Fiskum, Steve wrote:
Thanks for this unoffical review of Notion. I have been waiting to see a demo and find out more info.
From its website and some of the ads I've seen I have had the iimpression that
playback was a bit more important than notation. It is interesting to hear your
thoughts on the program.
In a marketplace crowded with Sibelius and Finale, Notion needs a hook
to make itself stand out, so it does seem it is concentrating on playback.
It'll take a number of versions to get it even close to either Sibelius
or Finale in notational agility and flexibility, but if it can capture
those for whom playback is of utmost importance, it might be able to
generate enough income to survive a while longer and get enough user
numbers to attract further capital investment.
Witness Finale's new inclusion of GPO and the ability to use other
Native Instruments format samples which is far superior to Sibelius's
formerly superior inclusion of their Kontakt Silver player. I'll be
very interested to see the new Sibelius version's playback capabilites
and whether it has improved over Sibelius 3, but it seems that Sibelius
and Finale are falling over each other in trying to provide better
playback sounds.
Notion burst onto the scene already having surpassed them both in that
regard, but unfortunately not even coming close in notation.
Now if the three companies can simply merge and get their programs to
all blend into a single monster program, we might get:
1) the out-of-box elegance and ease of Sibelius which beginners need;
2) the infinite control of all the little details of Finale which
professional engravers need;
3) the easy, gorgeous playback quality of Notion that more and more of
those who use notation programs need/want, both for professional
presentations and for personal fulfillment;
Unfortunately because of the reality of business mergers, if the
companies all merge, we'd really end up with:
1) the playback capabilites of Sibelius, with 20 sounds included of
which 8 can be used at any one time;
2) the out-of-box awkwardness and default ugliness of Finale, which
frustrates many beginners;
3) the total lack of advanced notational capabilities of Notion, which
makes it completely unusable for professional engraving needs.
Oh well.
--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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