Finale is acting against my aims as a composer

[herodotus]

I will take this opportunity to once again mention Lilypond.

It may take a bit of getting used to, but the final product (i.e. the notated score) is as good as it gets.

If you are using a notation program principally to create MIDI files, then Lilypond is probably not what you want (and in fact, it is hard to create good MIDI performances with any notation editor).

But if you want to create a piece of nicely engraved sheet music, even a full orchestral score, Lilypond really is worth the effort.

[jancivil]

Writing a note in piano roll and in notation software is the same thing. The difference is that in piano roll you don't describe notes, but you change velocity and use articulations from sound library and describe them that way.

The difference between a novel, book, and a bunch of written notes is this:
A person who has no talent at writing can read a good book.
A person who is musically deaf can't read notes because his/her brain can't "decipher" pitches to create needed harmony,
basically to be able to hear notes/music correctly and to interpret notes.

That's a load. You really have provided us with the definition of sophistry in argument there.

No, people work in notation rather than piano roll for actual reasons.
I have not composed in a notation application for a dozen yrs {unlike your strawman I work mainly by ear}, but I ran into a couple of definite instances recently where sorting out voice-leading will have been much less hassle via notation. The chief advantage of piano roll is control of duration, and the tradeoff isn't zero sum given this kind of problem. IE: people will write and then create the performance in teh DAW.
I got the thing done, but my preference there is from experience. And there is a whole universe of rhythm that comes to people who know about it from writing it. When I was a kid drummer, my teacher made me write out the drum part in the beginning of Jimi Hendrix Fire, which is where I wanted to be. Invaluable tool, that.

For starters, there's some concrete differences.

[EnGee]

I like Notion as it is easier to use than Finale or Sibelius (Dorico now?). It is also cheaper. I also like the iOS version of it as well. Still not perfect, but for most notation needs is more than enough.

Still, it is matter of learning the tool really. Once you learn it well and get used to it, you would feel more comfortable with it than other similar tools. So, if you already bought Finale and have spent time with it, then I suggest to continue learning it. It is from the best notation programs out there

Anyway, another good notation are in Cubase and Logic Pro. You can switch between the piano roll and the notation, this is the advantage of having Cubase or Logic pro

[fmr]

Anyway, another good notation are in Cubase and Logic Pro. You can switch between the piano roll and the notation, this is the advantage of having Cubase or Logic pro

You can, but if you ddn't start your tracks with notation in mind, you will probably end with a lot of useless gibberish in the notation window.

Music notation os a highly abstract standard, hardly compatible with realtime recording and performance. So, you either enter your music step by step in Cubase or Logic, or at least record it with a metronomically precise performance, or the "translation" will be hard, for the most part.

[EnGee]

Yes I think you are right. It's better to start with the notation then switch to the piano roll but not the opposite.

Anyway, I like to enter the notes by using the mouse in the notation, while I prefer to play the notes to record it in the piano roll. It just seems more natural this way.

[jancivil]

Anyway, another good notation are in Cubase and Logic Pro. You can switch between the piano roll and the notation, this is the advantage of having Cubase or Logic pro

You can, but if you ddn't start your tracks with notation in mind, you will probably end with a lot of useless gibberish in the notation window.

In Cubase, totally, unless your piano roll work is incredibly simple and absolutely quantized to an extremely simple resolution. I mean mixing simple duple with triplets is a mess real quick.
You absolutely have to start with notation for that scenario to make any sense.
Logic is better than Cubase for writing in notation IMO, in fact it's one of very few things I used it for.
ONCE I futzed with Cubase's resolution games long enough to make sense [and a pdf] of a lick I wanted the sax player to double, and he said it was not really possible (or he wasn't going to bother for what I was paying him).

I let my Finale lapse a decade ago. I don't know why it's better than Sibelius since I never used that. Finale was a bit of a PITA but not that bad in... '05, '06. But its playback was pretty stiff no matter what and this is when I embraced the piano roll. There was one cat at VSL Forums who got it [def. a more recent v. than 'Finale 2006'] to do some real music but to me it's an unimaginable kind of work that I don't really enjoy.

[fmr]

Anyway, another good notation are in Cubase and Logic Pro. You can switch between the piano roll and the notation, this is the advantage of having Cubase or Logic pro

You can, but if you ddn't start your tracks with notation in mind, you will probably end with a lot of useless gibberish in the notation window.

In Cubase, totally, unless your piano roll work is incredibly simple and absolutely quantized to an extremely simple resolution. I mean mixing simple duple with triplets is a mess real quick.
You absolutely have to start with notation for that scenario to make any sense.
Logic is better than Cubase for writing in notation IMO, in fact it's one of very few things I used it for.

Logic is better, yes, but even there, unless you use the notation window right from the beginning, the transcriptions many times end with very bad scenarios.

The best transcription algorithm I've seen was, actually, in Performer, althouygh MOTU left the notation market very long ago (they were the pioneers, with Professional Composer), and Digital Performer never really got that extra step in the notation chapter, like Cubase and Logic (never understood why, it would be as simples as port the Mosaic code into DP).

I let my Finale lapse a decade ago. I don't know why it's better than Sibelius since I never used that. Finale was a bit of a PITA but not that bad in... '05, '06. But its playback was pretty stiff no matter what and this is when I embraced the piano roll. There was one cat at VSL Forums who got it [def. a more recent v. than 'Finale 2006'] to do some real music but to me it's an unimaginable kind of work that I don't really enjoy.

Finale now has a special way of playback, called Human Playback (I think that Sibelius has that too, but I'm not sure). It translates basically every score indication into playback, including dynamics and tempi. Works OK, although it's not as versatile as using our own tempo map. For more than a decade I've been advocating the inclusion of a terpo map in Finale, as well as a piano roll editor, with no success.

Anyway, it's quite good as it is now, considering it's a notation program before anything else.

[jancivil]

I vaguely recall hearing about Human Playback some time ago. I don't recall if I ever saw it in Finale.
I require timing that I absolutely control, specifically the Tempo Map and Warp Time in Cubase means I will never leave Cubase. /edit: Stuff that playing back notation is never going to suss.

I never tried Logic's notation editor to deal with 'live' MIDI, I wouldn't expect that much difference. It's easier to write in terms of teaching than Cubase IMO. Another weird, weird thing here is that Cubase doesn't respect Logic's MIDI nor vice versa, not worth a shit.

There is a trick Logic avails us of where you can create nested tuplets. Cubase, you're SOL here.
Oddly enough, MuseScore must provide it because I have a musescore file of Zappa's The Black Page which does it. Cubase plays it o'course but it has not the first clue what the pentuplets etc are as a transcriber. Even though you can quantize (and turn the grid into) to any number tuplet simply enough.

[jancivil]

I remember Professional Composer well, I used it long before any DAW. Maybe 1986, maybe '87.

[EnGee]

I don't have a mac, so Logic is out of reach for me Anyway, I have upgraded Notion yesterday from v5 to 6 for $31.5 only (in JRR Shop). I started with version 4 for a discounted price of $50 then up to v5 for about $40, so after all I like the experience with it more than other notation software. I won't up Cubase Artist to Pro just because the notation, it's too expensive (NZD 410) !!!

Notion 6 integrates nicely with S1 now, so I'm going to give it a good use
https://www.presonus.com/products/Notion