KVR Audio

Torchlight · Post by **Torchlight** » Sat Apr 18, 2015 11:24 am

Hi,

I'm trying to work with musical notation using Notion. I'm sort of learning it in a stumbling way as I go. A problem I constantly encounter is that if I change the length of one note, say close to the start, then it has a kind of cascade effect that throws all the subsequent bars off. So you end up needing to redo everything just because you changed the length of one note. It seems like the kind of thing it should be possible to automate in software. But I'm not aware of any notation software that does this. Is there any? Currently, I'm using Notion but I don't see any option for it to do that.

lfm · Post by **lfm** » Sat Apr 18, 2015 2:39 pm

Seems odd - adding a note could mean you want a note in a chord - so there must be some setting for your entry to accept that.

Like word processors have - insert or normal mode - where insert also moves existing character.

I would look for that - no, way to have to accept that way of working.

Michael L · Post by **Michael L** » Sun Apr 19, 2015 9:12 am

I am a Notion beginner too, but when I do that the extra notes in that measure just turn red, and notes do not cascade into subsequent measures. Perhaps you are not in Edit Mode? As an alternative, try composing with no time signature. See the User Guide Section: NO TiME SIGNATURE.

Torchlight · Post by **Torchlight** » Sun Apr 19, 2015 9:22 am

Well, yes. That's what I mean. It doesn't actually disrupt the sound. But if I wanted to preserve the bar lines properly, i.e. without the red notes, is there no auto-adjust function? It just seems like an obvious thing that would be useful. As lfm said, it's something like the way a word processor works when you type in letters. At the moment, it's comparable to an word processor with all typing set to overwrite instead of insert.

Michael L · Post by **Michael L** » Sun Apr 19, 2015 10:20 am

Perhaps User Guide pp. 11.12-13 adding/changing/removing bar lines, or 11.32 changing meter. No time signature would be the same as auto-adjust, yesno?

Torchlight · Post by **Torchlight** » Mon Apr 20, 2015 5:11 pm

I don't think that has the functionality I'm looking for. Maybe there's some technical reason why this function can't exist, one that I cannot grasp right now because of my limited knowledge.

SJ_Digriz · Post by **SJ_Digriz** » Mon Apr 20, 2015 5:43 pm

Basically when you set the signature, you are declaring how many beats there are before the next bar. If you add more beats than can fit in a bar the program either moves the extra beats to the right (adjusting all following notes), or it marks the offending note to be dealt with. Most people want it to NOT affect the following notes because they are usually already "bar filled". This gives you a chance to add an empty bar that will hold the extraneous new beat value. If you set it to auto move notes following the insert, but want to retain the bar structure that existed before the insert, you have to add a bar to contain the new info (beats) after it has already had to adjust all following notes. This is very inefficient.

It happens the other way too. If you shorten notes, you have to account for the remaining space with rests. Do you want the editor to auto shrink all notes into the current bar just because you changed a quarter note to an 8th? Usually no. You want the bar to be self contained.

lfm · Post by **lfm** » Mon Apr 20, 2015 7:15 pm

Is that all the help you get from Notion - it's rather expensive I think. Or did Presonus change that.

Isn't there a mode to enter an extra note for a chord, or something?
You should even be able to have a halfnote sounding while several quaternotes at the same time, right?

I always use notation the other way around, and record midi and let notation deal with that.

I have this old bookmark for notation software:
http://music-notation-software-review.t ... views.com/

Notion is still not there...and I looked since 2010...
I guess pricetag is too high for that list...

kelldammit · Post by **kelldammit** » Thu Apr 23, 2015 4:45 pm

Torchlight wrote:I don't think that has the functionality I'm looking for. Maybe there's some technical reason why this function can't exist, one that I cannot grasp right now because of my limited knowledge.

One potential reason could be for something like a piano or guitar staff. If you adjust one note of a chordal passage...which note in the following chord (or passing tones in between) would auto-adjust? it could make for a mess, i'd imagine.
Not that i'm sure that's why, by any stretch....

oh, and lfm, notion5's running for $150 these days...about the price of a sib upgrade. Notion3 was pretty pricey, though, i do remember that much.

cheers,
kell

lfm · Post by **lfm** » Fri Apr 24, 2015 7:18 am

kelldammit wrote: oh, and lfm, notion5's running for $150 these days...about the price of a sib upgrade. Notion3 was pretty pricey, though, i do remember that much.

cheers,
kell

Thanks.

It was $250 at the time I was in contact with them a few years back(I believe Notion 4) - and asking about rewire midi into daws etc. But they had no understanding why one would want to rewire midi - they felt everybody wants audio into Notion.

I was looking for replacement of internal notation stuff in some daws - where you just select a number of midi tracks and press Staff View(Sonar) and up comes notation.

I think Sibelius can do this, from what I read - but I avoid Avid.

Is there any other notation software that really looked at daw people needs?

RockinMillie · Post by **RockinMillie** » Fri Apr 24, 2015 9:55 pm

lfm wrote: I think Sibelius can do this, from what I read - but I avoid Avid.
Is there any other notation software that really looked at daw people needs?

I use notation software to within my work-flow to notate my songs before I start to record them properly. So I am not too concerned about notation functionality being integrated within my DAW.

I demoed Notion, Sibelius First, Musescore and Finale Print Music when I was searching for notation software that suited me:

Notion was very clunky and unintuitive (it looks and feels like legacy software to me).
I did not like Sibelius First, despite its apparent popularity. It was terrible at notating real-time input from a MIDI keyboard (I'm a piano player). I also hated the Office 2013 style tabbed interface - it's a real work-flow killer in my opinion.
Musescore, although free, was unusable for me.

I finally (no pun intended) bought Finale Print Music, which at £57 was an absolute bargain considering its features and usability.
It is good at handling real-time MIDI input.
Having said this, I had been using the free Finale Music Notepad prior to this, so the Finale interface and work-flow was very familiar to me.

http://www.finalemusic.com/products/finale-notepad

Try out all the demo versions

pinki · Post by **pinki** » Fri Apr 24, 2015 10:52 pm

I use Notion...I definitely don't find it clunky at all. I like it's simplicity and DAW like approach.

To the OP..I think you need to spend some time with the manual to be honest. Notion 5 can do everything ...learning the shortcuts is vital though.

I think there is no perfect notation program, they all have good things and bad. I used to use Sibelius but am now with Notion.

lfm · Post by **lfm** » Sat Apr 25, 2015 6:58 am

RockinMillie wrote:
lfm wrote: I think Sibelius can do this, from what I read - but I avoid Avid.
Is there any other notation software that really looked at daw people needs?
I use notation software to within my work-flow to notate my songs before I start to record them properly. So I am not too concerned about notation functionality being integrated within my DAW.

If you didn't exist there would be no market for notation software as they are up to know. I was thinking of expanding the market a bit.

The way notation went - is really duplicating what's inside daws anyway. So based on notation mostly and adding VST instruments and audio stuff. And worst of all - the price tag of notation includes this crap I don't need. Devs have spent large amount of effort in doing this duplicating of daw features.

I'm thinking of a quick and easy way to get what you recorded to notation - to register a song etc. Prepare a hired vocalist to make better vocals than I can before shipping demo etc.

I have an old Finale Guitar 2003 - and just about installs on W7, but not correct according to windows logo. You can import midi files as I recall. I feel I have to update this unless I cope with Staff View in Sonar - it's not all bad, but lack simple things like triplet handling of pause etc - it must have three notes everywhere - I don't know what they were thinking. I'm not getting anywhere without triplets - not after taking drum lessons it all became some kind of triplet based beats.

Implemented like in Sonar - rewire a notation software - select the midi tracks you want to use as source - and done, pretty much. Do the rest inside notation software.

Since having this chain of operations until notation - just really need to know that you can record midi, what signature to use, to make notation provide you with what is needed. so be prepared even before starting project in daw, kind of.

Can I use 12/8 as signature in daw and have notation provide me with 4/4 score and triplets?
First of all - all daws I tried - you need to increase tempo and run 12/8 as signature.
Will you screw things up in notation doing this?
Tempo may decide which speed indicator you get.

http://www.treblis.com/notation/tempo.html

If you export a tempo of 150 due to setting 12/8 - will not be correct. You might get a presto instead of moderato or something - since it's 100 in 4/4 and triplets.

So metronomes I use, and external gear like drumclicks have one tempo and daw another. Would be nice if you could make the full chain of events work together - without fiddling too much manually.

Thanks for your input.

G-Sun · Post by **G-Sun** » Sat Apr 25, 2015 7:10 am

Adding notes should give you some red notes at the end of the measure.
Just edit the measure until no red notes,
and everything should be fine.

EnGee · Post by **EnGee** » Sat Apr 25, 2015 1:48 pm

I use mainly Notion 4 which I like a lot. I might upgrade to Notion 5 but I'm not in hurry.

I use it for learning piano and writing the easy pieces of Mozart, Beethoven, ..etc and some old Blues from some books, so I can play them in Notion, and after that begin to practice them with the digital piano.

Few months ago, I downloaded MuseScore 2.0.0 Beta (now it is released version) and I liked it a lot. Couldn't make it play the notation through my digital piano (I hope in the final version it can), but writing in it is really great with all the notations that exist in the commercial ones. It doesn't have support for VSTi like in Notion so the sound is limited to its sound fonts (i think). Anyway, I can export as midi or MusicXML file.

If you have Notion, you can cross upgrade to the full Sibelius or Finale. I thought to crossgrade to Sibelius for $200 but then between MuseScore and Notion 4, I felt I don't need really (at least for now).

For Electronic/Pop music, I don't use notation. Just a DAW with piano roll. Well, everyone has a different vision and workflow I suppose.

Notation programs