# Notion for iPad- not a gimmick



## dcoscina (Mar 22, 2013)

Admittedly I was a very early adopter of this notation program back in 2005. Back then Jack Jarrett, creator of Notion, had the vision of a composition program that had its own built in sounds with a plethora of playback articulations. At the time, Finale and Sibelius, while much more powerful notation programs, were still in the stone ages as far as sampled playback was concerned. 

Even today, Sibelius (which I use a lot of) has a bloated sample set that takes forever to load but still shockingly lacks sample bassoon trills and such. 

Notion for iPad was released a little over a year ago and in this time their team has made significant advances in this app. First, it is VERY affordable. All of the expansion sound sets are something like $29. To buy their desktop cousin version, you'd have to spend close to $500 for all the extra articulations. Second, Notion boasts a very impressive sound playback library. I can write things like tremolo vibes and hear back a SAMPLED version of it. Motor on/motor off is another fave. Pretty much every articulation you can think of has been sampled by the Notion folks and crammed in their program. Yes, it's not VSL and Spitfire quality but it doesn't take 10 minutes to load an entire set.

The most recent update saw some impressive features:

-Show more than two measures per system.
-Make the default notation size a little bit smaller in order to make room for showing more than 2 measures per system.
-Implement zooming using the standard iOS pinch gestures.
-Added Print feature for printing via AirPrint (accessed via the export menu).
-Making a PDF and printing via AirPrint uses the same layout that you see when open a file on the desktop, rather than the default iPad layout.
-Add ability to switch to Print View, which matches what the score looks like when you print, write to PDF, and matches how the score looks on the desktop, and it shows the page boundaries. (Click on the gear button in the toolbar and choose "Switch View…"). You can edit in Print View the same way you can in normal iPad view.
-Added print layout options 
-Added iPad View Settings. 
-Press and hold on a measure to bring up a menu that allows making it a pickup measure.

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And here is what is planned for the next update (taken from their Facebook page)

*NOTION Music Thanks everyone...glad you like the update. If the feature you are requesting or want is on the desktop version of Notion we are going to try to put it on the iPad as well over the next few months. (Minus things that just can't be brought over like ReWire, etc..) What's next? The current test build I just received has the ability to use your finger or a stylus to move notes, enter notes, delete notes, etc.. So entering notes without the piano keyboard or fretboard will get much more efficient and enjoyable. (removing the cross-hair note moving tool). We really needed the zoom feature to get this to work the way we wanted. It works really well, some more adjusting and work needed. I'll keep you updated as we get closer to a release build with this.*

I use the desktop version more now since I got the iPad version and find it seamless as far as working on projects from Notion and Notion for iPad. 

I'm really looking forward to side scrolling view and adding/removing notes with your finger or stylus. These guys are ahead of that other company who has slick marketing but no product per se to boast. Notion are on the eve of actually doing what these other guys only promise with slick ads and graphics stolen from other programs like Sibelius.

Anyhow, for any of you looking for a viable portable composition program with some serious depth, check it out. You can also hook up a USB keyboard with the camera connector and add notes that way. Way cool. You can also bounce down to WAV or AIFF files and upload to SoundCloud or send the AIFF via email. I sent some thematic sketches I was working on to a director for a score I'm working on. He thought it sounded cool.


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## Tatu (Mar 22, 2013)

I've been using the iPad version since it came out and I think it's worth every penny (and that's not even much of pennies) even if one uses it only for sketching. I've also used the desktop version, Notion 4, which is almost excellent, but seems to be a bit too much tied to it's iPad sibling: No true, free form text boxes and everything is tied to a very narrow and restricting grid, slurs often end up looking rather funny on multi-voiced staffs etc. so they still have quite a bit of work to do.

Big plus for the EWQLSO (and VSL) templates that come with it!
And big plus for being affordable.


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