64-bit DAW with NOTATION (Dorico and Sibelius WAAY too expensive!)

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64-bit DAW with NOTATION (Dorico and Sibelius WAAY too expensive!)

Post by ulrichburke »

Dear Anyone.

I'm disabled, have to do everything by mouse. Plobrem with piano roll is you can only really - as far as I can work out - see one instrument at a time with it unless you've got a screen the size of a cinema! That aside, I love notation. Why use barcharts to write music when you can use the system that served Mozart, Brahms and all the others so well?

Currently I use Quick Score Elite Level 2 to do everything. It's a full-on DAW but it's notation only (it's got piano roll but it's clunky, it mainly relies on notation as do I!) Of course I've heard of Dorico and Sibelius but at £500 and £700 respectively they're just a TAD outta my price range!

I'm NOT after free, just realistically priced. If anyone knows a legit. way to get hold of the student's version of Dorico (which is about £50) I'd happily buy that, for instance. QSE and Dorico (and the waaay outta budget Sibelius) are full-on DAWS which you can mix in and use VSTs in, I've seen oither notation packages which don't let you do the mixing or using DAWs, don't think they'd work for me. Be constantly transferring MIDI files between programs to hear what they sounded like using your fave plugins. Bought Ableton Live but it doesn't do notation, does it. Was shocked when I discovered that (unless I'm wrong.) It's just loops. Real disappointment.

Anyone know of any 64-bit DAWS with a decent notation system? Ideally, one that lets you hear the note AS you're putting it in so you can hear discords as they're happening, not always having to listen back and spot them all afterwards. I've got a budget of ROUGHLY £100, can squeeze a bit more out if it's an excellent system, but £5-700 are beyond me, sorry.

Yours hopefully

Chris.
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Re: 64-bit DAW with NOTATION (Dorico and Sibelius WAAY too expensive!)

Post by Kwackman »

I think there are 3 versions of Dorico, not including education versions. Only the version with all the bells and whistles costs a lot. Perhaps one of the lesser two versions would have enough facilities for you?

https://www.steinberg.net/dorico/compare-editions/
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Kwackman
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Re: 64-bit DAW with NOTATION (Dorico and Sibelius WAAY too expensive!)

Post by ulrichburke »

Dear Kwackman.

You're right - I totally hadn't realised this. Only ever seen the £497 one advertised, and the student version, didn't know this other version existed at all.

Thankyou very much for your help, that's MUCH more within my price range!!

Yours respectfully

Chris.
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Re: 64-bit DAW with NOTATION (Dorico and Sibelius WAAY too expensive!)

Post by Aled Hughes »

Reaper has notation functionality. I haven't used it that often so I don't know how well developed and implemented it is, but it's free to try out.
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Re: 64-bit DAW with NOTATION (Dorico and Sibelius WAAY too expensive!)

Post by Johnsy »

Like Aled, I've not used Reaper's notation editor much, but when I have, it's always been able to do what I wanted.

Here's a short, well-presented video giving a good overview of its capabilities:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dO6doe5hw4
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Re: 64-bit DAW with NOTATION (Dorico and Sibelius WAAY too expensive!)

Post by Peevy »

Have a look at Cakewalk by Bandlab. It’s a completely free fully featured DAW with notation capabilities:

https://www.bandlab.com/products/cakewalk

I rarely use the notation features personally but it would do no harm to try it out as it costs nothing.

For notation my preference is Sonic Scores Overture which can be found here:

https://sonicscores.com/overture/Overture

I don’t use the DAW capabilities it offers, but for score writing I find it very intuitive. The cut down version is Scorewriter which may have enough feature wise depending on your needs.
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Re: 64-bit DAW with NOTATION (Dorico and Sibelius WAAY too expensive!)

Post by ulrichburke »

Dear Peevy.

The Cakewalk idea is fascinating, I didn't even know about it (only just read this so not tried it yet!) I thought Sonar had gone for good, I'd no idea they'd rebranded it as a freebie.

Will try it in the morning, deffo. Thankyou very much.

Yours respectfully

Chris.
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