NOT Sent from my Hackintosh -- Eric Dannewitz Musician/Polymath/Evil Genius http://www.ericdannewitz.com
On Sep 16, 2013, at 8:15 AM, Craig Parmerlee <[email protected]> wrote: > > I get a negative reaction when we talk about "mature" product and cash > cows. I don't think any of the notation products are anywhere near > mature. Everything is way too tedious with all of these programs. Yes, > computer-based notation was an impressive achievement for 1995. But > since that time I've rarely had the feeling that we're looking at any > breakthroughs -- only little improvements at the margins, on a > 20-year-old platform. In other words, these companies have ALREADY had > their cash cow period. It was 2000-2008. Well, computer notation was impressive back in 1988 or so when Encore came out. Honestly though, what sort of "breakthroughs" are you wanting? I'd rather see refinements of stuff that is already in there but doesn't work well. Like audio to pitch, the whole parts thing in Finale, making play back for scores better, maybe even being able to create smartmusic files with recorded audio, etc... I can't see how they are going to come up with "breakthroughs". That is like asking Apple to have a new product category every 3 to 4 years. It's insane. > > In other parts of the music technology world, we see truly amazing > things. I have been spending time reviewing VST effects that might be > useful to my work (not necessarily related to notation or realistic > playback of notation). Some of these are truly amazing in the reach of > the concept and the quality of delivery. And they are coming fast and > furious. So some people have figured out how to deliver a lot of > function quickly without requiring a football stadium full of developers. You are comparing music notation to something COMPLETELY different. > > So I am not thrilled with the idea of waiting 2 years between releases > unless the result is truly revolutionary. Why? Must a company reinvent the wheel every two years just because? NO. Users want refinements to their tools, not replace their trusty Spools with a Spork just because it's "revolutionary". Again, it's insane. And plus, where is the demand for it? I see none. What I see is that people want it to work better. Fixing it rather than throwing out everything and starting again. PLUS how are they going to fund that? > > For me, I think XML would work OK. Let's say that Steinberg produces a > real breakthrough product that is a clear generation ahead of the other > products -- a product that is so good, you want to do all your new > projects on that platform (that is a huge assumption, of course). That > does present a question what to do with the old scores. In recent > years, I have made sure to freeze the scores and parts to PDF whenever I > finish a project. I expect PDF will survive as a standard longer than > MUS files. As long as I don't have to make any changes, the PDFs are > fine, of course. I seriously doubt Steinberg is going to release something like that. The advantage they have is that they have hooks into one of the top DAW programs. If they draw a lot of the parts of Cubase into whatever this new product is, it will be very interesting. It will address the huge problem with Finale and Sibelius (the playback sucks compared to what you can do with a DAW). Though there is already a mature program that is already doing this, www.notionmusic.com. > > If I need to make revisions, I could either do those directly in Finale > or convert the score to Steinberg using XML. That would all depend on > the scope of the change. If we're talking about changing a lyric or > inserting some repeat marks, that could easily be done in Finale as long > as that program will still run under my current OS. If the changes are > more extensive, then it would be worthwhile to go through the conversion > process. I don't see that as a big problem. Of course you can still run OS 9 and older windows programs in virtual emulators (or whatever its called). > > The problem I would see is if Finale support were to go the way of > Rhapsody (or name your own defunct notation program.) There would come > a time when you couldn't even run the final version. Then you are in > trouble. I think I'll start a systematic process of going back through > all my old Finale projects and create MIDI and XML dumps of those scores > now so I'll have all my bases covered. I guess, but hopefully they'd or someone would release the fileformat first. > Regarding Steinberg not having a user base, that is true, but they have > some real assets. A lot of people who use Cubase also use notation > programs, so in that sense they have a marketing base. Moreover, they > are distinguishing themselves from Avid and MakeMusic who are providing > absolutely zero communication to their loyal customers. Steinberg, in > contrast, has adopted a very open approach. To be sure, Daniel is not > committing any features and dates, but just the act of communicating > regularly is building a strong following. I bet thousands of people are > following his development blog now, and many of them will have signed up > for email updates. If they have a strong product, they have an > opportunity to make a very rapid introduction. So in a sense, so does Logic. People use Logic to notate. Avid and MakeMusic have plenty of communication. Avid has great forums and MakeMusic does have someone monitoring this list (which for YEARS and YEARS they didn't). You just want them to tell you when something is shipping. Are we going to accuse Apple of zero communication to their loyal customers? No. These companies just don't announce products until they are ready. I'm fine with that. And I don't think Daniel has "thousands" of people following his production blog. MAYBE a few hundred, but not "thousands". > > Personally I'm not sure Steinberg will have a commercially competitive > product by 2016. All the functions he's talked about so far are > components, building blocks and prototypes -- nothing like a real > product yet. Wait, so all this and this is the conclusion? What about the "thousands" of people, and the "generation ahead" stuff? I mean, they haven't said anything about a shipping date or time frame or anything (we don't even know if it really even runs as they are still prototyping the interface) and you've already thrown them under the bus? Wow. _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
