First impressions...
Posted: Sun Oct 04, 2009 8:41 am
First of all, let me say how much I appreciate the $99 crossgrade from Finale - while I have no desire to get rid of Finale at this point (having used it for 15 years, I'm far too set in my ways!) those of us who upgrade Finale regularly have plenty of eligible discs to send in
I've used/tried a LOT of software for scoring over the years, and let me say that this was one of the easiest workflows to get accustomed to very quickly. I spent a LOT of hours with the program yesterday, and was able to come up with some really realistic sounding music. I also have been very pleased with the XML import - I tried exporting 2 different Finale scores, both of which came into Notion 3 flawlessly. From there it was a simple matter to adjust the mixer and some dynamics, then shortly a finished sound was available - no clicking to assign sounds!
There are some limitations and wishes I have for Notion, but I think this will be a valuable addition to my "arsenal". Since I work more quickly in Finale, I can easily crank out a score there and then import if I wish. I do think that a very necessary addition will be the feature to edit CC and other midi on a straight (non-imported) Notion file. I'm going to experiment with some imported files this week to see how well that works, and how easily one can edit those.
I've been spoiled by Finale's Human playback, and I think there are some things it does that are more convenient for a quick render, but so far I can get a similar interpretation from Notion with a little more work. I'm thinking specifically of things like the Fermatas, accel and ritards which are more automatic in Finale...
I have waited until now to order Notion, and I think with V3 it is finally a mature product that will give Finale and Sibelius a run for their money - certainly this year I've chosen to spend my $99 on it instead of another Finale upgrade - I really did not see enough new features in F2010 to warrant it, and the 10gb of new sounds alone was hard to pass up!
Kudos, Notion team - I think you got it right!
- Jonathan
I've used/tried a LOT of software for scoring over the years, and let me say that this was one of the easiest workflows to get accustomed to very quickly. I spent a LOT of hours with the program yesterday, and was able to come up with some really realistic sounding music. I also have been very pleased with the XML import - I tried exporting 2 different Finale scores, both of which came into Notion 3 flawlessly. From there it was a simple matter to adjust the mixer and some dynamics, then shortly a finished sound was available - no clicking to assign sounds!
There are some limitations and wishes I have for Notion, but I think this will be a valuable addition to my "arsenal". Since I work more quickly in Finale, I can easily crank out a score there and then import if I wish. I do think that a very necessary addition will be the feature to edit CC and other midi on a straight (non-imported) Notion file. I'm going to experiment with some imported files this week to see how well that works, and how easily one can edit those.
I've been spoiled by Finale's Human playback, and I think there are some things it does that are more convenient for a quick render, but so far I can get a similar interpretation from Notion with a little more work. I'm thinking specifically of things like the Fermatas, accel and ritards which are more automatic in Finale...
I have waited until now to order Notion, and I think with V3 it is finally a mature product that will give Finale and Sibelius a run for their money - certainly this year I've chosen to spend my $99 on it instead of another Finale upgrade - I really did not see enough new features in F2010 to warrant it, and the 10gb of new sounds alone was hard to pass up!
Kudos, Notion team - I think you got it right!
- Jonathan