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Isn't usage of a piano roll pretty standard for DAW tools such as this? I'm sure the more sophisticated tools can take a piano roll and generate sheet music for

Isn't usage of a piano roll pretty standard for DAW tools such as this? I'm sure the more sophisticated tools can take a piano roll and generate sheet music for you, but I'm fairly certain the editing generally happens in a piano roll view

ghostpepper 3y ago
I’d say the absence of Eb is a bigger issue than the interface
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- mastazi 3y ago
  I have to agree on this one, I really dislike when enarmonically equivalent but extremely uncommon names are used. The key of D# has not one but two double-sharp notes (F## which is actually G, and C## which is actually D). In addition, it includes two more sharps that are enarmonically equivalent to natural notes (E# and B#, equivalent to F and C respectively). It is just an incredibly hard key to reason about.
  - xeonmc 3y ago
    For others wondering why, this video explains it quite well: https://youtu.be/9w6A8bXDmRw https://youtu.be/9w6A8bXDmRw
- j7ake 3y ago
  In Pythagorean tuning, D sharp is slightly higher in pitch than Eb.
- neonnoodle 3y ago
  E♭ considered harmful
klodolph 3y ago
I don’t think this is recognizable as a DAW, and the page doesn’t call it a DAW either. It’s a sequencer. It’s not like a lack of a score view is awful, it’s just that it’s part of a pattern of missing tools that would be useful to people interested in composition. Like how there’s no such thing as a key signature (only scales), and you can’t reorganize parts of a song, and the chord tool uses a bunch of sometimes-correct names for chords so the tool can fit in with the scale. And then after you choose a chord, the name is gone. You can’t see what chords are already in the song. And there’s no flats. People prefer piano roll, or score, or switch back and forth between both. The score is not just an artifact for printing books on paper, it’s a useful tool for reading music quickly. Piano roll is a lot more intuitive but it’s slow to read and falls apart when you start working with larger or more complicated stuff. The people who want to “compose” music tend to gravitate towards the DAWs that have built-in scores anyway, like Cakewalk or Logic. That’s not universal by any means, it’s just kind of an average trend. Just like the people who call themselves “producers” tend to gravitate more towards piano roll. I put “compose” and “produce” in quotes because they’re somewhat arbitrary labels. I keep going back to analogies—like, you walk into a kitchen, and there’s a sous vide wand, a centrifuge, and a Pacojet. But there’s no sink. Or you go into a machine shop, and you see a six-axis CNC machine, but no calipers.
- luqtas 3y ago
  i think this one is more a sous-vide wand and only that, without trying to be an entire kitchen... if you want the 12-edo piano-roll with friendly markers, just use something like Ardour, Bitwig etc.
- broscillator 3y ago
  I'm a composer and if I happen to want to make sheet music, which rarely happens, I just open Musescore. Most of the time I'm in bitwig, recording things in real time and editing things around, I barely use the midi roll. I don't find the sink analogy apt. It's more like a grill. It's something specific that you might want to go to, and if you do, then you go there and you do that, outside the kitchen.
  - 3y ago
wwweston 3y ago
Last time I used Garage Band, it had a traditional notation / sheet music view. There's software I use (Reason) that doesn't have this, and piano roll or even things like Digital Performer's direct midi event list editor are one variety of really effective tools, but in my experience, anytime you end up working on a piece that might eventually need collaboration, lacks of notation will end up being a stone in your shoe.

ghostpepper 3y ago

I’d say the absence of Eb is a bigger issue than the interface

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mastazi 3y ago
I have to agree on this one, I really dislike when enarmonically equivalent but extremely uncommon names are used. The key of D# has not one but two double-sharp notes (F## which is actually G, and C## which is actually D). In addition, it includes two more sharps that are enarmonically equivalent to natural notes (E# and B#, equivalent to F and C respectively). It is just an incredibly hard key to reason about.
- xeonmc 3y ago
  For others wondering why, this video explains it quite well: https://youtu.be/9w6A8bXDmRw https://youtu.be/9w6A8bXDmRw
j7ake 3y ago
In Pythagorean tuning, D sharp is slightly higher in pitch than Eb.
neonnoodle 3y ago
E♭ considered harmful

klodolph 3y ago

I don’t think this is recognizable as a DAW, and the page doesn’t call it a DAW either. It’s a sequencer. It’s not like a lack of a score view is awful, it’s just that it’s part of a pattern of missing tools that would be useful to people interested in composition. Like how there’s no such thing as a key signature (only scales), and you can’t reorganize parts of a song, and the chord tool uses a bunch of sometimes-correct names for chords so the tool can fit in with the scale. And then after you choose a chord, the name is gone. You can’t see what chords are already in the song. And there’s no flats. People prefer piano roll, or score, or switch back and forth between both. The score is not just an artifact for printing books on paper, it’s a useful tool for reading music quickly. Piano roll is a lot more intuitive but it’s slow to read and falls apart when you start working with larger or more complicated stuff. The people who want to “compose” music tend to gravitate towards the DAWs that have built-in scores anyway, like Cakewalk or Logic. That’s not universal by any means, it’s just kind of an average trend. Just like the people who call themselves “producers” tend to gravitate more towards piano roll. I put “compose” and “produce” in quotes because they’re somewhat arbitrary labels. I keep going back to analogies—like, you walk into a kitchen, and there’s a sous vide wand, a centrifuge, and a Pacojet. But there’s no sink. Or you go into a machine shop, and you see a six-axis CNC machine, but no calipers.

luqtas 3y ago
i think this one is more a sous-vide wand and only that, without trying to be an entire kitchen... if you want the 12-edo piano-roll with friendly markers, just use something like Ardour, Bitwig etc.
broscillator 3y ago
I'm a composer and if I happen to want to make sheet music, which rarely happens, I just open Musescore. Most of the time I'm in bitwig, recording things in real time and editing things around, I barely use the midi roll. I don't find the sink analogy apt. It's more like a grill. It's something specific that you might want to go to, and if you do, then you go there and you do that, outside the kitchen.
- 3y ago

wwweston 3y ago

Last time I used Garage Band, it had a traditional notation / sheet music view. There's software I use (Reason) that doesn't have this, and piano roll or even things like Digital Performer's direct midi event list editor are one variety of really effective tools, but in my experience, anytime you end up working on a piece that might eventually need collaboration, lacks of notation will end up being a stone in your shoe.