I've seen thread after thread about GPO, but I'm sorry to say I haven't
paid much attention. Now I've received the Fin06 marketing brochure, and
my interest is piqued.
I understand that a version of GPO sounds comes bundled with Finale. Is
"Kontakt" the playback engine for those sounds? What are the advantages
of upgrading to the full versions vs. staying with the bundled versions?
Assuming Kontakt is what plays the GPO sounds, how does Finale trigger
them? Is it still MIDI with all the problems that entails?
Part of my interest stems from having seen a demo last week of a new
program called Notion. As a notation program it takes you back to late
ProCo or early Mosaic days (w/o Mosaic's part linkage) in terms of how
it looks. (The spacing, in particular, is awful.) But the playback
engine is amazing: it is an utterly new paradigm. Instead of using midi
or anything like it, the program synthesizes the waveforms on the fly.
You could have an orchestra of 50 pianos playing 10 notes each, and the
program synthesizes that sound in real time, so there is no latency and
no voice overrun. Furthermore, they've linked samples of various
intruments playing different techniques (all recorded by the LSO) to
their corresponding standard notation markings. As a result, you
automatically get different samples if you put a slur, an accent, or
staccato, etc. on a note. They have a demo score of Stravinsky Infernal
Dance for which the playback in many passages sound remarkably like a
real orchestra. The rep. claimed that no special tweaking was required.
That said, I think Notion will have a tough time staying in business.
They are nowhere close to either Fin or Sib on notation features, and
meanwhile, I wonder if both Fin and Sib aren't moving towards imitating
Notion's playback paradigm. Hence, my question about GPO/Kontakt and how
Finale interacts with them.
Another problem with Notion is that you have to do things its way. It
contains many, many notation features, but the ones they have not
accounted for, you cannot do.
While I remain unconvinced that Notion will have the opportunity to
deliver on its promises, I was impressed by their representative. He
obviously believes passionately in the program. He literally thinks it
can change the world by bringing interest in and deep knowledge of
orchestra music back to the masses. It was a bit moving to see a man
older than me (and I'm not young) with such youthful stars in his eyes.
I think Notion has thrown a challenge at both Fin and Sib that I hope
they will heed. Even if Notion is knocked down, perhaps Fin and/or Sib
can deliver on Notion's promise.
--
Robert Patterson
http://RobertGPatterson.com
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