Notion 6 is released; major changes

[mhschmieder]

http://www.sonicstate.com/news/2016/08/ ... notion-6-/

For some reason, they didn't send out an email to loyal customers, so I haven't had a chance yet to check if their is a discount for owners of Notion 5.

I'm just posting this before I forget; I've only skimmed it so far. I imagine they wanted to get it out before Dorico is released. The tighter integration with StudioOne is not unexpected.

[mhschmieder]

I haven't gotten to the "loyalty discount" part of the site yet, but the new features look helpful, such as handwriting recognition:

http://www.presonus.com/products/Notion

http://blog.presonus.com/index.php/noti ... -features/

There is nothing that I have a bigger need for, than scanning handwritten or printed manuscripts and having them properly recognized and transferred.

Somebody mentions a transform tool for note velocity (something else I need and currently try to accomplish via Logic Pro's MIDI tools), but I don't see it actually listed or explained anywhere.

[mhschmieder]

I logged in and still can't find any loyalty discounts. $149 is steep as a one-price-fits-all.

[Robert Randolph]

I logged in and still can't find any loyalty discounts. $149 is steep as a one-price-fits-all.

https://www.jrrshop.com/presonus-notion-upgrade

[mikehalloran]

Upgrade is $49—$100 depending on your previous product.
https://shop.presonus.com/products/soft ... crossgrade

Crossgrade is $79 and must be ordered directly. Besides the usual suspects (Finale, Sibelius, Score, Encore and Overture), it adds Kawai Music FX Pro to the list.
https://shop.presonus.com/products/soft ... Crossgrade

Everyone used to have Mosiac and Professional Composer on their Crossgrade lists as well as many others. Those days are gone.

I have room in the budget for another notation software if I can't get Finale working the way I need. I'm looking at Overture but I think I'll look at Notion 6, too.

Notion for iOS is now $14.99. It was free when first released. Kinda glad. Downloaded it back then. I've never used it bu now's as good a time as any to start. The promise that you can use an iPad for handwritten note entry if connected to your Mac is intriguing.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Interesting, but again, Finale 2014.5 seems to be working well... F25, not so much.

[mhschmieder]

Weird -- that upgrade page for Notion 6 wasn't there earlier and I have a screen shot to prove it (it only showed upgrades to Notion 5 at the time I looked at it).

I guess it took them a few hours to get the site completely set up for this update, as there is also a coincident update of StudioOne to match it, which showed up a bit later as well.

[mhschmieder]

Our Sponsor, Sweetwater, has the upgrade listed at their store already as well:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Notion6up

Obviously, we should support our sponsor.

[mikehalloran]

I've been playing with it. Pretty straightforward but yet another notation program that "knows" the right way for everything, giving you few options if you have a better work flow than what the programmers have in mind. For many, this limited approach will be a good thing. An easy to read, 285 page searchable .pdf manual manual (ahem, MakeMusic?) tells you that there's a lot that Notion can't do.

For example, you can't have multiple note entry palettes open (why??????) making for too many mouse clicks as you close, open, close, reopen etc. compared to Encore and Finale. If this weren't a hard restriction, I'd retire Encore for the simple stuff and get a $79 crossgrade license tomorrow. I put in a feature request to be able to unlock the note entry palettes so that I can have multiples open and let them float.

No scanning support but they just tell you to use a 3rd party app that exports MusicXML. For a $149 list price, yea, no problem there. I haven't played with MusicXML in Notion; the manual doesn't list what version it supports but it appears to be 3.x (I don't think anyone has 3.1 yet).

You get about 20 gigs of samples and can download them for use during the evaluation (MakeMusic?). I've not gotten into them nor do I know if you can use them in other apps except via Rewire (supported).

It looks nice and, for many users, its tight integration with a DAW and a 64bit AV/Movie window are going to bring in many new users. I haven't quite given up but not certain I'm going to be along for the ride.

The user boards tell that Notion 6 is having issues with multi-measure rests and export to .pdf like Finale 25, Overture 5, Sibelius 8 and everyone else at the moment. Ok... Not going to dwell on its shortcomings other than the open palettes issue. My handicap dictates certain needs that don't apply to most—that my deal breakers are the same as yours is unlikely.

Notion 6 is the first version that approaches being a professional notation application, IMO. It is not as full-featured as many need but it seems to hit the high points as far as I can tell.

For now, I'm going to save my $$ but, if support gets back to me with a positive response to my feature request someday, I'm in.

[mhschmieder]

Well, I was lucky in that I bought the first version way back and only pay nominal upgrades. I met the originator of the app at the time and had some lovely conversations with him. We bonded a bit over having attended the same music conservatory (Indiana University - Bloomington) and having a similar passion for both world musics (not to be confused with UC Berleley Sproul Plaza hippie-fest conga drum circles), and ease of notation for composers vs. engravers and especially in the context of music education curriculum.