Daws, Sound Libraries and Music Notation

[Hugh Zachary Smart]

I currently mostly use Sibelius notation software. For creating demos, these samples are not great. You can get plugins, but this is limited. What is a more effective/efficient way of creating demos?

So far the most promising thing I've found is Dorico, though I don't know much about that yet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKaqprDhslU

Perhaps there can be some compatibility between Cubase and a more sophisticated notation system.

Please share your thoughts!

[Gav Brown]

Hi Hugh,

I use Finale and have done so for about 10+ years. Before NotePerformer, its sound output was somewhat weak, but it is now much better with NotePerformer. Before NP became available last year for Finale, it only worked with Sibelius, so I downloaded Sib and NP. While NP does as good a job in Sib as it now does in Finale, I found the basic Sib engine to be not very good. Simple, fundamental things like triplets and trills sounded bad to me. Admittedly I was new to Sib and may have missed something in how to do it better, but I gave up on Sib because I felt that I shouldn't have to try so hard to get it to work on the basics. I'm not claiming that Fin+NP=same as live performance, but that is not my goal. I just want an output file good enough that a live performer would be able to listen to it and get an idea of how the piece should sound if performed. I recently had a string quartet performed by a professional group, and the feedback from them was that the soundfiles are pretty good.

Best in your search,

Gav

Gav

[michael diemer]

Comment by michael diemer 2 minutes agoDelete Comment

You have asked a very tricky question, which brings up the debate between DAWS and notation software. I would direct you to Stephen Line's music. He is a member here, and he uses Sibelius with Note Performer. He gets very good results. Then there is David Carovillano, also a member here. He does his demos in cubase, I believe. He gets extremely good results.

I do everything ass-backwards because I am left-handed (at least that's the excuse I use). So, naturally I create my music in a DAW (Cakewalk), and then finish it in Notion, a notation program. You can check out my results if you wish, I make no claims as to their quality. 

If I had it to do over, I would probably work in notation, using Stephen's setup. I think that is probably the best way to get decent demos in notation software. That could change, of course. The Holy Grail is a program that does both. Don't hold your breath though, the two kinds of approaches almost seem mutually exclusive at this point.