Hi @hadada, Murat K got it right. There are times when you are forced to write very low notes or very high notes just because a VST instrument works like that. This goes for key switches and sometimes other commands or notes (if your VST instrument is transposed for some reason).
So, having a note from one staff overlap the space of another staff creates a problem. After it overlaps like that, it's hard to use a mouse to click on the note and edit it because the editor thinks you are clicking on another staff.
My suggestion was to allow users to move the staff tracks apart to create more space when necessary. That way all those additional ledger lines would not overlap other tracks.
I am studying different software packages just to see what's out there and I see that every single one is not perfect in terms of how notes are entered and what the program can do. I have classical musical education, yet I play guitar and work with tabs besides scoring orchestra. If I work on some soundtrack project, then the software choices get reduced to DAW type right away because you want to be able to have the ultimate power of notation software with the ability to just play an instrument and record it together with VST-based music. But then you get into how much DAW score editors lack dynamics and articulation... If you use notation software like Dorico, Finale or MuseScore - they can't do what Sonar/Bandlab or Cubase do with allowing you that combination of real instrument recordings and scored VST instrument music.
I always thought the Piano Roll was something for people who didn't really know how to read classical notation.
When you think of modern film music or game soundtracks, you keep coming back to wanting to make DAW score editors better instead of switching to notation software and wishing they could do everything a good DAW does... there is no perfect package.
I have used Sonar for many years and grew accustomed to its concept of a ruler in staff view. You don't have to deal with entering rests. Just enter notes where you want them. Dorico tries to do this, although it doesn't work as well as Bandlab on high resolution monitor and the responsiveness to the clicks seems to be affected by strange delays. Bandlab's staff editor performs well and looks crisp but lacks thorough staff spacing, dynamics and articulation support.
If you listen to Hans Zimmer interviews, he starts everything in Cubase. Scoring his music properly comes secondary. If you listen to Alan Silvestri's interviews, he starts his work in a DAW (Cubase) and then goes over to Dorico to work on proper sheet music for the orchestra. Wouldn't it be nice if DAW software had a powerful score editor? I may be dreaming here. But then, could we start with small steps and gradually build it up to be at least decent? Bandlab has a great start with the ruler/grid mode where composers don't have to worry about entering rests. Nice! So, let's make it even better.
I am teaching my son to use Bandlab as a composer. Unfortunately, he is also learning how much DAW score editors lack in features. Maybe we can do something here for the future generations to not have to deal with the headache of having multiple software packages for the same project and less than perfect Export/Import steps.
Imagine this scenario -- you buy an expensive VST library that has Hans Zimmer's samples of strings. You want it to sound great (that's why you bought it in the first place)! But you also want it to look right in the sheet music. I understand that some VST instruments play entire phrases and you cannot get those to look right in the sheet music until you re-enter those note by note. I get it. But, if those are single notes, wouldn't it be great to at least not have to spend time trying to figure out what each key-switch track under each normal track is doing? Those are impossible to read when there is a lot of them. The composer then has to do something else to mark up the score or has to remember what articulation was placed in each spot, or keep clicking on each key-switch note, struggling to click it because it overlaps some other track, to then look up what it does... This is where a lot of musicians would switch to Dorico as the next closest relative with the ruler/grid concept. But Dorico is no DAW and you end up switching back and forth instead of writing music.
I'd love to hear all of your thoughts on this
Thank you
I did that with my son's composition in Note Flight. You export orchestra music as MIDI, but then when you import it into Cakewalk, not only playing techniques have to be fixed with key switches, but also the dynamics may be very different from the original editor's interpretation of "forte", "piano", "pianissimo", etc. When those symbols are applied and then exported as MIDI, that first software package decides what the actual MIDI note volume will be. When I import it into Bandlab, I then have to scrub every note that sounds too soft or is inaudible because the pro grade VST instrument disagrees with that volume. I imagine this would always be a problem across different VST instrument makers when you import something where dynamics are applied to each note already. It seems that the only way to do this once is to start out by writing the whole thing in the same piece of software. And we are back to Bandlab's Staff View capabilities Articulations in Piano Roll look very interesting in terms of how easy they are to edit. Now, the challenge is to add those to Staff View on a "per track" basis, so I can scroll the score with multiple staves and see those articulations next to each track. That would be great! By the way, I noticed that Bandlab articulations are more efficient than classical notation dynamics markings in situations when you need to start a certain articulation segment just before the note is played and not right with the note. Having that degree of control is very nice. It's easy to edit and it works correctly. Now we just want to see it in the right place next to each track in a big score. Thank you!
