# Help me find an alternative to Notion.



## Marc555 (Oct 8, 2019)

As the titles says, I'm looking for an alternative to Notion.
Kind of frustrated in creating presets with it. Read the whole GitHub tutorial and still unsuccessful. And other frustrating things.

This is what I'm particularly looking for in another notation software:

- playback of the selected guitar strings and fret inputed on the tablature to the VSTi (Notion got that covered: Ample Sound guitars and Orange Tree Samples guitars are neatly triggered via keyswitches by programming rules for it)

Can Dorico 3 do that for the guitar -- though I know it doesn't support MIDI guitar -- can I program Dorico so that the string selected on the tablature triggers the corresponding string on the VSTi?

I also want to know about Sibelius and Forte, can they support automatic playback support from tablature to VSTi, with corresponding string selection?

Thank you.


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## Saxer (Oct 8, 2019)

There‘s a Dorico3 demo out now. As far as I know there‘s a possibility to send different voices in a polyphonic track to different midi channels Or VSTs. I don‘t know if that‘s possible for guitar strings too.


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## Marc555 (Oct 8, 2019)

Thank you, I'm going to try it out. I'll see if there's a way to configure MIDI channel number to a string number and if the tablature handles the output to VSTi automatically.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 8, 2019)

For guitar tab I highly recommend Guitar Pro. It does EXCELLENT guitar tab playback using its own built in sounds... You an even fine tune exactly how you want string bends to sound and stuff like that and you have amp control over the guitar tones, etc.. its actually quite good at what it does...highly recommend.

You can open up Guitar Pro tab files in many notational programs, including Notion if you want to fine tune the output, but it actually can do quite good guitar tab output on its own now...


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## Marc555 (Oct 8, 2019)

Thank you for your comment. I already use Guitar Pro 7 to notate guitar ideas. However, my goal here is to compose directly in a notation software and get my VSTi's to play all articulations. I want to get as close as possible to the mix result without resorting to my main DAW (Reaper).
Right now, I'm using Guitar Pro, Notion, then Reaper. I want to do without the middle management guys at some point.


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## Marc555 (Oct 8, 2019)

Can't make Dorico work with my VSTi guitars. I'll stick with Notion longer. If someone has an instructional video to create presets, I'd be grateful!


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## Saxer (Oct 8, 2019)

Dorico opens VST3 plugins per default only. If you want to use other VSTs you can whitelist them. The Dorico forum on the Steinberg page is very good and the developers are there daily. Maybe you should ask there if your workflow is possible.


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## Marc555 (Oct 9, 2019)

Thank you Saxer. I got Dorico 3 working with my all my VST instruments (sorry I wasn't precise on my previous post; I should have said that I couldn't make my VSTi guitars_ work the way I want_). I was quickly comfortable with Dorico's interface. Well designed.
However, I can't post anything on Steinberg's forum, and I believe that it's because I'm not the owner of any of their products.
If I understand Dorico's workflow correctly, expression maps is how it handles note conditions. I've read the manual and there's nothing on assigning string numbers to MIDI channels at the tablature level (at the staff level with a symbol, yes, but there doesn't even seem to be an assignable expression that sends a corresponding MIDI output for it).

I even found this in the forum, with Daniel (Dorico developer) answering:
(https://www.steinberg.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=246&t=167691)

by *xcoyle* » Sat Sep 07, 2019 8:41 pm 
Sibelius and other guitar scoring apps support Midi guitar input, where midi channel equals the string number. For example, if the midi guitar is set up to send midi for string 1 on channel 1, string 2 on channel 2, etc..., then the scoring application will properly receive this and put the notes on the proper strings.

Without this support, if I play a middle C, this could be 4 different places on the guitar neck, and it is impossible for Dorico to know.

I do understand that Dorico is doing some intelligent decision making based on other notes played, but this obviously has limitations.

thanks! 

by *Daniel at Steinberg* » Sat Sep 07, 2019 8:46 pm
No, it doesn't support MIDI guitar input at the moment, but it's something we're considering for the future.

Were Dorico supporting MIDI guitar, my guitar VSTi could work because they can behave as MIDI guitar with mutichannel output according to string number.


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## Marc555 (Oct 9, 2019)

At least now I know from that previous Q&A that Sibelius does handle MIDI guitar. And a search on the net showed me that Finale does too.




However, is Sibelius and Finale as versatile in terms of articulations? Can I assign palm mutes, bends, slides, hammer ons/pulloffs etc. that actually trigger a MIDI signal to my VSTi?


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## mducharme (Oct 10, 2019)

Sibelius and Finale are probably currently more versatile in terms of articulations. But they have their own downsides - Finale is certainly the harder of the two to learn for a beginner I would say and involves more work to get a reasonable looking score (and some frustrating bugs), and while Sibelius is adding some new features, it is really starting to lag behind in terms of development pace (new useful features).

It wouldn't surprise me if Dorico has the feature you want in the next version, at the rate it is being improved.


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## Marc555 (Oct 24, 2019)

Thank you all for your replies. I am waiting for Dorico's update that will implement MIDI guitar. 
I surprise myself by using more and more Reaper's notation, but it's frankly limiting... but with the advantage of working within the versatility of a DAW environment.


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