# Do I take the plunge?... Stop me, or maybe don't.



## Jorf88 (Nov 30, 2021)

So only recently did I discover the magic of staffpad and how amazingly well-tuned the libraries are for it.

I've got more toys for the regular DAW than I will ever have time to play with for the rest of this lifetime (aside from Infinite Strings, which I eagerly await... +2 days, I know). 

Music is a hobby for me, not a job, but I'm classically trained with a BA in music because that's what my collegiate self found "fun". I'm not trying to be pretentious with stating that, but moreso getting at the fact that I'm infinitely more comfortable with a pad of staff paper than I've ever been in a DAW. I'm getting there, but sometimes I long for the simpler composition style of just hearing it in my head and writing it on the staff.

I feel like I want to take the plunge... It's going to be a pretty big plunge, though.
I don't currently have a portable touchscreen device to use it with. (This will be a windows-only discussion, I don't have any mac stuff).

So, I'm contemplating ordering myself a new Surface Pro 8 with 16gb RAM. I don't know if I need the i7, but most of the models I can find for sale (in stock) with 16GB of ram have the i7 and not the i5. Costco (I'm in the USA) looks to be one of the only places to even have a decent stock of stuff at this point. I had a HP Spectre X360 at one point, and that was pretty nice, too. But, I think the more tablet-esque nature of a Surface Pro would fit the bill a little better.

For bread & butter libraries, I think I'd go with Berlin Strings/Brass/Woodwinds. I'm inclined towards Cineperc over Berlin perc unless anyone can give me a great reason to not do that. I have Cineperc for Kontakt and I love it. 

For solo strings: Are the Berlin first chair strings worth it? The demos aren't that great... but I've seen a few pieces on YouTube where people get decent sound out of them.

Harps: I'm torn. The demos for Cineharps are better, but I know that the Berlin harps can probably be finessed to sound much better with some compression and care to their expression. I recall reading a post on VI-C somewhere that the trills on Cineharps are awful? Anyone have an example?

Piano: Again, torn. The default piano instrument actually sounds surprisingly good to me, not that the others don't sound better, but I don't think I'd hate myself if I forego a piano add-on for the moment.

Choir: I'm not sure how much use I'd get out of Voxos as a choir library... I've passed on getting the Kontakt version of it many times because I have better options, but the way they've adapted it for Staffpad seems decent? Maybe a newer re-release of that library for Kontakt would make it better, too. Cinesamples seems to be on a crusade to do that at the moment.

Organ: So I don't even have an organ library for the DAW-side of my work, but the Spitfire one that's only $20 on Staffpad sounds incredible to my ears. If I even got an afternoon of fun out of playing with it for that price, it'd be worth it to me. hahaha. Appreciate any feedback from those who own it.

How many of you have written the basics of a piece in Staffpad and then exported MIDI to work with in your DAW to "finish" it? For anyone, does that entail switching which libraries you're working with? I don't have any OT libraries for DAW work. I have the full Spitfire SSO, as well as 8Dio stuff, and Cineperc for DAW work. 

The quality of OT libraries in Staffpad seems like they're miles ahead of everyone else (with the exception of Cineperc). That being said... some of the "demos" that are posted on the instrument purchasing pages for Staffpad instruments are audio tracks from the advertisements of the equivalent Kontakt instruments (like "A Festive Prelude" for Berlin Brass). I struggle to believe you could possibly get this library to sound like that in Staffpad, even with an insane amount of massaging. I'd be _thrilled _if I were wrong about that. My most ideal future would be one where I could get within 5-10% of the sound quality of a DAW, only working with something like Staffpad. 


I guess I'm looking for any sort of helpful input. Is everyone happy with the Staffpad environment? Any add-on sound suggestions?

Thanks!


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## sundrowned (Nov 30, 2021)

My standard advice to anyone on windows that doesn't have a surface, is buy a dirt cheap wacom tablet on ebay and you can try staffpad without having to shell out for a new device. 

As for the sounds. Yes on the whole berlin is the best, although apparently not for piano (one of the few I don't own) but you'll end up buying them all anyway


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## Jorf88 (Nov 30, 2021)

sundrowned said:


> My standard advice to anyone on windows that doesn't have a surface, is buy a dirt cheap wacom tablet on ebay and you can try staffpad without having to shell out for a new device.
> 
> As for the sounds. Yes on the whole berlin is the best, although apparently not for piano (one of the few I don't own) but you'll end up buying them all anyway


I definitely plan to try something like that out... there's another brand called Huion that makes decent pen monitors that are nowhere near as expensive as the Wacom stuff. I bought my SO one of them a few years ago and she's loved it. I'll just have to borrow it from her and see if that works well enough, because then I can get myself something brand new for my PC for like $300-400 instead of shelling out for a Wacom device.

That being said, I really like the idea of having a dedicated tablet for this kind of work. I suppose I could do that at a later time. I work at my computer desk for a living, so finding ways to get myself away from said desk is one of the appealing factors of using a dedicated device for Staffpad.

I hadn't mentioned Berlin pianos, but I've read the same. Apparently folks like Cinepianos better?


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## CatOrchestra (Nov 30, 2021)

Have you tried other notation software such as Musescore?


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## Jorf88 (Nov 30, 2021)

CatOrchestra said:


> Have you tried other notation software such Musescore?


Yes, not Musescore itself, but I used both Sibelius and Finale many years ago. The drive for me to want Staffpad is mostly based around it being able to use quality VSTs to reproduce the sounds. Last I read, Musescore wasn't able to utilize VSTs, has that changed at all?


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## CatOrchestra (Nov 30, 2021)

Jorf88 said:


> Yes, not Musescore itself, but I used both Sibelius and Finale many years ago. The drive for me to want Staffpad is mostly based around it being able to use quality VSTs to reproduce the sounds. Last I read, Musescore wasn't able to utilize VSTs, has that changed at all?


Last I checked, Musescore was planning to change that...I personally "use" Dorico and just recently got Staffpad whilst it is on sale

You might enjoy Noteperformer if you have not tried it before


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## sctaylorcan (Nov 30, 2021)

In my humble opinion, YOU SHOULD PLUNGE lol  🏊‍♂️ I just did for Black Friday. I'm on an old Surface Pro 3, i5 with *4 GB*. I think around 2014 vintage. It definitely works on there, though occasionally I'll get interruption in the initial playback of new parts. Playing again, though, those parts play through beautifully. My assumption is that it is rendering/caching written portions of your score and updating those as you stroke in new notes, but that's a guess on my part. I've written a handful of test bits so far and am hooked. I bought a bunch of the add-on libraries as well.

I'm a bit the opposite of you in that I'm far more comfortable playing in parts, but I've found that the act of writing a note at a time gets me out of the various patterns that my fingers have become used to over the years, and I get a much more creative result. And I've never been able to play in compelling and nice sounding orchestral pieces in my DAW. It just ends up like a pile of 1st graders pounding on their instruments. No balance. No orchestration. No *art* to it. Very ham fisted. For me that instantly changed with StaffPad.

It definitely has some small technical issues and among the libraries I've read of a variety of inconsistencies in levels etc, but so far I've been able to get out the variety of balanced sounds I've been after. I've had no crashes, and in the face of any "wierdness" I just exit and click back in. Takes a few moments, and all is well again.

Berlin Strings is astounding to me. So I rounded it out with more Berlin woods/brass. Got CinePiano, though the default piano is very good also. Cineharp too and yes, the trills are a machine gun - unusable even. I also opted for CineStrings Solo and Spitfire Chamber as am more likely to veer out of pure big/orchestral/classical lots of the time. Chose CinePerc for the same reason. I also know that Cine has been on 50% of sale before, so figured I'd wait for that to pick up the CineBrass and CineWinds  I also passed on the choir as a $100 use-it-once kind of purchase for me (how many of THOSE do I have in my DAW?!?), and I grabbed the drums (cool jazz brushing), guitars, accordian and a couple of ambience packs.

I *do* intend to export and finish up with a DAW, but haven't tried it yet.

I read rumours that the next releases are in beta, so it seems to be an active, live platform, notwithstanding it's acquisition by Muse group.

Plus now I've got a great reason to get a new laptop 

Hope that helps!
- Steve


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## sctaylorcan (Nov 30, 2021)

A quick FYI, I did try out exporting and it went as I expected - exported the WAV and exported the MIDI. Loaded the MIDI in to my DAW (I use Studio One) then dragged in the WAV. Everything was in lock step, which meant that it had correctly rendered the ritardando in the middle. Interestingly I couldn't really see that in the DAW's tempo map (so the effect of the whole-note ritardando was to cause the bar to occur over the same time-space as 2 bars? Seems about right?) .. So since I'm not a music theory expert, I exported another short song and went bonkers with tempo automation in Staffpad. Did the same two exports and again all was in lock step, and the tempo map showed the variations clearly.

This will be a *wonderful* way to get a solid base down in StaffPad, then finish it up in my DAW by loading up Aaron Venture stuff and playing in a few super-expressive MidiPaw-powered lines 🤣 Yay StaffPad! 🎉


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## CatOrchestra (Dec 1, 2021)

When the pen recognition works, it is magical, when it does not, oh my. As you cannot use other ways to notate. 
Dorico for iPad is not that bad, but I wish it had hand writing recognition. As it would be super nice to move between the iPad version and the desktop version.


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## Jorf88 (Dec 3, 2021)

I did not end up taking the plunge... Decided to be reasonable (for now).
I bought the base app and I'm going to play with it until the next time they have a decent sale on the instruments. I'll re-evaluate that that point.

It'd be a no-brainer if I already had a pen enabled device, but I don't. I've just never really gotten into the tablet life. I love the idea of a microsoft surface, I just don't think I'd use it that much otherwise.

Thanks for the input everyone.


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## Montisquirrel (Dec 4, 2021)

Jorf88 said:


> I love the idea of a microsoft surface, I just don't think I'd use it that much otherwise.


That was exactly my thought one year ago when I bought my Surface Pro 7, and man was I wrong...
(writing this while sitting on the toilette with my Surface Pro  )


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## themeworks (Dec 4, 2021)

Get. Them. All.


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## Pseudonym (Dec 9, 2021)

The problem I seem to have with using a tablet for any kind of serious and prolonged work is that I get neck pains and shoulder pains. I can't seem to find a comfortable position for both writing and viewing. I think I'm just going to have to treat the iPad as if it were a piece of paper, perhaps using a drafting (angled) desk? I hope that works. Otherwise I'm going to have to go back to using a computer for entering music notation. That would be a shame, as for me the greatest appeal in using Staffpad is its relative simplicity, the limited number of tools and modes.


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