The Score Editor is probably not as intuitive as the other programs at first sight, but once you know how things work you can work smoothly with it.
It’s a little bit like … Photoshop. This software, is basically not intuitive at all. But when you learn how to work with, you find everything as it should be and logical.
I gave Sibelius and Finale a try (as well as other scoring programs) multiple times in the past, and I always ended up going back to Cubase. Why ?
Mainly because :
1- it is as powerful and professional as the other two
2- The power of Cubase audio engine & MIDI
3- Expression Maps !
That’s good feedback… OK, I’m going to go back and try working with it a bit more. Will check the Quantize function as you pointed out (I’ve used this occasionally when adjusting drum parts, but the majority of the time all my MIDI is done in Sibelius and I’m just recording audio parts in Cubase.)
This is also speculation and opinion, instead of development let’s look at this from the business perspective, as business decisions made in advance drive the development budget and sales planning. I think a companion release as a vst or rewire version ( as an add on to Cubase with a cost or not , I don’t know ) to replace the current score editor makes complete sense.
1 it gives the notation program
a huge built in audience to help capture market share, 2 it would increase Cubase appeal, sales. 3. At the same time The full standalone version could offer more features and go after the leading competitors.
Also the full version looks like a closed system, if this is true it’s of no use to me for mockups or just simply using notation instead of midi to write and play back. 3rd party orchestral libraries blow away stienbergs, and we need a Sibelius approach to send midi out to vst of our choice. Could some one fact check this ?
The 2 products (Dorico and the Score editor in Cubase) can live side by side. Avid has done so with Sibeius and Pro Tools.
Perhaps we’ll see something like what it seems Presonus is doing with Notion and Studio One? Last year they added the ability in Notion to exports stems for editing in Studio One. They’re rumored to be creating a true integration between the 2 products.
I do hope the Score Editor continues on and does not fall by the wayside. It is an important part of Cubase for me.
I’m spending some time this weekend with it (and the manual) and will be giving it a serious try. If I may ask you (or anyone kind enough to reply) one general question: do you score drums with it and, if so, how does it work for you?
I can see punting here and just using a standard MIDI view with a drum map, but I’d prefer not to. In Sibelius I went through a tedious process of setting up my own soundsets for BFD and my own custom drum staves. It took way too long and was frustrating, but ultimately I got exactly what I wanted. I can score for every aspect of the drumset in an intuitive way (even high hat articulations, shank vs. tip, etc, etc.)
As others have noted, it will be interesting to see what effect Dorico has on future versions of Cubase. I am relatively happy with the Cubase 8.5 Score Editor; it is fairly reliable and features like the “Make Chord Symbol” function really save time when I am composing. That said, it is clear that score editors are notoriously complicated and do not always present things as we desire so they are constantly evolving. For someone like me who uses Cubase for composing and recording, but doesn’t require it to provide sheet music to an orchestra, Cubase 8.5 strikes a good balance IMHO.
As we now see, with the introduction of this dedicated Scoring in Cubase forum (Thanks to TheMaestro and Michael Michealis) Cubase Score sees continued support and development.
(Note also, there have been many feature additions since this topic first was posted in 2016. Rhythmic Notation, Bar Repeat signs, rhythmic grid while editing (see attachment), among (many) others
Was it somebody called Walter or Werner something that was the main Steinberg developer of the Score Editor, for all these years…? Is he still with Steinberg…?
I’ve been using the Cubase score editor for about, well since cubase atari and after that Cubase score came out I guess.
Yep other programs came along, that focussed on some fancy fonts and cleaner layouts. However I still prefer to have the score editor to be part of the DAW, so many workflows and situations I have to deal with and when scoring is applicable, it is usually is an integral part of them. Sometimes scoring serves a quick interactive studio recording process, sometimes a score and its parts are the final product.
With Cubase I’ve created full orchestra scores as well as the parts for classical as well as modern and Jazz music, 1000s of pages. Sometimes with frustation that is (score errors 7 an niners). However, no matter what program I used, scoring in general requires high level of craftsmanship anyways, there’s so much more to it then just placing notes on a staff and printing that out. Most - if not all - the features needed are already present in today’s Cubase’s score editor, sometimes a hard to find or not very user friendly implemented, but in general compliments and respect for the developer that created and maintained this piece of software for such a long time.
Parts and scores that have a clear layout and are well annotated (dynamics, articulations, bows, harp pedals, and so on) being handwritten or created with a scoring editor will make your clients come back for you, because it saves them big time in rehearsal stage, and that’s my main use case.
Wow! Thank you Steve. And thank you for bringing up this thread.
Actually I found the subject intriguing, and when I opened the thread I realized it came from me!
Indeed many improvements have been brought to the Score Editor in 4 years, including really huge ones!
But many more very important and essential improvements are needed.
Now that we have a dedicated forum, we’ll go to the bottom of things!
Wonder if the main (only) SB developer of the Score Editor Michael Michaelis, is still inclined to put more skill/magic into this (it’s his ‘baby’ alone), considering there’s an almost inevitable future of Dorico working closer/integration with Cubase.?
Most of the time I use musicians, I’m using the score editor to make parts. It’s the best I’ve seen in any DAW, and a HUGE time saver once you wrap your head around it’s power features.
The only exception to this is full orchestral scores, where I need dedicated software like Dorico to do the heavy lifitng. But I hope the score editor basically stays as it is for awhile longer.
I admit that I don’t use the score editor in Cubase much. From playing around with it though, there’s not much you can’t do in it.
Ok, the workflow of a notation program is obviously better. (Automatic setup of transposing instruments, divisi, collision avoidance, engraving rules etc etc.) But since this program often costs as much as Cubase, I’m not sure if it would be a fair expectation for these two programs to “integrate”. Maybe I’m not grasping the exact meaning of the word here, it’s very possible.
At most, I expect that in the far future, I will be able to edit the MIDI data of a track on the version of Dorico that I currently own (be it SE, Elements or Pro), maybe in an extension window, like ARA.
But a behemoth like Dorase, or Cubico, (or Cubendico if we also entertain the thought that Nuendo is a premium Cubase), I can’t even imagine how one could manage this type of product. How do you sell it? How much? How do you chop it into tiers, and what do you leave out from each tier?
Edit: Cubendico has a “premium aged rum” feeling to it though…
While it is true that Score Editor will not evolve, I hope that there is a deep relationship between Dorico and Cubase in terms of interchange, integration, etc. at least as is the Score Editor with Cubase: merged!
).
Nice. Thanks Steve.
