# DAW=>Notation, or Notation=>DAW?



## Thor (Jun 27, 2016)

Wondering what other's workflow is, and what you consider the advantages to be. I'm Sibelius 7 and Logic X. I'm playing around with which I go with first, Logic or Sibelius. I write (typically) more interesting lines when working in Sibelius first, but the sound might be more "right" if I start in Logic. Thoughts? Thanks!


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## Saxer (Jun 27, 2016)

I do my notation in Logic. But even in Logic producing music and producing scores is a different task. I normally get better lines when I play them first. For working out the main lines with other voices I have a temporary track with a Rhodes sound where I can play polyphonic, try harmonies and inner lines by playing and editing in the score window (which is kind of similar to the work in Sibelius). From there I play the inner voices from screen out of the score editor. So it's going back and forth. Ideally I have a mockup and a score at the end. But most of the time it's not ideally  At least I have to clean up the notation and set dynamics and articulation. But I always care for proper arranging per voice (no poly-pad-style playing) exept on my Rhodes temp track (which is never used in the final mix).


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## Vik (Jun 28, 2016)

Thor said:


> I write (typically) more interesting lines when working in Sibelius first, but the sound might be more "right" if I start in Logic. Thoughts? Thanks!


The world needs more interesting lines. If you have a good composition, there are always ways to make it sound good later.


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## AllanH (Jun 28, 2016)

I'm looking for a good solution. I currently write almost entirely in Sonar's PRV. While that's great in the sense that it lets of work on CC messages concurrently, it's difficult to stay organized as the "information density" is very low. Sonar's notation is so poor that I've given up using it.


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## dcoscina (Jun 28, 2016)

Most of the time I compose right into a DAW. On rare occasions where I need to think really orchestrally I compose in Notion either on the iPad and then flesh it out more on the desktop version and then eventually import into DP and replace with better sounds. That's more laborious but the music generally sounds better. And I have a full score ready to be performed by real musicians if the job calls for it.


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## Matt Riley (Jun 28, 2016)

I have been trying to figure out a good workflow with this for years and have sort of failed. I typically switch back and forth between Logic and Finale. My ridiculously imperfect process often looks like this:

1. Play ideas in to Logic

2. Go away from the computer to listen to my ideas in my mind. This may mean a walk or drive but it sometimes lasts for days which can be problematic for sleep. Sometimes when I go on long road trips with my family, new pieces come to me and I can be difficult to be around because I can't have a lot of noise or background music going on. My wife rolls her eyes and tells the kids that dad is "birthing" again.  But new ideas will come to me when I'm away from the computer or piano and they begin to take shape and the structure of the piece begins to form.

3. Return to Logic and record the ideas.

4. Organize the ideas into a scratch piano track that will eventually be replaced by orchestration.

5. I'll then go to Finale and lay everything out in terms of format, empty instrument staves, etc. and I'll create a rhythm chart.

6. Go back to Logic and start orchestrating.

7. I return to Finale when I need to construct something more complicated and need to see everything laid out.

8. Return to Logic and perform the parts I just created in Finale.

I do a lot arranging for live players so I have to eventually return to Finale for the final score and parts. So I often export musicxml from Logic into Finale.


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## Ashermusic (Jun 28, 2016)

Matt Riley said:


> I do a lot arranging for live players so I have to eventually return to Finale for the final score and parts. So I often export musicxml from Logic into Finale.



Actually, you don't HAVE to, although toy may want to. I have been doing those tasks in Logic, and before that Notator, since app. 1990.


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## Matt Riley (Jun 28, 2016)

Ashermusic said:


> Actually, you don't HAVE to, although toy may want to. I have been doing those tasks in Logic, and before that Notator, since app. 1990.


I've been interested in switching to Logic's score editor but I've gotten so used to Finale. Can you get publisher quality finished conductor scores and parts using the score editor?


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## Ashermusic (Jun 28, 2016)

In theory, yes but if I wanted engraved quality, Finale would be a better choice. But I have done literally thousands of parts and scores in Logic for recording sessions for film, TV, records and live performances


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## JonFairhurst (Jun 28, 2016)

Both tools can be traps. With a sequencer, one can fall into the trap of selecting the right sample and tweaking the sound to death. With a notation program, one can fall into the trap of tweaking dynamics, notation marks, spacing, etc. With both, one can fall into the trap of replaying what is already there over and over and over again.

I don't have a particular solution, other than to force one's self to move to the next line or the next voice.

In some ways this is like rehearsing a musical performance. A good musician practices the piece over and over from the beginning. A great musician identifies the parts that they play poorly and practices those tough bars over and over. The good musician ends up playing the start of the piece perfectly but might screw up the bridge. The great musician plays every measure great. The thing is, it's fun and rewarding to play the easy bits. It's a lot of work to learn the hard parts and practice them until they sound easy.

When writing, it's easy to play the stuff that's already written over and over and to tweak it. It's hard work to develop the next line, the complimentary melody, the desired voicing, and making new music in empty space.

So my feeling is that it's not the tool. It's a matter of forcing one's self to do the do the hardest work over the easiest available work.


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## shnootre (Jul 13, 2016)

Reading this thread with interest as someone with a lot of notation experience but just crawling into the world of virtual instruments. For me, my skills as a notator are just so far beyond my skills in the DAW that I invariably will start there for the time being. It seems from what people have written above, that in almost every case, the two things go forward as two separate processes? I.e. it doesn't seem as if anyone works in Finale or Sibelius, and then exports midi to massage in Logic or Cubase. The preferred method seems to be to enter from scratch in the DAW, ideally playing the separate lines in. Or am I wrong? (In my current situation - doing a big orchestration project on a tight deadline) I don't think I'll have time time to make such painstaking midi mockups, but would like to think that if I take the midi from my notation prog I could achieve at least better results by going and working on them in the DAW (with good sample libs, of course). Naive?


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## jonnybutter (Jul 13, 2016)

There's no one method that will work on every kind of project, at least for me. Since I am a keyboard player, it's a little too easy to be glib on keys and just improvise into my DAW, but sometimes that works well, depending on the kind of track I'm creating. I'm sort of with Matt R above - back and forth. I often start at or near the piano with an actual piece of paper and a pencil! For me it's all about getting started; once I have something other than a blank slate, things start to flow.

I have used both Sibelius and Finale a lot, but I've used Logic's notation plenty of times too, and it is perfectly fine for cranking out parts - again, depending on what kinds of things they are.

Overall though, I'd say I always have eventually to get away from both the computer and instruments and just mull things over. 'Birthing'! Yup


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## JonFairhurst (Jul 14, 2016)

Yep. Many projects = many possible "best" processes. On a 48-hour film project, I'm going straight to the DAW as quickness and the final music render are the only things that matter. When arranging for the local community orchestra, I stay in Sibelius and do a quick render using the Note Performer plug in as all that matters is the written score and the ability to easily show people what it will (kind of) sound like.

If you like to doodle until you find melodies, chords, rhythms, and harmonies that you like, start with the DAW. If you've got music in your head that you want to get on paper, start with notation. If you started with notation and want a quick render, use Sibelius-NotePerformer or equivalent. You can export MIDI to the DAW and use better libraries, but this might not be superior right out of the box, given that something like Sibelius-NotePerformer can automatically switch samples and optimize the dynamics and human playback for the samples. To get the DAW and your samples to fit the MIDI output might take a bit of work and it won't necessarily have the built-in shaping of the human playback.

If you only need a rough mock up, you're done! If you want the best possible output, one needs to optimize each line. Maybe that means playing it in by hand to make it a human as possible, but on the other hand, if you're doing techno pop, you might want to keep the mechanical quantization and add some additional synth modulation, LFOs, etc. to a given line. 

And don't forget mixing and mastering, if you want a polished output. EQ'ing the instruments so they sound good and blend well is important. One might add unique reverb to each section to place it on the sound stage. And, of course, each section must have the right levels to balance the music. Finally, one might do overall compression (or even better, multi-band compression) and a final reverb to blend it all together.

So it really comes down to two things:
1) What initial composing method is best for the composer and project, and
2) How polished a mock up do you want?

Answer those two questions and the high level approach is self-evident.


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## Vik (Jul 14, 2016)

Matt Riley said:


> 1. Play ideas in to Logic
> 
> 2. Go away from the computer to listen to my ideas in my mind. This may mean a walk or drive but it sometimes lasts for days which can be problematic for sleep. Sometimes when I go on long road trips with my family, new pieces come to me and I can be difficult to be around because I can't have a lot of noise or background music going on. My wife rolls her eyes and tells the kids that dad is "birthing" again.  But new ideas will come to me when I'm away from the computer or piano and they begin to take shape and the structure of the piece begins to form.
> 
> ...


One day, Avid/Apple/Steinberg will understand that it's possible to make a program that both works as a pro/easy-to-use DAW and has pro/easy-to-use notation - and thereby eliminate the need for switching between a notation app and a DAW. I don't know why it takes them so long (but have a theory).


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## d.healey (Jul 14, 2016)

Vik said:


> One day, Avid/Apple/Steinberg will understand that it's possible to make a program that both works as a pro/easy-to-use DAW and has pro/easy-to-use notation - and thereby eliminate the need for switching between a notation app and a DAW. I don't know why it takes them so long (but have a theory).


Ahem... Reaper (notation features are improving every week)


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## Vik (Jul 14, 2016)

Thanks for the tip... from the little I have seen of Reaper's notation I'm afraid it would take more weeks than I have patience for before it comes close to the competition.
http://www.gearnews.de/reaper-5-bekommt-notation-editor/


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## BenG (Jul 15, 2016)

Personally, I always write in Cubase first and then export MIDI/XML to Sibelius for the written score.

This allows me to compose music quickly while having a great sounding mockup as well. Also, with quantization the transfer over to notation is quite painless these days. 

Hoping Steinberg creates some type "Cubelius" which combines the two in the near future.


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## JonFairhurst (Jul 15, 2016)

IMO, the biggest challenge with a "notaquencer" is when you want to make changes. Let's say that you've played in a part manually, then you insert a couple of bars in the middle of the passage. What will that sound like? Or you play something in live with mistakes. Does that hose the score?

Personally, I've never had success with quantization from midi to score. It tends to insert 16th and 32nd notes and rests where they were not intended. I can tighten the quantization steps, but what if there were valid 16th and 32nd notes as well? And don't get me started on triplets and swing.

The funny thing is, when I want notation in the end, I tend to start writing in the notation package. When no notation is needed, I go straight to the DAW. So maybe the key is to become comfortable starting from either place.


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## JonFairhurst (Jul 16, 2016)

A good argument for playing it in is the minuet as well as many pieces by Mozart. As I've mentioned before, I'm playing violin in a community orchestra. Our director is a performing violinist with a PhD from the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow. She provides insights into performance that I would never have considered.

Mozart is a great example. Though his scores often show quarter and eighth notes without staccato markings or rests, many should be played with somewhat short, light notes. This is quite different from many romantic pieces that stretch the notes for their full duration. It's as if the music is light on its feet with a bit of a smile and a wink.

But how would playback from a notation program know that?

Another interesting and not obvious situation is waltzes played in Viennese style. Our director told me that in Vienna, the third beat of each measure is stretched out just a bit. In other words, the tempo of the piece slows slightly at the end of each measure. When she was playing with a Russian orchestra that was to tour Austria, they spent a lot of time on this technique as it wasn't the normal Russian style. An Austrian player might do it without thinking, almost like growing up to speak with a particular accent. Now, one might simply muck with the tempo in the sequencer to fake this performance style, but would that provide the same kind of breathing that real players accomplish? Likely not.

There are many other conventions for playing various styles that we can learn and imitate, but that a notation program never will. The learning never ends.


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## ptram (Jul 15, 2018)

I've never understood if one can achieve good realism in going from Notation to DAW, by simply manually adjusting the start of some notes, and inserting some gaps at the end of each phrase in the DAW. Reasonably satisfying dynamics should already be supplied by the appropriate dynamic markings in the Notation software.

Also, I don't undestand if this can be done automatically, with something like the Humanize features in VSL's player, or the Humanize function of some DAWs, where the start of each note is changed randomly.

I'm simply very confused by what I tried and tested.

Paolo


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## SimonCharlesHanna (Jul 15, 2018)

JonFairhurst said:


> But how would playback from a notation program know that?


As long as the composer knows that, it doesn't matter what happens in playback


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## danbo (Jul 17, 2018)

I do it the traditional way, and I'll explain why I think that's better.


First I use my instruments to work out the core idea. These instruments are my grand piano, my clarinets and my sampled orchestra in my DAW. I just work at it until the core tune is worked out. The instruments inspire me, I wish I played more even rudimentarily. This process takes a lot of time, John Williams said "it takes the most time - I'll spend days on six notes".
Second, once that's in hand then I go to paper and write it out long hand. Advantage: no computer getting in the way. It's just you and and the notes at the bare minimum. It's fastest too, I bet I can write out a symphony faster than anybody can input it into any program.
Step three is to transcribe into Lilypond (pick your favorite scoring software). This is a useful step, one because I get a beautiful score and two because I catch mistakes.
Final step is to 'conduct' it into my DAW, from the paper printed score.

I believe it's better because it separates the tools into the workflow. Putting them together (e.g. composing at the DAW) I believe weakens each aspect of it - I find I get worse tunes and worse orchestration when I do this. Using paper for the orchestration and writing out forces you to focus on one thing and one thing only, the notes, for example. During the conducting stage I'm a performer, all I focus on is making this score sing.


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## novicecomposer (Jul 17, 2018)

danbo said:


> I do it the traditional way, and I'll explain why I think that's better.
> 
> 
> First I use my instruments to work out the core idea. These instruments are my grand piano, my clarinets and my sampled orchestra in my DAW. I just work at it until the core tune is worked out. The instruments inspire me, I wish I played more even rudimentarily. This process takes a lot of time, John Williams said "it takes the most time - I'll spend days on six notes".
> ...



But don't you sometimes have to go back to DAW (step 1) from paper score (step 2 or 3) when you get stuck and need more ideas? And after that, you come back to the score to make updates. It becomes the same going back and forth problem again. That's my problem at least.


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## Rick McGuire (Jul 17, 2018)

danbo said:


> I do it the traditional way, and I'll explain why I think that's better.
> 
> 
> First I use my instruments to work out the core idea. These instruments are my grand piano, my clarinets and my sampled orchestra in my DAW. I just work at it until the core tune is worked out. The instruments inspire me, I wish I played more even rudimentarily. This process takes a lot of time, John Williams said "it takes the most time - I'll spend days on six notes".
> ...



Just curious what’s the turnaround time for your process? Like how long does it take you to put together a finished 3min cue? I only ask because I agree with your method, but I feel like this would double the amount of time for me to write a track.


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## JohnG (Jul 17, 2018)

If you have a lot of time you can do it any old way. For me fastest by far is writing notes on score paper, but that is not the fastest way to present something to director / producer / whoever's paying.

So it's almost always a combo of hand writing melodies and a few key counter lines, sometimes quite a few, but I will typically then turn to the DAW.

Luckily, Digital Performer's notation engine is awesome at parsing one's performance and making correct inferences about whether you want longer or shorter notes, even if you've played fairly staccato. So I use that to edit a piece as I go along or just put the notation up on a second screen to see what I'm doing. 

@JonFairhurst DP does the notation very well and exports to Finale quite easily if you want to polish it. I am not sure about other DAWs in that area. As @Ashermusic implied, sometimes you have time to monkey with the score and make it beautiful (Sibelius or Finale or whatever) -- sometimes you don't.


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## JohnG (Jul 17, 2018)

@danbo the method you're describing has advantages but adds numerous steps. I'm not saying it's not a great way to compose -- no doubt it works for you and it's very thorough -- but it sounds way too slow for TV or something else with a short deadline.

I do work like that if I have a lot of time. Sometimes!


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## novicecomposer (Jul 18, 2018)

@JohnG So what's your typical workflow like, if you're not pressured for time? Start with paper or Sibelius, etc and maybe export musicXML to a DAW to create a performance? I'm not talking about having real players play later. Just creating a realistic mockup.

I do everything in a DAW first and later move on to a notation program. The problem is, I'm sooo slow in a DAW as I can't see my score. I only see my messy midi notes and I don't use a DAW's score editor because it sucks, normally. I rely on my ear to "see" my score in a DAW but it quickly becomes tiring because I tend to replay what I have written over and over. People say the fastest way is to compose on score paper but paper doesn't inspire me. Any suggestions?


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## danbo (Jul 18, 2018)

novicecomposer said:


> But don't you sometimes have to go back to DAW (step 1) from paper score (step 2 or 3) when you get stuck and need more ideas?



No I don't really do that. I'm just a very traditional approach, for ideas it's back and forth between the piano and the paper, just like classical composers traditionally have done, because thats the background I came from. I'll twiddle in the sampled orchestra just to hear something in the instrument, but I played in a orchestra for years so don't have trouble imagining it either. 



Rick McGuire said:


> Just curious what’s the turnaround time for your process?





JohnG said:


> but it sounds way too slow for TV or something else with a short deadline. I do work like that if I have a lot of time. Sometimes!



I write for myself (classical or modern art music style) and professionally for my own video game company, so you're both correct, this is a slower more deliberate method than wouldn't work as well if you need high turnaround for clients. 

On the other hand, Mozart and Bach had that kind of schedule and they did just fine with just the paper and piano. Beethoven could go a bit more leisurely about it I believe - and Haydn of course had a full schedule. Caveat is that it was common to pay for a transcriber to write out all the parts, but with music writing software I don't write out the parts either.

Anyhow you guys are right, it's probably not the fastest method, unless you drop the DAW entirely and have a live orchestra, but I do think it results in higher quality generally.


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## novicecomposer (Jul 18, 2018)

@danbo Interesting. I'm going to try your approach and see if it works for me. Question: what do you think of skipping step 2 (paper) and directly composing in a scoring program? I don't have paper and i think copy-paste is easier in software, not to mention power tools like automatic transposing, etc.


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## bryla (Jul 18, 2018)

I don’t think you could set up such a rigid workflow that suits everything. It’s like asking “when improvising, do you use scales or arpeggios?” 

Getting used to the various ways of working is where the strength is. On some projects you don’t need a mock-up so the samples are out of the question. Other times there are no ‘notes’ in the traditional sense, so notation software doesn’t help. Other times it’s much more improvised or left open to the performers so a detailed score is not called for. It really depends on the project, the music, the end result and the situation. 

I’m getting back in to sequencers and samples again after two years of only doing my work in Sibelius and handing them off to orchestras and I find the change of workflow and habits extremely refreshing!


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## ptram (Jul 18, 2018)

novicecomposer said:


> I don't have paper and i think copy-paste is easier in software, not to mention power tools like automatic transposing, etc.


That's the trick: avoiding copying & pasting while composing, and learning how to transpose yourself. Music is a continual flow, and what appears to be repeating is always anew. And there are shorthand symbols to avoid the big work.

As for transposing: as a non-professional composer, I've been sometimes embarassed by having to correct parts made by hand by some graduate, who was clearly unable to transpose for very common instruments. Relying on computers is not always good for learning music.

Paolo


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## danbo (Jul 18, 2018)

novicecomposer said:


> Interesting. I'm going to try your approach and see if it works for me. Question: what do you think of skipping step 2 (paper) and directly composing in a scoring program?



For me it has to be paper all the way. I understand what writers sometime say about going longhand, there's a physicality to the paper and piano that I need. Also with paper it's the only way I can get the big picture - I can spread out my sheets and the eye sees the patterns in a way that can't be done on screen (and I have a monster three screen system). As for cut/paste it's not an issue, I use shortcuts like the old composers did. Take a look at an Mozart Urtext, they wouldn't write out obvious repeats (cut/paste), doublings and such. The scores were a shorthand version that was enough for a copyist to work from, and that's what I do too.

The other part is, also being a software engineer, I prefer the textual programming input of Lilypond which gives me more control than WYSIWYG. So there's a kind of cognitive dissonance for me, I can put on my composer, copyist and performer hats, but it doesn't work well for me at least to mix them up. Same thing for recording, when I'm recording myself I set up a workflow that minimizes the 'mixing engineer' part of it - I can't engineer and perform at the same time.

Oh, I should add the other part for me is when I'm in a creative zone I can't stand computer issues. Pencil, paper and a piano just work - they always work. Nothing to turn on, configure or mess around with. I have an antique secretary by my piano that I write at. I can sit down and birth out some idea. The computer is more flexible but that comes at a price; it's a mess. I use MainStage for messing around, and the stupid thing gets pissy when audio interfaces get turned on/off, the computer sleeps, blah blah. I can't be creative under those conditions - there's _always_ something glitchy with the computer. 

For paper I use a lot of https://www.amazon.com/Archives-Looseleaf-Manuscript-Paper-Stave/dp/B0002D0PNM (Archiv) looseleaf spiral which is cheap and very high quality. If you want to get serious check out Jhttps://www.judygreenmusic.com (udy Green) music (the website has been having trouble recently). I use .7/.9 lead GraphGear 1000 Pentel mechanical pencils (have to be able to erase!) The high quality paper is necessary, Laserjet paper doesn't stand up to any erasing.



bryla said:


> I don’t think you could set up such a rigid workflow that suits everything. It’s like asking “when improvising, do you use scales or arpeggios?”



It's not rigid for me, just a habit of what works in the workflow. All the musicians I've known have their patterns they stick with, I'm not sure the improvising is a true comparison against a multi step workflow, more like a step within a workflow which of course is open. When coming up with a idea I have no set approach.


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## cmillar (Jul 18, 2018)

As others point out, it all depends on the requirements of what your project is.

- Music with a deadline for a film or documentary that is to be created using samplers-softsynths : I like to at least sketch out some kind of overview and game plan on score paper (hit points, main themes, preliminary counterpoint and harmony) before playing the parts in. No need to have a true score if it's only me being the composer/artist/producer/engineer...but I find having some paper scores of sketches, etc. a real life and time saver!

- Concert music and live performers: (for whatever; jazz, classical, show arrangements: I can't conceive of just noodling away into a DAW without first having just sat at a piano with pen/pencil and score paper. I've tried that....with very half-baked results... with no real form....I'm too 'old-school' and believe in the 'mind to hand' activity for creation (see some of Eric Whitacre's thought on this stuff at his website too).
Then, I can transfer some ideas into Sibelius (my personal fave) and maybe continue working using the laptop or main computer as a 'scorepad'...but, I'd rather use pencil and paper to write out the bulk of the music. Then, copy it into Sibelius once I have something worthy of being something I can be proud of. Again, I find that if I just turn on Sibelius and try to use it as my scorepaper, I lose sight of any overall form or creative vision and get all wrapped up in the technology instead of the creativity.

- 'Generic' sounding music for a show (to be produced by me by computer or home recording studio): again, maybe sketch out some main ideas on paper first. If the music requires nothing more than being totally 'in the style' of something already created and the requirement is to just create more 'music in the style of'....that's where all the years of collecting drum loops, samples, etc. etc. are pretty handy.

For generic sound music with loops, 'general-standard' instruments and synths, dance music, 'pop copies', EDM, etc.....you can even just use an iPad to create some pretty impressive sounding music. (kind of nice....sit on a couch with a coffee and play around with BeatHawk or Cubasis or something....pretty amazing what you can come up with if you just need to use pre-composed loops and so on. 

An iPad is great for real pencil sketching, too. You can have Notion iOS and do some decent hand-writing and then convert into XML for preliminary ideas. Open up you work in a DAW of choice.

Conclusion: do whatever works for you...but you have to deliver a proper end product. No one cares what software you used or what DAW you used unless you have to totally collaborate further with someone else on the project.


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## JohnG (Jul 18, 2018)

cmillar said:


> Conclusion: do whatever works for you...but you have to deliver a proper end product. No one cares what software you used or what DAW you used unless you have to totally collaborate further with someone else on the project.



Exactly. 

I do write by hand at least some bits of every project (all of it sometimes, but less nowadays) but there is a whiff of snobbism or elitism or condescension sometimes associated with that old school approach that implies it's somehow superior. I don't consider it intrinsically better, just faster. 

It also has this virtue: You don't reject musically good material just because it sounds lame on your less-than-stellar sample sets. If you write with a nice acoustic instrument (including voice) you're not shackled to whatever is actually in your library (how short is "short?")

There is nothing intrinsically better about the _method_ Mozart used. Besides, I am long done comparing myself to someone like that whose talent was so stratospheric that I doubt I can even imagine it. 

Do I think Mozart would have scorned electronics? No. I doubt he would have stuck with a quill if he'd had Sibelius. He might even have dumped the orchestra and played it all in himself if he'd had a DAW -- who knows? We've all had inadequate rehearsal time, out-of-tune playing and singing and even whinging from players or other performers. I haven't read all his letters but I guess Mozart _et al._ faced all that and worse. Candles for lighting? Picturesque but -- yikes. 

If he'd been able to do it all himself, or a hybrid with overdubs, does anyone wonder if he might have elected to do exactly that? He was famous as the greatest keyboardist in his sphere during his lifetime; why not do it yourself the way you want and not have to coax players into it?


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## cmillar (Jul 18, 2018)

JohnG said:


> Exactly.
> 
> Do I think Mozart would have scorned electronics? No.



And I doubt Stravinsky would have either!

I read somewhere that Stravinsky wanted to do a piece where he envisioned 12 player pianos (the old kind!) playing at the same time, each playing a different part.

Trouble was that the pianos all ran at slightly different, mechanical tempos and it was impossible to synch the music up properly.

Just think what he would have done today!


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## danbo (Jul 19, 2018)

JohnG said:


> there is a whiff of snobbism or elitism or condescension sometimes associated with that old school approach that implies it's somehow superior. I don't consider it intrinsically better, just faster.



Apologies, forums are a narrow bandwidth communication, there's no snobbish/elitism/condensation meant at all - I just honestly find it works for me, for one reason because I spent so many years working this way before the computer was really an option.



> There is nothing intrinsically better about the _method_ Mozart used.



Naturally not, I wasn't trying to imply that but using the old ways as an illustration.



> Do I think Mozart would have scorned electronics? No.



Absolutely none of the old composers would have shunned them, music history is filled with innovation and eager composers embracing it.



> I doubt he would have stuck with a quill if he'd had Sibelius.



tl/dr

Well here's the interesting bit. First off this is purely an academic discussion for the sake of it. Please nobody take this personally or think your being looked down upon in any way, and let me try this idea in a different field to make the point, which is my main job as a software engineer & computer scientist/quantum computing.

Obviously CS and particularly SWEng is about computers. Ultimately this only matters if you get some kind of program/algorithm out the other end that does something useful. But is it? In practice these activities are really about information and how to push it around. In my day job then how much time do I spend interfacing with the computer? Very little actually, my desk is filled with tree bark (printed papers, notebooks and printed model diagrams) and we use the whiteboard extensively. The way it goes is I'll spend 9/10 of my day sitting around thinking and making notes, talking with somebody, sleeping on a problem, then I'll sit in front of the computer and bang out an idea that has been worked out. We talk about the idea of the 'paperless office' and how it never happened.

Does everybody work this way? No, I've seen that some people have a higher need to work out their problems in the machine step by step and seeing the results. They like to push text around. Once a colleague and I simultaneously took on a problem, he worked out and rejected a few approaches and had working prototypes, but I barely touched the keyboard, and we came to the same conclusion. Looking at the psychological angle, if you're into MBTI what I notice is that dominant ST (sensing-thinking) types like to work with the machine, doing their thinking by _physically_ working it as it were, where dominant NT types prefer not doing anything physical. Either see the trees from the forest, or find the forest from the trees.

So blah blah, sorry for the digression, but I suspect the difference in workflow - or at least what I see happen in practice, is that it depends on the persons psychological makeup. What I should have said above was that I can't see what I'm really doing unless it's spread out on paper, and I get better results by staying away from the machine. Interestingly Christen Henson has been making this point (get away from the computer, go out for walks (like Beethoven did)) as a way to improve your creativity. Make of that what you will (he's a dominant EST type I suspect).


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## JohnG (Jul 19, 2018)

fair enough @danbo
I wasn't really trying to charge you with snobbism; it's just a little vein that has run through these kinds of discussions in the past here. I admit it was your post that triggered it but I am talking at least as much to myself as to you, as I also am lumbered with the freight of book-learning. I am sorry if it felt aimed solely at you and I can imagine that it might have -- apologies.

It's amazing how rigid and rule-ridden many people are in this supposedly creative field. Don't get me wrong, I'm shocked at how many people actually advocate knowing nothing about old school orchestration or arranging, and yet want to write "epic" tracks. Epic tracks, arguably are _all about _arranging and orchestration (other stuff too, but I'm sure you get my point).

Like you, I also like to look at a score. While I'm working I have piles of paper lying around, some hand-drawn, some very short, some fully fleshed out, some printed and then scribbled on. I also find that there is something about the visual / tactile experience that helps me.

That said, some people make really cool stuff without knowing anything much at all, some know it and then toss 99% of it aside, some (like maybe Beltrami) are in the middle -- he knows it but innovates.

Cheers,

John


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## novicecomposer (Jul 30, 2018)

danbo said:


> For paper I use a lot of https://www.amazon.com/Archives-Looseleaf-Manuscript-Paper-Stave/dp/B0002D0PNM (Archiv) looseleaf spiral which is cheap and very high quality. If you want to get serious check out Jhttps://www.judygreenmusic.com (udy Green) music (the website has been having trouble recently). I use .7/.9 lead GraphGear 1000 Pentel mechanical pencils (have to be able to erase!) The high quality paper is necessary, Laserjet paper doesn't stand up to any erasing.



Thanks for all the information @danbo ! And thanks for the pointers! When you directly compose in a DAW though, there are times when you accidentally press the wrong articulation button and you get a whole new inspiration and ideas. I won't go as far as to say paper limits your creativity but I'm just quoting Hans' remark and my personal experience.


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## Farkle (Jul 30, 2018)

Rick McGuire said:


> Just curious what’s the turnaround time for your process? Like how long does it take you to put together a finished 3min cue? I only ask because I agree with your method, but I feel like this would double the amount of time for me to write a track.



FWIW, I do this method whenever possible, and got this idea from Ron Jones. (The idea of compartmentalizing the composition/sketch, the orchestration/arrangement, and the DAW rendering).

Last year, I scored a feature film, about 50 minutes of music, in the style of Basic Instinct and Vertigo (so, true arrangement and orchestration). Scored the film using this three-beat style of creation; scored and mocked up the entire film in 5 weeks, and was able to keep to a 9 to 5 day, 5 days a week.

So, FWIW, it can work.

Mike


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## thesteelydane (Jul 31, 2018)

Saxer said:


> I do my notation in Logic. But even in Logic producing music and producing scores is a different task. I normally get better lines when I play them first. For working out the main lines with other voices I have a temporary track with a Rhodes sound where I can play polyphonic, try harmonies and inner lines by playing and editing in the score window (which is kind of similar to the work in Sibelius). From there I play the inner voices from screen out of the score editor. So it's going back and forth. Ideally I have a mockup and a score at the end. But most of the time it's not ideally  At least I have to clean up the notation and set dynamics and articulation. But I always care for proper arranging per voice (no poly-pad-style playing) exept on my Rhodes temp track (which is never used in the final mix).



Curios, why do you use a Rhodes sound, and not a piano? For the better sustain? I use a piano for my sketch track, but always looking for better options - I might try a Rhodes.


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## robgb (Jul 31, 2018)

DAW > Notation for me. But then my process is completely instinctive and my notation reading/writing skills are rudimentary at best.


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## Saxer (Jul 31, 2018)

thesteelydane said:


> Curios, why do you use a Rhodes sound, and not a piano? For the better sustain? I use a piano for my sketch track, but always looking for better options - I might try a Rhodes.


For low chords a rhodes sound is translating better. Piano get's more muddy when playing low brass voicings for example. And a rhodes get's less in the way when replacing parts with other sounds (work in progress stage). And it's a habit remaining from times when I used a DX7 as a master keyboard


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## wst3 (Jul 31, 2018)

My workflow has certainly changed - dramatically one might say - in the last 30 plus years. From paper and pencil and tape to computer. And at one point I really did ditch anything that didn't run on the computer. Unfortunately for me that was in the late 1980s (as a guess) and it was Bars&Pipes Pro with the Sunrize audio card, Dr. T's KCS and Copyist, etc.

That very nearly turned me away from the computer (except B&P, that was absolutely brilliant!)

I still have a 2" 16 track and a couple 1/4" machines - for a long time I'd have argued that I could make most edits faster with a razor blade than I could on the computer. And more accurately, since I had to use my ears. What I could not do was easily undo the edit. You can splice the missing part back in, but it's a hassle.

And for a long time scoring tools, even Finale, were slower - for me - than pencil and paper. I have reached a point where I can use Finale pretty effectively. And again undo is awesome, much easier than erasing<G>!

But there is something about using pencil and paper to sketch out an arrangement or orchestration, or even just play with melodic ideas.

So my current workflow is paper and pencil first, then play it into the DAW, and if/when I need formal notation I export to Finale and clean it up. Moving back and forth between notation and MIDI events is still problematic, so I try to do so only once<G>!


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