5 ms·

As an occasional user of MuseScore (which I like a lot), I'd be weary of them going down the DAW path. They really should focus on music notation. There are al

by bambax 6y ago

As an occasional user of MuseScore (which I like a lot), I'd be weary of them going down the DAW path. They really should focus on music notation. There are already more DAWs than needed, some free, some inexpensive, and most of them pretty good. It's unlikely a MuseScore DAW will bring anything new to the scene, whereas on the music notation front they occupy a unique and very strong position (their competitors being either outrageously expensive or not good). My two cents.

truckerbill 6y ago
A DAW that focuses on notation rather than piano-roll doesn’t really exist in the market however. The UX of the apps that support a stave is stuck in the 90s.
- p_l 6y ago
  How does OpusModus compare? I'm less than amateur when it comes to music and found it from completely different direction, so I would like to know opinions.
  - truckerbill 6y ago
    It looks really cool but it seems like more of musical scripting/markup language than a DAW. Most musicians won’t be touching that.
- Kye 6y ago
  Reaper has had a notation view for a while.
  - erwincoumans 6y ago
    Logic Pro X has a music notation view called Score Editor.
    - Kye 6y ago
      One plus of Reaper is it runs on the same platforms as MuseScore. Everything I've heard about Logic Pro is great, and I would like to try it, but it's Mac-only.
      - panpanna 6y ago
        I tried reaper for a day and could not figure out how to do anything. Switched right back to live. I think it's a promising project but he urgently needs to hire a UX expert. +1 for platform independence though. I can't understand how logic users lock themselves into the apple ecosystem only to complain about the expensive RAM upgrades to keep Reaktor snappy.
        kchr 6y ago
        No, you need to realign to something other than the close-knit UI choices made by Ableton. They're trying to do something different here.
  - panpanna 6y ago
    I can only think of 2 daws that lack notation : abelton live and Mackie tracktion (now waveform)
necrotic_comp 6y ago
I agree. I have recently started taking composition lessons for large bands (e.g. 18 pieces), and I've been using MuseScore as my main tool. Seeing it go the way of a DAW is disappointing, because there's a fundamental difference between composition and producing - that is, the difference between an abstraction of ideas (a lead sheet) and a final product (a render). Getting either of these to a competitive level is extraordinarily difficult, and getting more than one is almost impossible ; I'm willing to be proven wrong, but I think this change of focus may end up hurting the project.
n3k5 6y ago
TL;DR: It's not about having another DAW. This functionality is also important for workflows that have nothing to do with producing. Yes, some of that new stuff looks a lot like a DAW, and for DAW users the first priority should be to integrate the notation software with existing DAWs. However, this is different: when you don't write notation for the sake of controlling virtual instruments, but for performers on live instruments, it's still very useful to be able to ‘preview’ scores and parts thereof through soft-synths. You don't need production-quality sounds, but you do need a faithful reproduction of the notation — something that understands ‘pizzicato’ etc. To that end, software such as Sibelius has suitable synths already integrated, which can often spare you the hassle of cobbling the scoring program together with a DAW. This is also relevant for collaboration. A couple of years ago I gave MuseScore another go because I wanted to facilitate collaborating with a Linux user. The program itself looked promising enough, but I also needed playback functionality (neither of us can play all the required instruments) and getting something cross-platform to work was such a nightmare I gave up after a day of fiddling with soft synths. It had gotten to the point where I was running Linux in a VM and tried to hook together the Jack in the VM with the Jack on the host system. I found software that was able to do this, but only for MIDI, and another program that could do it, but only for audio. It was way too janky. We resorted to just synching MusicXML and doing playback completely separately. (Meanwhile, there now is a Linux version of Reaper on the horizon, but no idea if its notation component has gotten any good yet. Anyway, it's neither free nor Free, so the idea of telling everyone in a band/ensemble to get that isn't as attractive.) From that perspective, the potential of MuseScore 4 is obvious. I'll be keeping an eye on it.
- signaru 6y ago
  Having used both MuseScore and Reaper in my workflow, I initially agree that scoring and DAWs are two different things, and that I could simply export MIDI files from the notation software then take let the DAW do the rest. But I see the point of how good playback can affect the composition process, something notation software is not known for. Although I believe instrument quality should not be a cover up for bad compositions, there are undeniable instances where otherwise good compositions sound bland or uninspiring when played by the "lightweight" sounds bundled with notation software (as they are not DAWs). At times, after hearing it sound right within the DAW, with my favorite plugins and sound libraries, I am inspired to tweak the composition a bit, via the piano roll. In such scenario, if playback could be improved, it would be nice if a DAW can be removed from the compose-listen-tweak loop. At the very least, have realistic instruments and realistic (humanized) playing, even before moving work into the DAW.
TheRealPomax 6y ago
It doesn't need to be "a DAW", it just needs to be "the parts of a DAW that lets you make the sheet music sound good". If they pull that off, which to date literally no one has, then I couldn't care less if it wasn't suitable for general music production without the sheet music side in the slightest. Need to be try to be FL Studio, or Ableton, or Logic Pro, or Cubase, or Avid Pro, or Studio One, or Reaper, or... Do what they don't, because they're not going to. If MuseScore will let me use Spitfire's BBC Symphony Orchestra and gives me DAW-style control over how my sheet music renders to audio with the finesse that score alone doesn't allow for, then that would be something we've never been able to do, and it's about time someone did it.
- sramsay 6y ago
  I've long been a fan of PreSonus's Notion (and I say that as someone who has a lot of experience with Sibelius, Finale, and Dorico). It's one of the few products out there that pays attention to the "parts of a DAW that let you make sheet music sound good," and I (personally) find the UI easier to use than most. I won't say it's the best thing out there if you need beautifully engraved parts for a large orchestral work and you need super high levels of organization, but I love it for composing. I do agree, though, that no scoring program really let's you have the level of control over the way sheet music is rendered at the level that Spitfire or VSL allow. There's always some kind of disconnect, and I always end up tinkering with things in a full-fledge DAW in the end.
  - ternaryoperator 6y ago
    PreSonus Notion user here and quite agreed it's excellent. I just wish they'd rev it more frequently.
    - sramsay 6y ago
      No kidding! I'm always worried they've forgotten about it entirely.
- cactus2093 6y ago
  Genuinely curious, why is that better than just having good midi i/o? I would think almost anyone doing composition and notation, who has expensive, realistic orchestral libraries to play things back on, already has a DAW of some type. And the type of full control you're describing sounds like it could really include a lot. You'd need features like a recording timeline and playback control, parameter automation, advanced routing options, return tracks, side chain inputs, plugin latency compensation, ability to freeze or record plugin output to save cpu resources. Pretty much everything a daw has.
djaychela 6y ago
I don't think they will be going for 'full DAW' functionality, rather taking the same path that Dorico [1] has taken - in allowing DAW-like features to produce better audio output from the scoring application, while still remaining in that same app. I've found that Dorico has allowed me to control things that otherwise I would have needed to put into a DAW to do (such as alter played note lengths to my satisfaction while retaining the notation I think is appropriate) - something which was previously difficult or impossible to do. In addition, being able to have DAW-like control of a mix removes the need to transfer the project (or stems) to a DAW, which can be great, particularly when you want to quickly create something for someone's assessment; yes, in the final version you may well need everything that a DAW offers, but often you'll just need a bit of control to spruce things up a bit and take it in the right direction, and having greater control over this (via VST Instruments and hopefully effects) will allow this all to happen in-app rather than having the (sometimes long-winded) transfer to a DAW. Which can then need to be done again when there's a significant enough change to the music to mean a re-import. [1] - https://new.steinberg.net/dorico/ https://new.steinberg.net/dorico/
klipt 6y ago
Seems ironic, didn't MuseScore start as a sequencer called MusE that had some minimal notation abilities, which were separated out to create MuseScore? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MusE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MusE Isn't adding sequencing abilities to MuseScore just ... reversing that?

by bambax 6y ago

truckerbill 6y ago

A DAW that focuses on notation rather than piano-roll doesn’t really exist in the market however. The UX of the apps that support a stave is stuck in the 90s.

p_l 6y ago
How does OpusModus compare? I'm less than amateur when it comes to music and found it from completely different direction, so I would like to know opinions.
- truckerbill 6y ago
  It looks really cool but it seems like more of musical scripting/markup language than a DAW. Most musicians won’t be touching that.
Kye 6y ago
Reaper has had a notation view for a while.
- erwincoumans 6y ago
  Logic Pro X has a music notation view called Score Editor.
  - Kye 6y ago
    One plus of Reaper is it runs on the same platforms as MuseScore. Everything I've heard about Logic Pro is great, and I would like to try it, but it's Mac-only.
    - panpanna 6y ago
      I tried reaper for a day and could not figure out how to do anything. Switched right back to live. I think it's a promising project but he urgently needs to hire a UX expert. +1 for platform independence though. I can't understand how logic users lock themselves into the apple ecosystem only to complain about the expensive RAM upgrades to keep Reaktor snappy.
      - kchr 6y ago
        No, you need to realign to something other than the close-knit UI choices made by Ableton. They're trying to do something different here.
- panpanna 6y ago
  I can only think of 2 daws that lack notation : abelton live and Mackie tracktion (now waveform)

necrotic_comp 6y ago

I agree. I have recently started taking composition lessons for large bands (e.g. 18 pieces), and I've been using MuseScore as my main tool. Seeing it go the way of a DAW is disappointing, because there's a fundamental difference between composition and producing - that is, the difference between an abstraction of ideas (a lead sheet) and a final product (a render). Getting either of these to a competitive level is extraordinarily difficult, and getting more than one is almost impossible ; I'm willing to be proven wrong, but I think this change of focus may end up hurting the project.

n3k5 6y ago

TL;DR: It's not about having another DAW. This functionality is also important for workflows that have nothing to do with producing. Yes, some of that new stuff looks a lot like a DAW, and for DAW users the first priority should be to integrate the notation software with existing DAWs. However, this is different: when you don't write notation for the sake of controlling virtual instruments, but for performers on live instruments, it's still very useful to be able to ‘preview’ scores and parts thereof through soft-synths. You don't need production-quality sounds, but you do need a faithful reproduction of the notation — something that understands ‘pizzicato’ etc. To that end, software such as Sibelius has suitable synths already integrated, which can often spare you the hassle of cobbling the scoring program together with a DAW. This is also relevant for collaboration. A couple of years ago I gave MuseScore another go because I wanted to facilitate collaborating with a Linux user. The program itself looked promising enough, but I also needed playback functionality (neither of us can play all the required instruments) and getting something cross-platform to work was such a nightmare I gave up after a day of fiddling with soft synths. It had gotten to the point where I was running Linux in a VM and tried to hook together the Jack in the VM with the Jack on the host system. I found software that was able to do this, but only for MIDI, and another program that could do it, but only for audio. It was way too janky. We resorted to just synching MusicXML and doing playback completely separately. (Meanwhile, there now is a Linux version of Reaper on the horizon, but no idea if its notation component has gotten any good yet. Anyway, it's neither free nor Free, so the idea of telling everyone in a band/ensemble to get that isn't as attractive.) From that perspective, the potential of MuseScore 4 is obvious. I'll be keeping an eye on it.

signaru 6y ago
Having used both MuseScore and Reaper in my workflow, I initially agree that scoring and DAWs are two different things, and that I could simply export MIDI files from the notation software then take let the DAW do the rest. But I see the point of how good playback can affect the composition process, something notation software is not known for. Although I believe instrument quality should not be a cover up for bad compositions, there are undeniable instances where otherwise good compositions sound bland or uninspiring when played by the "lightweight" sounds bundled with notation software (as they are not DAWs). At times, after hearing it sound right within the DAW, with my favorite plugins and sound libraries, I am inspired to tweak the composition a bit, via the piano roll. In such scenario, if playback could be improved, it would be nice if a DAW can be removed from the compose-listen-tweak loop. At the very least, have realistic instruments and realistic (humanized) playing, even before moving work into the DAW.

TheRealPomax 6y ago

It doesn't need to be "a DAW", it just needs to be "the parts of a DAW that lets you make the sheet music sound good". If they pull that off, which to date literally no one has, then I couldn't care less if it wasn't suitable for general music production without the sheet music side in the slightest. Need to be try to be FL Studio, or Ableton, or Logic Pro, or Cubase, or Avid Pro, or Studio One, or Reaper, or... Do what they don't, because they're not going to. If MuseScore will let me use Spitfire's BBC Symphony Orchestra and gives me DAW-style control over how my sheet music renders to audio with the finesse that score alone doesn't allow for, then that would be something we've never been able to do, and it's about time someone did it.

sramsay 6y ago
I've long been a fan of PreSonus's Notion (and I say that as someone who has a lot of experience with Sibelius, Finale, and Dorico). It's one of the few products out there that pays attention to the "parts of a DAW that let you make sheet music sound good," and I (personally) find the UI easier to use than most. I won't say it's the best thing out there if you need beautifully engraved parts for a large orchestral work and you need super high levels of organization, but I love it for composing. I do agree, though, that no scoring program really let's you have the level of control over the way sheet music is rendered at the level that Spitfire or VSL allow. There's always some kind of disconnect, and I always end up tinkering with things in a full-fledge DAW in the end.
- ternaryoperator 6y ago
  PreSonus Notion user here and quite agreed it's excellent. I just wish they'd rev it more frequently.
  - sramsay 6y ago
    No kidding! I'm always worried they've forgotten about it entirely.
cactus2093 6y ago
Genuinely curious, why is that better than just having good midi i/o? I would think almost anyone doing composition and notation, who has expensive, realistic orchestral libraries to play things back on, already has a DAW of some type. And the type of full control you're describing sounds like it could really include a lot. You'd need features like a recording timeline and playback control, parameter automation, advanced routing options, return tracks, side chain inputs, plugin latency compensation, ability to freeze or record plugin output to save cpu resources. Pretty much everything a daw has.

djaychela 6y ago

I don't think they will be going for 'full DAW' functionality, rather taking the same path that Dorico [1] has taken - in allowing DAW-like features to produce better audio output from the scoring application, while still remaining in that same app. I've found that Dorico has allowed me to control things that otherwise I would have needed to put into a DAW to do (such as alter played note lengths to my satisfaction while retaining the notation I think is appropriate) - something which was previously difficult or impossible to do. In addition, being able to have DAW-like control of a mix removes the need to transfer the project (or stems) to a DAW, which can be great, particularly when you want to quickly create something for someone's assessment; yes, in the final version you may well need everything that a DAW offers, but often you'll just need a bit of control to spruce things up a bit and take it in the right direction, and having greater control over this (via VST Instruments and hopefully effects) will allow this all to happen in-app rather than having the (sometimes long-winded) transfer to a DAW. Which can then need to be done again when there's a significant enough change to the music to mean a re-import. [1] - https://new.steinberg.net/dorico/ https://new.steinberg.net/dorico/

klipt 6y ago

Seems ironic, didn't MuseScore start as a sequencer called MusE that had some minimal notation abilities, which were separated out to create MuseScore? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MusE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MusE Isn't adding sequencing abilities to MuseScore just ... reversing that?