(Forgive the translation from French if it is imprecise.)
In a future version of Dorico, I would suggest, for the reading view, to be able to display the lines (the midi notes) on two score staves. It’s an idea from Pre Sonus 's Notion (which I don’t use), and it’s a great idea. Basically, the classic idea of presenting midi notation with a vertical keyboard on the left is a stopgap for those who cannot read a score. In the case of Dorico, it can be assumed that users are capable of this, of course. The score staves have the advantage of being clearer at every point on the horizontal line.
That sounds like an interesting alternative to piano view. I take it the “notes” would represent their notated/played length against a grid of vertical lines as in piano view.
Yes. However, I was wrong about Notion, it’s from Presonus (no Motu). I corrected my text.
Here’s an example :
Or hybrid with the notes :
How does it deal with something like this?
FWIW I find the first example is very unclear. A “real” piano roll has vertical marks showing the subdivisions of the beats, and the tiny gaps between some adjacent bars are almost invisible. (Are there 4 beats in bar 1, and 5 beats in bars 2 and 3?)
Yes, I would think something like a traditional DAW piano roll setup, with hashes for the measures and (configurable) measure subdivisions would be important.
Logic also supports showing velocity and duration in the score.
Well nobody hates composing in a DAW more than me probably, because it’s an engineering interface not a musical one, I’m not sure we need to push musical notation into that sphere. Before Dorico I’d say yes, but then getting a decent score out was way too much work and trouble, so it was just a nicety. But now with Dorico we can have it both ways - write the music in the Dorico music sphere, then when we need to mix go into the DAW engineering sphere by exporting the MIDI data into a DAW. There’s some overlap between the two (Dorico has a piano roll and DAW’s have a score view) but keeping with the traditional piano roll in Dorico is fine I think. It makes it clear this is engineering, not writing. Besides, being music readers, we should be used to have multiple ways of viewing the same musical information.
So FWIW I think the present interface is fine, excepting that it could be made a bit more DAW like by adding stacked CC tracks or something, rather than less DAW like by putting human notation in there. I think of it as Tablature for scores.
I must admit that after 60+ years reading standard notation without such lines, I don’t need to be told when the written notes are supposed to end.
Multiple ways of viewing the same information is fine, except when they are invented just for the sake of it. So far as I can see the proposal doesn’t show where the playback of the notes start and end in a useful way, because the horizontal “time” scale is not uniform.
So if this doesn’t add any information to the written notation, and doesn’t accurately represent the playback notation, what is it meant to show?
Good morning all.
I was a bit lazy on the examples. I didn’t take the time to get Presonus Notion out of my old drawers, and I took these examples from the Internet, based on my recollection.
There is also some confusion in understanding what I am proposing. I will try to clarify as I can (I translate from French).
I have been working on scores for over 40 years (and I have known Sibelius on diskette, I believe version 1 or 2 around 1998). I have been working with a Daw since 2006 (Pro Tools 7).
The idea of placing lines on score staves is not to replace traditional scores. The score is the best coded writing there is for all kinds of reasons, first and foremost for its universality and historical adaptation. The idea of placing lines on score staves is rather to replace the same lines in the keyboard editor (the piano rolls), or at least to give the option. The keyboard editor, for me, with its vertical keyboard and its lack of reference, has always been a bad representation, probably made for engineers not musician. I am a pianist, but my piano is physical. My benchmarks are visual, manual and positional. From a visual point of view, the chain of identical octaves is a true reference but which does not speak. Double score staves are much more meaningful. So I would like to be able to replace the bottom of the piano rolls with staves, without taking anything away from those who don’t prefer it.
But: in the end, I would even like to have the automation lines on the traditional score, under the staves. You might or might not add superimposed timelines for those who need them (by the way, not to be confused with Logic’s velocity lines, which is something else).
In conclusion, for Dorico: I would like to have a view where the score scrolls with its automation lines, rhythmic lines and all the like. Basically, the ultimate goal is the integration of the score and advanced and complete playback functions. We could get to the mix, but I think this part is too difficult technically, at least for a professional mix.