Notion Wishlist
Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 11:38 pmI'd like to post a short feature request list for Notion.
First, I must say: after about a year of intensively using Notion 3, I still think it's the best tool for a composer. The interface is easy, the sound is sweet, almost everything makes sense. I accomplish things in no time if compared to other tools I tried.
Instead of lots of options and customization, Notion takes good care of notation elements and layout, has logical shortcuts and overall behavior, so it has a very human friendly interface. Plus brillant features like a very efficient realtime recording from a midi keyboard or instrument, quite deep customizable rules for playback, a useful fretboard for guitar/string composing. It has an excellent sound library, and it accepts most VST instruments, with seamless support for the most popular ones like Garritan, Miroslav, Viena or EWQL orchestral libraries. And of course a playback engine that plays almost all techniques, dynamics, articulation. It's a dream.
On the other side, it's not as complete a score editor or as good a sequencer than the big guys in both areas. I understand that's exactly the nature of Notion, and I agree with it, because we have the best of both worlds. However, I think some relatively simple improvements could mean a big step for Notion as a composer's main tool.
So this is my personal opinion of what's essential right now, in order of importance:
-Cross staff voices and beams are a must for grand staff instruments. It's the only feature that renders piano composing unprofessional in Notion. We use cross staff notation since Bach, and it's difficult to create any modern music for piano or other key instruments without it. Workarounds using ties and voices are not acceptable, the player has to be able to read the score and know where his hands are going, and for years Cross-staff notation has been the way to go.
-Courtesy time signature or key signature changes at the end of a line, right before the signature takes effect at the next line, are also a priority for me. Because, if I can't deliver parts with these courtesy armatures or time signatures, the part is automatically hard to play and not very professional. Composers around the world know that this is unacceptable for performers, and it means a lot of trouble for the rehearsals. It's a very bad point that you can write the most beautiful music in Notion, but then you have to re-edit the parts in another app (like I do with museScore) just to add courtesy armatures.
-I work on Windows, and I urgently need to be able to drag the score around as I edit it. In Windows, the only effective way to scroll around the score is to use the scroll bars (who uses scroll bars nowadays?) or the mouse wheel to scroll up/down (and with shift for left/right). This is so far from Notion's overall easy-to-use phillosophy, I think it needs to be fixed.
-Text elements for full score or parts are buggy. The initial text title, composer, etc. that appear on a new score are a different thing from the ones you add using the menu. Part name, titles or everything you create don't print as they should, or don't print at all in parts. It's just a mess that should be cleaned, in my opinion. Again, it's bad that you have run the score thru another app or a PDF editor just to add a thing such as simple as a title or part name.
That's all. I can't live without the things above.
Now, I know there's a channel for bug reporting, and I've used it. But I'd like to post this little compilation of small bugs or glitches:
-Chord diagrams can't be edited using the fretboard. Notion crashes when you touch the fretboard after selecting a chord diagram. (You must be sick of getting so many automatic bug reports on this, because it's the only moment Notion sends a bug report).
-The tuplet little number doesn't go along with the notes when you choose them to show stem up or stem down.
-Articulation marks are also oddly placed if you mess with the notes stem up/stem down direction manually.
-Gliss/portamento lines seem to be attached to notes articulation mark (staccato, accent) instead of note heads. This is not so good, but it's a really minor glitch as it's very rare to have a glissando between accented notes.
-"Fill with rests" also fills with rests beats that have one measure/two measure repats (%,%%), and it shouldn't.
Finally, some features or improvements that would make Notion a dream for me. They are realistic, tho:
-It would be nice to have mordent, grupetto and other symbols like these. Currently, you have to manually add grace notes to simulate these 'effects'. But they should be in the score.
-I would appreciate some minimal improvement in customization. For instance, I would want the tuplet marking (the little number 3 in a truplet) could also be placed above/below the notes at user's choice.
-Better selection and editing of midi controls and events, like insertion of midi messages via an element on a score. Being able o draw midi controls would be wonderful.
-Playback of fp, ffp and other dynamic effects.
-It would be nice to be able to make rules for Notion3 native sounds, the same way we can do with the Garritan, Miroslav or any other library.
-A little more options for contemporary music: custom key signatures, bar-less scores (or at least via hiding the bars), insertion of text paragraphs or instructions. completey hide (empty) measures, hide note heads or add an invisible, non printable note head to the head types. Approximate tempo marking for printing purposes (i.e. q ~ 90 instead of q = 90)
-Video loading and sincronization, because Notion is so great for composing soundtracks!
-An artificial tremolo in the same way there's an artificial trill in custom rules (as in <trill pitches="1" time="0.1" delay ="0.2"/> ). In the case of tremolo, the speed and duration of the beats could be defined by a similar rule.
Sorry for the long list. I have been editing it for some months now. I wanted to post only once.
-Emilio
First, I must say: after about a year of intensively using Notion 3, I still think it's the best tool for a composer. The interface is easy, the sound is sweet, almost everything makes sense. I accomplish things in no time if compared to other tools I tried.
Instead of lots of options and customization, Notion takes good care of notation elements and layout, has logical shortcuts and overall behavior, so it has a very human friendly interface. Plus brillant features like a very efficient realtime recording from a midi keyboard or instrument, quite deep customizable rules for playback, a useful fretboard for guitar/string composing. It has an excellent sound library, and it accepts most VST instruments, with seamless support for the most popular ones like Garritan, Miroslav, Viena or EWQL orchestral libraries. And of course a playback engine that plays almost all techniques, dynamics, articulation. It's a dream.
On the other side, it's not as complete a score editor or as good a sequencer than the big guys in both areas. I understand that's exactly the nature of Notion, and I agree with it, because we have the best of both worlds. However, I think some relatively simple improvements could mean a big step for Notion as a composer's main tool.
So this is my personal opinion of what's essential right now, in order of importance:
-Cross staff voices and beams are a must for grand staff instruments. It's the only feature that renders piano composing unprofessional in Notion. We use cross staff notation since Bach, and it's difficult to create any modern music for piano or other key instruments without it. Workarounds using ties and voices are not acceptable, the player has to be able to read the score and know where his hands are going, and for years Cross-staff notation has been the way to go.
-Courtesy time signature or key signature changes at the end of a line, right before the signature takes effect at the next line, are also a priority for me. Because, if I can't deliver parts with these courtesy armatures or time signatures, the part is automatically hard to play and not very professional. Composers around the world know that this is unacceptable for performers, and it means a lot of trouble for the rehearsals. It's a very bad point that you can write the most beautiful music in Notion, but then you have to re-edit the parts in another app (like I do with museScore) just to add courtesy armatures.
-I work on Windows, and I urgently need to be able to drag the score around as I edit it. In Windows, the only effective way to scroll around the score is to use the scroll bars (who uses scroll bars nowadays?) or the mouse wheel to scroll up/down (and with shift for left/right). This is so far from Notion's overall easy-to-use phillosophy, I think it needs to be fixed.
-Text elements for full score or parts are buggy. The initial text title, composer, etc. that appear on a new score are a different thing from the ones you add using the menu. Part name, titles or everything you create don't print as they should, or don't print at all in parts. It's just a mess that should be cleaned, in my opinion. Again, it's bad that you have run the score thru another app or a PDF editor just to add a thing such as simple as a title or part name.
That's all. I can't live without the things above.
Now, I know there's a channel for bug reporting, and I've used it. But I'd like to post this little compilation of small bugs or glitches:
-Chord diagrams can't be edited using the fretboard. Notion crashes when you touch the fretboard after selecting a chord diagram. (You must be sick of getting so many automatic bug reports on this, because it's the only moment Notion sends a bug report).
-The tuplet little number doesn't go along with the notes when you choose them to show stem up or stem down.
-Articulation marks are also oddly placed if you mess with the notes stem up/stem down direction manually.
-Gliss/portamento lines seem to be attached to notes articulation mark (staccato, accent) instead of note heads. This is not so good, but it's a really minor glitch as it's very rare to have a glissando between accented notes.
-"Fill with rests" also fills with rests beats that have one measure/two measure repats (%,%%), and it shouldn't.
Finally, some features or improvements that would make Notion a dream for me. They are realistic, tho:
-It would be nice to have mordent, grupetto and other symbols like these. Currently, you have to manually add grace notes to simulate these 'effects'. But they should be in the score.
-I would appreciate some minimal improvement in customization. For instance, I would want the tuplet marking (the little number 3 in a truplet) could also be placed above/below the notes at user's choice.
-Better selection and editing of midi controls and events, like insertion of midi messages via an element on a score. Being able o draw midi controls would be wonderful.
-Playback of fp, ffp and other dynamic effects.
-It would be nice to be able to make rules for Notion3 native sounds, the same way we can do with the Garritan, Miroslav or any other library.
-A little more options for contemporary music: custom key signatures, bar-less scores (or at least via hiding the bars), insertion of text paragraphs or instructions. completey hide (empty) measures, hide note heads or add an invisible, non printable note head to the head types. Approximate tempo marking for printing purposes (i.e. q ~ 90 instead of q = 90)
-Video loading and sincronization, because Notion is so great for composing soundtracks!
-An artificial tremolo in the same way there's an artificial trill in custom rules (as in <trill pitches="1" time="0.1" delay ="0.2"/> ). In the case of tremolo, the speed and duration of the beats could be defined by a similar rule.
Sorry for the long list. I have been editing it for some months now. I wanted to post only once.
-Emilio
