KVR Audio

lfm · Post by **lfm** » Sat Jul 25, 2015 5:37 am

EdgarRothermich wrote:Two things,

1) An app is only as good as the users (who needs to know how to use it)

2) If a DAW contains already professional notation tools (like Logic or Cubase), then you have to evaluate if the addition money you spend on a standalone notation app provides you with additional tools

Thanks.
Yes, that is what I try to find out - where to put money and not.

And I certainly need to learn to read score properly before I can appreciate the more expensive notation features. But after learning drumscore, taking drum lessons, I found some things lacking in Sonar, like triplet handling, so it was useless.

Haven't dived into Samp scoring that deep yet, but I think I read it is decent in scoring department. But found it interesting that you can buy Cubase Pro 8 for less money than scoring on top level, and pretty much got impression it is excellent for scoring. But think I get it now, some typesetting features are missing.

lfm · Post by **lfm** » Sat Jul 25, 2015 5:54 am

arkmabat wrote:Finale had terrible vst support last time I checked. But it does support it actually.

That's why it's puzzling why the didn't go integrating with daws.

I have a Finale Guitar 2003 that is midi only, but no music xml, just midi import - and don't think it even installs properly to modern windows os.

I have this link I check out every year:
http://music-notation-software-review.t ... views.com/

Note that Forte list as supporting music xml - but it doesn't on that basic version in that chart. They cheat, kind of.

I really liked working in MagicScore, but they don't support asio for playback and that failed on a computer I had with just ASIO/MME - audio stuttered like hell trying to emulate asio. There are asio settings, but they are disabled as they explained to me - changing this gm playback synths they use now.

Finale - feel they are far behind, nothing 64-bit yet etc.

Sibelius - who dare buy Avid stuff....they will soon start charging you annually looking at other products like ProTools and MediaComposer.

So I bought Samp ProX2, thinking I could make do with what it brings in scoring, will see. If lacking something I will try Cubase Pro 8 and have a backup daw as well.

deastman · Post by **deastman** » Sat Jul 25, 2015 6:49 am

I'm actually very curious what people think about StaffPad as an alternative to traditional scoring tools.

fmr · Post by **fmr** » Sat Jul 25, 2015 9:38 pm

arkmabat wrote:Finale had terrible vst support last time I checked. But it does support it actually.

VST support is much better now. The main problem resides in managing the plug-ins vs the sounds wanted, playing the right "tracks" (staves, in this case), all that without a proper sequencer window.

Regarding the lack of 64-bit... Well, if they are concentrated in notation and engraving, 64-bit is not really an issue, is it? I mean, for scoring, what does 64-bit bring? Users can export MIDI, and work after in any DAW, if they want. Of course, I would love to have a full sequencer buil-in, but, as I said, Finale user base majority seems to not be there.

fmr · Post by **fmr** » Sat Jul 25, 2015 9:41 pm

lfm wrote: Haven't dived into Samp scoring that deep yet, but I think I read it is decent in scoring department.

Samplitude scoring is not better than Sonar. Not really a score editor - more a notation display.

fmr · Post by **fmr** » Sat Jul 25, 2015 9:47 pm

lfm wrote: I have this link I check out every year:
http://music-notation-software-review.t ... views.com/

He is comparing the entry level applications, not the fully developed professional ones. And in the Input/Output features, he completely let out one of the most powerful features of Finale, the Hyperscribe. And he is complaining about the lack of a virtual keyboard

Really?

lfm · Post by **lfm** » Sun Jul 26, 2015 2:25 pm

fmr wrote:
lfm wrote: Haven't dived into Samp scoring that deep yet, but I think I read it is decent in scoring department.
Samplitude scoring is not better than Sonar. Not really a score editor - more a notation display.

I think I mixed up a comment at Cakewalk forum that was about Digital Performer regarding this.

It's as you say simply trying make notes on a score for midi in Samp.
There is no entry of lyrics or chords, or even Guitar chord diagrams.

Also useful to me is guitar tab notation, and guitar fretboard as help for entering notes as for guitar licks and stuff I feel is to be noted - as all is audio.

And also something funny about how Samp use quantizing for display of notes - it's not considering length of notes as expected. Like a sequency of clearly 16ths in length, due to a little off to 16th grid, if I select 32nd note quantizing a note become a 32nd and a 32nd rest. It seems to quantize note on and leave note off and change length thinking it's closer to 32nd. Maybe there is a setting how to manage this.

fmr · Post by **fmr** » Mon Jul 27, 2015 10:26 am

lfm wrote: And also something funny about how Samp use quantizing for display of notes - it's not considering length of notes as expected. Like a sequency of clearly 16ths in length, due to a little off to 16th grid, if I select 32nd note quantizing a note become a 32nd and a 32nd rest. It seems to quantize note on and leave note off and change length thinking it's closer to 32nd. Maybe there is a setting how to manage this.

As I said, if you are considering "notation scores" (not notes display) as a request, you are really don't have much choice. It«s either Cubase or Logic, with Digital Performer coming a little behind. All the others don't have what can be considered as a score editor.

kbaccki · Post by **kbaccki** » Mon Jul 27, 2015 2:25 pm

fmr wrote:Regarding the lack of 64-bit... Well, if they are concentrated in notation and engraving, 64-bit is not really an issue, is it? I mean, for scoring, what does 64-bit bring? Users can export MIDI, and work after in any DAW, if they want. Of course, I would love to have a full sequencer buil-in, but, as I said, Finale user base majority seems to not be there.

If you're scoring with large sample sets -- like large, high end orch libs -- 64-bit breaks the 4GB memory limitation. This is particularly important with engines that perhaps aren't the most efficient, memory wise, like Play (or so I've heard, or read, or imagined). Some engines provide their own workarounds -- like Kontakt memory server, or VSL's networkable engine -- but let's face it, that's just one more level of complexity, one more thing that can break, or that need to be tweaked, or whatever.

As a musician, I want everything in one place. I want to load 16GB of crap into a single app that gives me sequencing, notation, audio, etc. I don't want Rewire, I don't want MIDI loop back nonsense, I don't need extraneous "teleport servers" and other hackery going on in the background. Just an app, a big ol' chunk of memory, and world-class functionality. After this many years, I don't see that happening. You can have A+B, or you can have A+C, or you can even have B+C. But if you're looking for A+B+C, then you better grab a Snickers bar.

fmr · Post by **fmr** » Mon Jul 27, 2015 2:33 pm

kbaccki wrote:
fmr wrote:Regarding the lack of 64-bit... Well, if they are concentrated in notation and engraving, 64-bit is not really an issue, is it? I mean, for scoring, what does 64-bit bring? Users can export MIDI, and work after in any DAW, if they want. Of course, I would love to have a full sequencer buil-in, but, as I said, Finale user base majority seems to not be there.
If you're scoring with large sample sets -- like large, high end orch libs -- 64-bit breaks the 4GB memory limitation. This is particularly important with engines that perhaps aren't the most efficient, memory wise, like Play (or so I've heard, or read, or imagined). Some engines provide their own workarounds -- like Kontakt memory server, or VSL's networkable engine -- but let's face it, that's just one more level of complexity, one more thing that can break, or that need to be tweaked, or whatever.

As a musician, I want everything in one place. I want to load 16GB of crap into a single app that gives me sequencing, notation, audio, etc. I don't want Rewire, I don't want MIDI loop back nonsense, I don't need extraneous "teleport servers" and other hackery going on in the background. Just an app, a big ol' chunk of memory, and world-class functionality. After this many years, I don't see that happening. You can have A+B, or you can have A+C, or you can even have B+C. But if you're looking for A+B+C, then you better grab a Snickers bar.

Again, "if they are concentrated in notation and engraving" Play /which is a sample payer, is not part of the equation. Of course, if you are working with very large scores, RAM can be a issue, but if you work in a 64-bit OS, Finale has 4 GB just for itself. I can't imagine a score that needs more than that. BUT, if you want to work with a sample player, maybe that becomes a problem.

That said, I also hope they jump into 64-bit anytime soon.

kbaccki · Post by **kbaccki** » Tue Jul 28, 2015 6:05 am

fmr wrote:Again, "if they are concentrated in notation and engraving" Play /which is a sample payer, is not part of the equation. Of course, if you are working with very large scores, RAM can be a issue, but if you work in a 64-bit OS, Finale has 4 GB just for itself. I can't imagine a score that needs more than that. BUT, if you want to work with a sample player, maybe that becomes a problem.

That said, I also hope they jump into 64-bit anytime soon.

If they're solely for the purpose of putting notes on staves and creating hard copies without actually hearing what it might sound like, then why do these programs have VST support at all? And why do they provide "humanizing playback" features? The totality of functionality is intended to go beyond visuals and hardcopy output. And if that's the case, and if the tools that composers expect to use for mockups and large scoring projects are memory intensive, well the host should support that way of working. Prior to really ANY 64-bit platforms (well, at least cohesive platforms from a software perspective), somebody doing a large project miught have a rack of GigStudio or VSL machines MIDI'd and MADI'd up, and things got done. But when the technology bandwidth and capacity exists today to do all that ITB, why not take advantage of that?

I have a small project running in 32-bit reaper here... 1xDUNE2, 1xDEXED, 1xPurity, and 1xKontakt5... plus 13 Plug&Mix FX plugins... 6 midi tracks. Kontakt5 has a 8dio acoustic guitar patch, samplemodeling alto sax, and 2 shaker-type patches loaded from EthnoWorld4.

Task Manager tells me the the reaper footprint is 1.5GB. Now, can I be loading a full orchestra and an taiko ensemble into the remaining 2.5GB? I'm going to go out on a limb and say "probably not". I just added two instances of Amplitube 3 to the project -- now it's at 1.9GB. Don't ask me why, it just is. If I had to do anything of substantial size with this setup (32-bit), I'd be in trouble. Fortunately, I'm running 64-bit Win7, and can simply switch to a 64-bit runtime... since in my case one exists.

fmr · Post by **fmr** » Tue Jul 28, 2015 9:36 pm

Yes, I know, and I agree with you. I also would like to have better MIDI editing tools. The current status is like a work half done, in what concerns composition (writing and hearing). I think that the VST support and included libraries are basically marketing sales weapons. However, 64-bit support and better MIDI and sequencing editing tools are a must to take advantage of those.

And I've been saying this for ages.

kelldammit · Post by **kelldammit** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 2:14 am

fmr wrote: I guess that's because the users of one kind of program don't overlap that much with the users of the other kind. That's why notation programs also don't go so much into sequence editing and áudio editing (while they could).

Yup, not really worth devs time to make those dozen users happy, especially with music xml being pretty good these days.

lfm · Post by **lfm** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 8:37 am

kelldammit wrote:
fmr wrote: I guess that's because the users of one kind of program don't overlap that much with the users of the other kind. That's why notation programs also don't go so much into sequence editing and áudio editing (while they could).
Yup, not really worth devs time to make those dozen users happy, especially with music xml being pretty good these days.

There are massive long thread at Cockos forum wishing for notation in Reaper as well as at Cakewalk forum to improve for Sonar.

Anybody as serious as to actually register songs with a publisher to receive royalty as the music is used will have good use of notation.

I also used it to prepare a hired vocalist before arriving with some sheets on the song not to use my time practising. Both for lead and background vocals. And lyrics part is good too. My own performance on vocals is horrible, so some sheets are helpful preparing them.

At the time I played in bands, most songs were covers - and photo copies of score was provided as support for everybody to learn their part.

And I don't agree with there is no overlap in usage - notation software the last decade, all they did was duplicate what's in daws. That's basically all they did - and the cost for the products is really silly compared to what you get in daws - thereby interesting if daws perform well in the department.

What one can really ask is how many actually need typesetting abilities for the score. How many are writing for full orchestra arrangements all over the world - a couple of thousand composers or something.

I think the request for decent notation within daws are valid. Very convenient if well integrated. It's hard to say how large percentage of people wanting it are participating on forums on the matter - but already early in daw development some notation stuff usually get in there - so they can make a checkmark on that feature.

Anybody that took lessons for an instrument of any sort would have come in contact with notation. It's very closely related to music overall. There are even people with college schooling doing all composing in score, and start from that end rather than as many of us starting with recording and then finally want some score on result.

Steinberg obviously felt it was essential enough to bother, devs that left Steinberg and build StudioOne did not. As they say, different strokes for different folks, if I got that right.

Since I ran Sonar 4 10 years ago there were some threads popping up all the time about notation improvements. But instead devs create all kinds of features that even the CEO go out in public announcements trying to explain how good it was that you find it in Sonar - thinking about drum replacement features in Platinum now. They do this instead of listening to what people ask for - how smart is that.
They call it:
- follow industry trends
And they continue to ship new bling-bling stuff with daws trying to attract users. But I feel that if everybody just bought what they need instead with these excellent standards as VST plugins are - daw makers could focus on improving workflow things that everything is at your fingertips when you need it. Instead you get this stuff you never asked for - but thought well, it might be useful some day, but we don't really need it.

Hopefully each one of us find the tools we need - not what dawmakers try make believe we need.

dadapotok · Post by **dadapotok** » Fri Nov 10, 2017 12:47 am

if you're interested, please join 2017 discussion here on slant:
https://www.slant.co/improve/topics/103 ... n-software
it's easier to digest, vote and upvote opinions about different aspects there.

Daws with score editing as good or better than full version Sibelius or Finale?