Thinking of Upgrading - Notation Editor Question

[jackibar]

Hi, Everyone - Long-time MOTU user currently using DP 6. I've been thinking of upgrading to DP 7 but I'm wanting to find out if they still have the "notation editing window" - which I use all the time... I see "Quick Scribe Notation" - but that's not what I'm referring to!

Also, if they do still have it, is it now "zoomable" - ?! In DP 6, the notes are so tiny and there's no way to make them bigger.

Thanks so much for any info!

[midney]

Yes, the Notation window is still there (thank God) though it’s kinda screwed up… MOTU keeps promising to fix it. Also, the note resolution is still low (we keep reporting to the techs). This window is also very important to us… a lot of pros use it extensively… hope it will still be there in DP8. Pray.

BM

DP 7.24, Logic, VSL and all.

[jackibar]

Thanks so much for the info, midney! Okay - so my next question is how soon are they anticipating DP 8 being released?! Maybe I should just wait at this point... ?

[barreltone]

You might be able to get DP7 now and get DP8 upgrade free later. From the page on the MOTU website:

Retail pricing, upgrade pricing, and availability for DP8 will be announced later, but if you purchased DP7 on January 19, 2012 or later, you can receive the DP8 upgrade at no charge.

http://www.motu.com/newsitems/digital-p ... es-windows

Not sure how this applies to upgrades, but you could contact MOTU and find out.

[jackibar]

Thanks!

[FMiguelez]

Yes, the Notation window is still there (thank God) though it’s kinda screwed up… MOTU keeps promising to fix it. Also, the note resolution is still low (we keep reporting to the techs). This window is also very important to us… a lot of pros use it extensively… hope it will still be there in DP8. Pray.

On the rather rare occasions that I remember to try it again (for the n-th time), I keep getting disappointed by that editor. The way ti is now I find it barely usable. But it has a lot of potential IF MOTU fixes it and adds some MOTU magic to it.

What do you find screwed about it, Mideney?

Also, if it were up to you, what changes or improvements would you implement? Just curious.

[kdm]

I too would like to hear more specifics on what does/doesn't work with the Notation Editor. I'm waiting for DP8 to consider moving to DP from ProTools (I have DP7, but am on PC, so no way to evaluate it before DP8 is out).

I currently work mostly in the key editor as ProTools has problems with the notation editor with large MIDI track counts (i.e. a typical scoring template) - takes forever to open so it kills the workflow. All to say, I was looking forward to going back to using a notation editor view more of the time if DP's works well enough. If not, hopefully MOTU will work on it a bit (or perhaps they did for 8?).

Any news on when 8 is coming out? I thought the DP8 page on the MOTU site said spring, but it just says TBA now. I guess that means it could be later this summer/fall.

[FMiguelez]

Just to avoid confusion: DP has two notation editors:
Quick Scribe and the Notation editor.

The former works perfectly for what it does (in a non-linear fashion, similar to Finale). The latter is a linear notation editor, and that's the one that needs improvement.

Actually, BOTH of those editors are quite improvable, but QS works very well for doing basic lead sheets and simple orchestrations. It has lots of very nice features, but it needs revamping so it works even better (more control on how to display rhythmic groupings, 2-3 voices per staff, switchable clefs, slurs, notation symbols that playback, etc.).

[kdm]

Yes, I did know of both. I was referring to the notation editor, not Quickscribe. I was looking forward to editing notation with controller data lanes rather than being limited to piano roll editing for a combined controller/note view (a la DP's graphic editor), and as I do in ProTools (Cubase/Nuendo are the same - no controller data in the notation/score editor - just seemed like a nice plus for DP).

ProTools also has two forms of it's notation editor/view, but you can't really edit easily there (and the slow-open/large template bug applies to both). It's mainly for a quick notation view, and transfers into Sibelius (which does work pretty well for a quick basic transfer).