On 11/20/2013 4:36 PM, David H. Bailey wrote: > Steinberg is developing their own notation program, Avid has Sibelius > to go along with ProTools, Presonus bought up Notion, so the only > independent notation program is Finale.
I had missed the news about Presonus and Notion. That is very interesting. Things are moving quickly. There are lots of DAWs out there, but I think the 5 most significant players (just my opinion) are: - Avid ProTools because of their specialized hardware and presence in the high end studios. They own Sibelius. - Yamaha/Steinberg Cubase/Nuendo because of their user base and history of software standard-setting. They are developing a next-generation notation product. - Presonus StudioOne as a real up-and-comer. Very well liked, and rapid feature delivery by the vendor. They just acquired Notion. - Gibson/Cakewalk SONAR because of their long tradition in MIDI sequencing and a super-loyal and very active user base. They have a minimal notation capability today. - Reaper because of their very low price ($60) -- great price-performer for the hobbyist. The first four are the "professional" and "very serious hobbyist" products, I believe. I included Reaper because its very low price has bought a big user base. There are lots of others (Reason, Garageband, Ableton, Acid, Logic, etc), but I don't think they are taken as seriously as the 5 I listed. It is very interesting that the first three all have some priority on adding high-end notation to their product line. I believe that reflects a fundamental generational change. Yesterday's composer was often classically trained, starting with music theory, study of the ancient works, etc. The old model is to compose in a score and maybe later get the music produced. Today's musician is often a more intuitive, experimental composer, composing interactively while creating the performance itself. In other words, they are a DAW-first musician, and the score may come later. There is another group of musicians that works very heavily with video, and again, many of them find the interactive style of composing the most natural way to work. But many of them eventually need to involve other musicians -- sometimes even full orchestras in the performance of their music, so they want to be able to do professional quality notation. This, I believe, is why we are seeing the notation products absorbed into the biggest DAW suppliers. And as I mentioned elsewhere, the one that stands out as not having such a notation capability is Cakewalk, which is in the process of being acquired by Gibson. Gibson talked pretty big about the Cakewalk acquisition being their entry point into software. If a Gibson/Finale connection were to come about, I think that would be excellent. That is a company with dynamic leadership, deep pockets, and a considerable amount of vision. _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
