. Notion doesn't have enough scoring features, but I don't think it's horribly far off. Cubase can do loads more than Notion. I don't think people expect that from Notion, but at least more than what's there. 4 midi ports kills me! I use 10!! (And I'm ALWAYS expanding! lol) I'm anti piano role! It has it's uses and I love it, but I hate it. I LOVE notation. I think notation. When I see a G on the score, I hear a G. When I see a piano role, I hear nothing! Growing up, playing instruments... we don't read piano roles. I read notation, so that's what's ingraved into my brain! Notion is notation, but not as powerful as cubase. More scoring features to me is secondary... as long as the score looks accurate enough to the performance in timings, etc. Then I'd be happy exporting to Sibelius or something for printing work and adjusting the performance for real performers. I basically want Cubase, but with the ability to use notation as I think. But everything else about Cubase is spot on to me.

-Sean

@iscorefilm said:

Sibelius was the first program to imbed in my brain "Hit Ctrl-S or face your DOOM!" as I once lost 46 bars of fully-orchestral, climatic glory because of an auto-save file was corrupted.

@clruwe said:

The main reason I didn't move to Notion, which at first looked quite exciting, is because it didn't do either job (Cubase and Sibelius) well. The scores were unacceptable and the tweaking limited and complicated.

If they create a notation software that you can truly tweak for realistic performance it would be a major bonus in the sense that I can tweak from an actual score (instead of a piano roll that I just find confusing)

Agreed! I think that Notion doesn't do either job as well as it should. Note entry in Notion (via mouse) is more work than Sibelius. Notion doesn't have enough scoring features, but I don't think it's horribly far off. Cubase can do loads more than Notion. I don't think people expect that from Notion, but at least more than what's there. 4 midi ports kills me! I use 10!! (And I'm ALWAYS expanding! lol) I'm anti piano role! It has it's uses and I love it, but I hate it. I LOVE notation. I think notation. When I see a G on the score, I hear a G. When I see a piano role, I hear nothing! Growing up, playing instruments... we don't read piano roles. I read notation, so that's what's ingraved into my brain! Notion is notation, but not as powerful as cubase. More scoring features to me is secondary... as long as the score looks accurate enough to the performance in timings, etc. Then I'd be happy exporting to Sibelius or something for printing work and adjusting the performance for real performers. I basically want Cubase, but with the ability to use notation as I think. But everything else about Cubase is spot on to me.

-Sean

@clruwe said:

Ha! So true! Mine has actually developed to the level of a nervous twitch!

lol, I love it! "nervous twitch" describes it perfectly. I do it out of habit every minute or so, then any time I do something I like, and every now and then when I realize it's been longer than the normal 'minute interval or so' I do the nervous twitch thing and attack my keyboard. I had a professor ask 'what's the most important 'first thing' in computer music work you should learn?' and I said "Make ctrl-s a habit" jokingly... turned out that it was what he was going to say.

Cubase truly is amazing, but I also don't think they will improve notation anytime soon. My hopes WERE with Notion, thinking they'll just improve until they can do what Cubase is capable of... but with the slow development, I've lost hope altogether. Now I just wait thinking maybe someday someone will do it. - The sad thing is, I absolutely think there is a market for it. Cubase 7 with decent notation editing (bare minimum like Notion, hopefully more like Sibelius for me personally) and I think MANY users would convert to Cubase in a heartbeat! (Not to mention existing Cubase users that want it.)

Anyway, I don't mean to keep you... but I'm always willing to talk about this point, as I think it's the most crucial for me personally in getting more use of the time I'm at my workstation to compose. The second most crucial thing, as I mentioned much earlier on in this thread... was the desire for less work in 'programming the sound'. I think the goal is 'no programming necessary for realistic performance; the only programming done would be to adjust the style of performance or how it's performed' - Any thoughts there? This comes from taking a LONG time to 1) draw out crossfades (I don't have a mod wheel or breath controller, which is horrific but will soon change) and the fact that I don't just plunk out a Violin I part. I take the orchestral strings, chamber, and sometimes solo Violin... to make a more dynamic string section where the pitch is less perfect (only enough for variance, not a bad performance) and where the timings are looser, and where the chamber gets a little louder or softer faster or slower than the rest of the performers. DVZ string library has got the right approach in many ways to do this very thing. But 1) I think VSL sounds much better and 2) I think VSL has the best philosophy on building things well from the ground up, so any future divisi library we see will surely be impressive. - The point though, is that I wish that getting a 'realistic' playback performance takes far more work than it really should. This and the Cubase notation point are the most concerning to me.

If you don't have time to answer that, I understand. That could open a whole other long discussion. [;)] But at least this is relevant to the original ideas in this thread anyway, so it isn't off-topic.

-Sean

@clruwe said:

So I don't see why developers can't run their own GUI on Linux.

Somehow I saw the ctrl-S reply and forgot to keep reading...lol 1) I can't believe I never considered that... Great point! 2) There are plenty of sites devoted to making things look the way you want. I agree. But personally I rarely like these gui themes, and the few that I think are good are often not 'complete' where there are parts where things don't look right, etc. I guess I'm being a bit picky there... but my main concern with GUI isn't so much personal preference, but wanting Linux to get more followers. I WANT Linux to succeed. I just worry that the development of it isn't doing a couple things right for that to happen. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd be happy to be wrong about that...lol. Yes, I went the WindowBlinds route - crashy crashy, that's for sure. I find that no one does enough for mult-monitor users. I've tried a couple programs for extending the taskbar, etc. But these programs don't maximize windows properly, etc. I've wished that Cubase and VE would have more flexibility in their window design (more so with Cubase).

Maybe OpenOctaveMidi will show promise... I hope it does. I can't remember from when I looked into it... but I thought that the Notation options (rosegarden? can't remember...) weren't up to what I wanted. I didn't like a couple things about how much work it seemed to take to get OpenOctaveMidi up and running, but maybe I'm remembering wrong. Either way, I'm glad to see some work being done there. My biggest complaint about it wasn't notation or setup though. I NEED VST EXPRESSION! lol as I don't care for the side articulation menu... I build my own instruments, with keyswitches, etc. Without VST expression, I'm very limited.

Is our OpenOctaveMidi guy still following this thread?

-Sean

I don't think that the only  problem with linux would be daws and libraries, but also drivers for audio cards and other gear ...

I know that there are some reverse engineering projects to write drivers for some audio cards, but honestly it would look like to go back 10 years in the past, desperately looking for a compatible nic or modem or whatsoever ...

I'm an IT professional and a huge linux fan, but even if I'm convinced that linux is good for a lot of stuff, it is clear that audio, video and gaming industries simply don't care about linux ...

Anyway Openoctave looks amazing, but just know, with which libraries is supposed to work ?

@clruwe said:

Thus a slightly better notation in Cubase or slightly more tweaking in Sibelius wouldn't really change anything for me. I would still have to use both of them.

Yeah, that's where I differ from most on this thread. I don't mind exporting to something like Sibelius, so long as the 'Cubase notation' is at least accurate enough to what it should be.

I'm more focused in a good notation midi editor. I want to put a staccato, and have a staccato played (like VST expression, or Sibelius sets) ... so I want notation in that regard... but I want playback flexibility, mixing, and everything else like Cubase has. Notion is really the only option out there for guys like me. But I certainly wouldn't complain if Cubase added fully capable notation features. I believe Errikos (a user on here) said something like you, wanting full out notation features, etc. VSL has a market for MIR, VEP, even VIP. I REALLY hope they see some potential for users in a daw or notation program, or some kind of extention to, or version of VEP with such features.

-Sean

Notion 3 has done something smart trying a hybrid of piano roll-type control of durations in the horizontal and staves for the note placement.

 'I want a staccato played' is problematic; how long is that staccato? They can't all be uniform in reality, so we have a way to determine that absolutely.

I wouldn't want Cubase to be a full fledged Finale or something, it would be bloated and less stable almost certainly.

@civilization 3 said:

Notion 3 has done something smart trying a hybrid of piano roll-type control of durations in the horizontal and staves for the note placement.

 'I want a staccato played' is problematic; how long is that staccato? They can't all be uniform in reality, so we have a way to determine that absolutely.

I wouldn't want Cubase to be a full fledged Finale or something, it would be bloated and less stable almost certainly.

@clruwe said:

 But wouldn't it be lovely if we could do it straight on a score? A panorama type view that has MIDI controllers below the staff... Mmmmh... I'm drooling...

Yes, this would fill the gap between notation and sequencer packages. There is room for a new class of control lane editing tools like "anti-machine gunning" or sfz scaling. I feel that Notion took a step in the right direction, with their controller lanes, but they did not develope any useful editing tools. Randomizing tools, like Frank's midi plugin, could help with that staccato problem: put gaussian variation on the length of the notes.

How is VST expression preventing you from randomizing? How are you randomizing without it?

I am not disagreeing, but not understanding. If you don't mind elaborating, it may help me a great deal. I agree with the comment about Notion having the right idea, but lacking proper 'editing tools'. Spot on.

I simply want to use notation LIKE I use Cubase. VST expression is simply an articulation switcher to me, nothing more. VST expression is great for the piano roll, but there are 2 problems. 1) It is NOT dynamic at all. I'm not talking expression, but the lanes are very stuck. If I could expand a stacatto menu or an even more intuitive approach to having so many matrices in VI Pro- this would be great. 2) VST expression is a MASSIVE screen hog. I have 40 different articulations taking up WAY too much space (and yes, I use them all! I could use much more really). Notation is FAR more friendly to screen real-estate. I have multiple instruments SEPARATELY on one page. I have a dot as an articulation, a line, a word, etc. These are FAR less intrusive than an entire line for legato stretching across the whole window. Your screen real-estate is directly impacted by the number of articulations you have. With Notation, it isn't. I can't stress how much that matters, the fact that I THINK in notation NATURALLY matters, and that as a composing tool (as I hate using paper, I lose it, I'm disorganized, etc.) this would save me SO much time and headache. I could compose in Sibelius without decent sound, then move it over... but this only takes more time again, which is what I'm wanting to eliminate.

-Sean

@iscorefilm said:

I simply want to use notation LIKE I use Cubase. VST expression is simply an articulation switcher to me, nothing more. VST expression is great for the piano roll, but there are 2 problems. 1) It is NOT dynamic at all. I'm not talking expression, but the lanes are very stuck. If I could expand a stacatto menu or an even more intuitive approach to having so many matrices in VI Pro- this would be great.

The only experience I have with VST Expressions is, I helped a student very briefly with a project. There was a lane in the piano roll in his Cubase project, 'articulations' which was from VST expressions. If you need an 'articulations' lane for each articulation, it seems like a problem to me. It seems like there were more than one in the one lane but I'm foggy, I didn't use it as I wasn't using his VSL instruments. What you want is to explode or collapse an articulations lane... seems like a very useful feature.

I am suited to how it works now well enough, as I don't think in notation anymore. I keep my hand in with teaching... If I were to prepare a score from what I have, it would be a whole workflow, quantizing it and getting rid of all the keyswitches. Notation and realistic sequencing are just very different animals. When I started sequencing I did conceptualize it in notation, wrote in Finale and exported a .mid and brought it into a sequencer. The result was so robotic and the amount of work to make it breathe or live was so daunting I abandoned that idea.as a waste of time. I need the sound to know what to write anyway. It's come a ways since then; I don't know Notion 3 but if I was doing notation I would opt for that.

I have a 23" display monitor on my master (and one on my slave) machine and I use generally 8 controller lanes in Cubase, and more than that will be too much.

For me VST expressions was very attractive on paper, but in practice, no, I don't use it. There have been problems of the implementation apparently...

As per program changes, you can open up a lane for it in Cubase and it simply works in my experience. I've used it instead of KS for matrix switches. Visually I'd just as soon use a KS as I'm making that decision along with dimension switching.

If my living depended on both, I would want a partner on the notation end. I was impressed by the material on the Notion 3 website, but... I may be proved wrong by its actual implementation, but I'm not in favor of conflating the two workflows in one software, it's too much to go wrong in my estimation.

@iscorefilm said:

How is VST expression preventing you from randomizing? How are you randomizing without it?

I am not disagreeing, but not understanding. If you don't mind elaborating, it may help me a great deal. I agree with the comment about Notion having the right idea, but lacking proper 'editing tools'. Spot on.

-Sean

I have a 27" and as much as I love it, I want to get a a large format display. There will never be enough space! lol

You're mention of a controller lane peaked an idea. One could use a combination of a lane AND the VST expression lane. If a controller affected which 'row' VIP selected, you could have 5 or so rows. Shorts, Longs, FX, etc... and then have only 10 or so choices in the VST expression lanes. This would save a LOT of space, and possibly some hassle. The only problem is that I don't know how I could organize it to work for me. The 'shorts and longs' idea isn't to my liking, but an example. Plus, one would lost the naming scheme for VST exp. as the single controller lane would change the sounds, not the names on the VST exp. lane.

I just thought I'd post this idea, whether you or anyone else may find it useful. I can't think of anything else right now... but it seems to have potential to solve some of my issues with screen real-estate and my desire to increase my template capabilities. 5 different options via a controller and 10 via VST exp. would be 50 articulations! Imagine 50 on a VST exp. lane... not good. Of course, Steinberg could just implement my menu idea... but how often do companies take every good suggestion? I don't blame them as I realize developement is complicated, but it'd still be nice!

-Sean

@clruwe said:

I need two Bb clarinets and I only have one in my library, then the KS will sound very unnatural because no two clarinet players in the world will play exactly like the next one. So, when I'm working in a sequencer (from a score that comes from a notation program), I'll just take one instrument at a time and edit the performance as if they were reading a part. Consequently one clarinet may use the KS but the other one will be shorter notes (normally the second one) so when you play them together they sound more real, more inaccurate as real musicians sound.

I don't mean to bother you more if you are busy. By all means, if you don't want to reply to this, don't feel obligated.

But... lol, I don't see any reason you couldn't still use VST expression. Whether it's Violins, clarinet, or anything. You have a single instrument. To prevent phasing issues, I use sustain instead of legato on the second instrument... then I ajust the attack and decay to sound like legato. (I only recently started playing with attack and decay... while things will take forever now, the control over the sound is phenominal and I should have a lot time ago!!)

Anyway, the point is that you get two different recordings this way, plus I mess with the filter, or eq, or other things to give them a slightly different sound... There are also plugins out there to change things up for you also, but I haven't played with them. If all VSL instruments were recorded solo and divisi sections, this would be amazing! But in the mean time, there are enough articulation choices in the basic libraries that you never really need to play the same articulation to get the same basic performance (for most instruments anyway, strings are harder, imo)

If you reply, I'm wondering if that wouldn't work for you.

-Sean

for vertical dimension I use a switch, eg., 64 where there are two and a continuous controller if there are more than two, rather than KS. it's a much more obvious visual reference, which program change would be for me as well, I just use KS since I have the pencil tool in hand when I make these decisions.

also in VIP you can time stretch any patch and you have variance right there. say your 'lead' clarinet is more precise with a staccato, use a 95% 'stretch'... if you want you can create a whole section each with their own approaches.