Was it really necessary to go all this trouble when you are fortunate to have this professional scoring program inside your DAW ?
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Hi,
I am not sure if you are joking or if you are serious!
In case you are serious then I can only say I would really not compare Cubase Score and Finale.
I am also not sure if Steinberg itself would consider the Score ability of Cubase as professional.
I have to create orchestral material for Musicals (scores and parts) and I can get very good results with Finale.
I am not able to achieve such results with Cubase score.
As I wrote that the imported notes in Finale look exactly the same as in Cubase I was talking about the raw notes and not about any kind of layout of course.
And though I am quite lucky with Finale, I am curious to see what Dorico will bring, as the described efforts made by the Dorico team seem to be very impressive.
But I suppose that it will take some time after the first release and some further releases until Dorico can reach the level of Finale.
In case you were joking, well then ā¦ forget my answer 
Having a good tool inside my DAW doesnāt mean I cannot need and whish a better one (inside my DAW)ā¦
As someone who has done a little bit of recording in a DAW (recording myself playing several parts independently, and creating a ācompleteā recording) and practically zero work with MIDI in a DAW, can someone please explain to me what is truly meant by āIntegrationā with Cubase.
I am not sure what the exact limits on a DAW are, when it comes to MIDI. So I am not sure how or what integration would like. And I am even less aware of how this method of working can be a bonus for the user. I guess I am curious as someone who can see myself in the next few months to years making more professional recordings of music I write or arrange in Dorico.
Robby
Thank you so much for flagging up this feature, I did not know of it and it makes a big difference in exporting midi files to Sibelius, and will be equally useful for exporting to Dorico when itās finished. XML exports never worked well from Nuendo to Sibelius for me. You just sped up my workflow massively 
Thanks again teacue
Ok, too much misinformation and falsehood in this thread about Cubase Score Editor.
Just to make things clear ā¦
Youāll find attached a score example that I quickly made especially for those who denigrates this program in this thread.
If you still pretend that this software is not professional :
1 - you have no idea what youāre talking about
or
2 - you donāt know how to use it
otherwise, Iām sorry, but you are of bad faith.
Quite impressive what a ā(crappy) load of old tripeā can achieve !
Take a look ā¦
(I modified all the pitches to avoid problems with the copyright)
And ā¦ the best thing about this score is that very few things are just āgraphicsā.
Excepted the tempo āpoco rallā and āa tempoā, all the indications and expressions are really performed through Expression Map. I leave you to imagine what happens when I hit the Play button !
Of course you also have playback functions in other programs too but needless to say that there is no comparison with the possibilities of Cubase audio engine.
Iām not trying to say that The Score Editor is better than a particular software. It is far from perfect and would need a lot of improvements.
Finale or Sibelius are of course a better solution for music engravers etc ā¦
But, for others, musicians, composers, film composers etc. and especially here, in the Steinberg forum, when I often read : āI compose in Cubase/Nuendo and export to Finale for the scoreā¦ā, I just wanted to let them know that itās possible to get the same professional results within their DAW.
Itās not ānecessaryā to export your MIDI data from Cubase to achieve your score in Finale or Sibelius, excepted, of course, if you really prefer to work with those programs instead.
And last, in saying Cubase Score Editor is crap !! well, first you are spreading false information, and secondly you insult Mr Michaelis (and his team) and years of work for his great software, in his own forums !
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Hi Robby:
āIntegration with Cubaseā will have a different meaning to different users; for me, it means the ability to tweak the midi notes by altering or adding the note velocities, expression, mod wheel, and so on and so forth, the purpose being to make it sound as if the virtual instrument is being played live, by a human being, rather than by a computer.
In the film music world it is customary to create a āmock-upā of a score, which is then presented to the director / producers for approval. Once it is approved, it then goes to the orchestrators / copyists to prepare for a recording session with orchestra (assuming there is a budget for this; otherwise the mock-up goes straight into the final soundtrack).
Creating this mock-up is a lot of work, with endless tweaking and tinkering of notes etc., all to make it sound convincing. There are people in Hollywood who make a living doing just this, sometimes referred to as āprogrammersā. The state of the art of virtual instruments is now so sophisticated that with enough effort and skill, it can be hard to tell the difference between a live recording and a very good mock-up (to the untrained ear, at least). And the DAW programs are so sophisticated, there is virtually no limit other than time as to what you can do.
Up until now notation and midi-mockups are two different worlds, with little integration. What āintegrationā would mean to me is the ability to do everything inside of one program, in this instance, Dorico. So you can start writing a score in notation (maybe preceded by a sketch with pencil and paper), and keep working on it, while at the same time you can have playback using your own virtual instruments, however you like it, in parallel. That way you can have a beautifully engraved score that can go straight to the scoring stage and have a midi mockup that sounds professional enough to convince a director.
There are now so many virtual instruments, and everyday new are put out in the market ā¦ from Vienna to Eastwest, Spitfire, Garritan, Native Instruments, and so on and so forth, and everyone has their own preferences. It would be really nice if you would be able to use your personal choice of VSTs inside of Dorico and tweak the sound playback. Doesnāt have to be super fancy, just a handful of parameters.
Now, how exactly this is achieved, depends on the architecture and technology of the program. Personally I would prefer to have everything under one hood. Doesnāt have to be very fancy, just a handful of parameters would go a very long way, with the ability for users to create their own āmapsā to tie things like dynamics / expression / technique, to the playback they desire (without too complicated scripting or programming).
But conceptually it might also be possible to have some kind of āintegration with Cubaseā, such that the tweaking is done in Cubase (or Nuendo). But that requires that there is a seamless integration between Dorico and Cubase, so that if e.g. you enter notes in Dorico they are automatically copied over in Cubase where you can starting noodling around with midi. I donāt know how that is possibly technically; I was under the impression that with the latest version of Notion, Notion 6, this was achieved, with their Studio One DAW, but apparently that is not the case.
Youāre welcome
OH, your pic looks quite good indeed!
And you are right I should better update my opinion on the the Score Notation ability of Cubase.
Itās really a long way from the dedicated notation program āCubase Scoreā that I once used before I then used Finale.
So your message is āangekommenā as they say in Germany and I took notice of the great results that you are able to create with the Score Editor.
But please there is no need to be rude.
I surely did not use the word ācrapā and I surely did not insult anyone.
Also I do not think that words like āfalsehoodā or ābad faithā are appropriate to describe my post.
You write yourself:
āFinale or Sibelius are of course a better solution for music engravers etc ā¦ā
This opinion is quite common on music forums.
And I do believe that there must be some reason why Steinberg decided to invest in a new notation software like Dorico.
This added to my outdated personal experience with the Cubase Score Editor leaded me to express that āI would really not compare Cubase Score and Finaleā.
Best regards
Peter,
Thanks for the response. I can see why this could be vitally important for someone. I donāt use Rewire, but I have heard about it, and how it works. If there was a way to have a āsoftware bridgeā between Dorico and Cubase (such as Rewire type thing) would that solve the issue? Where what is done in one program, is instantly updated in the other? And vice versa?
The word integration I guess is what throws me off in this thread. You can integrate something, where the item in question now becomes a sub-part of something bigger, or you can have integration, where 2 things can work seamlessly.
Robby
That is certainly one path to a solution. However, this implies a WHOLE lot more DAW-like function in the notation program. For me, it is not just being able to tweak the MIDI and add controller info, and it is more than just having access to all the VSTis and VST effects. The DAW world also has extensive automation and bus routing. And it also has the ability to blend music from multiple sources.
For example, for a demo recording, I might want to go with a synthesis for all the band parts, but I might have a singer come in to record the vocal track. And I might route use a side-channel compressor to apply a āduckingā technique to make the vocal more present. And I might have a couple of reverb buses for blend and space. I might use automation during the sax solo to boost the volume a little above the dynamics in the score and also might automate a little chorusing of flanging on that solo to make it more present without being louder. All these things are way beyond what any notation program can do, as far as I know.
So for me, āintegrationā means a 2-way, real-time sharing of information between notation and DAW. If you add or adjust notes in the DAW, they should immediately be reflected in the notation program and vice versa.
Presonus has a static version of this now. That is, you can batch-send the entire score to the DAW or you can send the entire composition from the DAW to the notation program with basically one click. But you cannot continue to work on both platforms.
No, ReWire really does not do the trick, at least not for me. ReWire keeps the notation program and the DAW program in sync, but you still have to do the work twice, which is engraving in the notation program on one hand, and then tweaking the notes in the DAW program.
If I understand what Daniel has told about Dorico, it will do a much better job at āintegrationā than any of the other programs, by allowing users to work in any of several different environments, and going back and forth; from setting up to the score, to playback, to engraving, printing, etc.
To get pretty decent results you donāt need a full-fledged DAW, the ability to tweak a few things (velocity, mod wheel, expression, maybe some simple volume automation per instrument) would go a long way already. Key is really how easy and user friendly everything is going to be (also on the note entry front), given the experience of Daniel and his team I am pretty sure they thought this all out carefully and came up with something very clever.
Yeah, all this is pretty fancy and beyond what you can expect from a notation program. With live recordings I would always turn to a separate program like Cubase or Pro Tools and then record it there, and mix it in with whatever comes out of the scoring program.
Hi,
Iād like to see a solution in which everyone can build on the experience they have with the programs they are used to using. Solutions are much more likely to be adopted if users are allowed build on their own experience. Trying to force proprietary solutions on users is a recipe for disaster.
In other words, whatās needed is a universal, standard interface that can be used by both DAWS (e.g. Cubase) and notation programs (e.g. Dorico). Any notation editor (standard or otherwise) should be able to interface to any DAW.
I think it would be a mistake for Cubase and Dorico to try to define and use their own private interface, but thereās nothing to stop them making better use of the information they are exchanging ā thus being better programs than the competition.
Over the past few years, Iāve been developing a file format that consists of MIDI information embedded in SVG. (Iām interested in producing scores that can be used interactively in web browsers [1] ). This format could be regarded as a prototype, or proof-of-concept, for such a universal interface. I am myself only really interested in a subset of standard music notation, but MIDI info could easily be embedded in SVG by any music notation editor (standard or otherwise) that already exports them separately.
In particular: if Dorico exported standard SVG-MIDI files, Cubase could use them (or snippets thereof) in its user interface. If the structure of the incoming SVG doesnāt change, thereās also nothing to stop Cubase exporting edited MIDI info back to Dorico inside that structureā¦ where it can be savedā¦
But before that can happen, we need to have a standard way of embedding MIDI in SVG.
I think that such a standard could be defined in a year or two (not more) by a W3C WG having the necessary experience/expertise.
Any takers?
All the best,
James
[1] see: Assistant Performer
ā
Do I understand this correctly, is there going to be an option in Dorico to edit in the equivalent of the Key Editor window in Nuendo/Cubase ? That would be well funky, for me at least, I work the other way round, ie I write in a DAW then port it all over to Sibelius (with much sweat and tears) - if there is a key editor in Dorico I could simply export/import MIDI files and tweak them in there (always midi notes written in a DAW āhaveā to be in the āwrong placeā to sound natural, ie strings slightly before the beat etc which is a nightmare to tweak back to the right place). Brilliant ! 
Hi Mike:
Yes, your understanding is correct - see the post by Daniel below. I asked this back in May, between then and now things may have changed so it may turn out a bit different. But this is certainly very exciting as far as I am concerned.
"However, the intention is certainly that you will be able to use third party VST instruments and effects with Dorico. You will have direct control over which device, channel, patch (and other things like controller, keyswitch, etc.) should be used to play each playing technique played by each voice of each instrument, and that might mean that they are all played by the same device, all of them played by different devices, or anything in between.
The idea behind the MIDI editor in Play mode is to allow basic graphical MIDI editing; the intention is not to replace Cubase, but instead to give users who are savvy about how to bring virtual instrument playback to life the tools to do at least some of that work in Dorico, rather than forcing them to move to the sequencer or DAW right away."
Thanks ! I had seen a graphic implying this as well a few months ago (on the Making Notes Blog ?) but thought it was too good to be true. As you say, very, very exciting implications here. 
I think the Holy Grail is that if you own Dorico and Cubase, Dorico can replace the scoring part within Cubase.
That little ācrapā editor is nice, but it doesnāt follow symbols, of course. Itās barely acceptable in that sense, but sure, you can make lots of decent looking paper from it.
I think the real concern is the development is incredibly complexā¦ even from a rules perspective. Just think about this oneā¦ you set a midi note to a velocity of 104 by adding a āfā to a note. Now, within cubase, you lower that to 28. Do you indicate that by changing the dynamic, changing its colour, changing the colour of the noteheads, or donāt notify at all? Does invalidate the symbol going forward?
Thatās just a very simple example, and none of that is code - itās all opinion - so I fully understand that a wall might be a really good idea. However, itās fair to expect that while the midi may not be up for editing, I could see a ārenderingā mode / ReWire mode that helps to master a rendering - something where the settings are stored as part of the score file. Iām also sure that Steinberg has something like this on the roadmap, because thatās what turns it into the only product that can handle both worlds well. That is the competitive advantageā¦ Sibelius doesnāt attach to a DAW. Finale doesnāt. If Dorico is all about output, print and audio, it becomes the de facto pair immediately.
A solution to your example is very simple. Dynamic symbols in Cubase represent a percentage of the MIDI velocity. So there is always a clear link between the two. This is why integration is more important than just having the two programs.
Btw in my opinion while MIDI is a real standard to interchange information, MusicXml is not exactly at the same levelā¦ 
MIDI is the obvious standard for interchanging temporal information between Dorico and Cubase.
MusicXML was designed for interchanging information about scores written in standard music notation between standard music score editors. Its not designed for interchanging information with DAWS. Its the solution to a different problem, so I think we ought to forget about it here.
But MIDI is only part of the solution. Dorico needs to interchange both spatial (graphical) and temporal (MIDI) info with Cubase. Iād go for SVG as the mature, generally accepted, open standard for graphics. As I said above (19th September 2016), its perfectly feasible to use both SVG and MIDI in combination, and to use the combination to return Cubase-edited MIDI info to Dorico where it could be stored as part of the file.