janamdo
How did you get on using all the detailed advice and recommenations in your earlier thread (eg many from SteveInChicago and vic_france)? …
Those posts did seem to have cleared up some misconceptions that you’d had about entering notes.
But, is what’s happened since then that you’ve finally concluded, after studying the manual thoroughly and learning properly how Cubase’s score editor works (because you were a novice in the earlier thread) that no amount of practice with Cubase’s current score editor will ever let you enter notes without too much difficulty?
You mention specifically that you have trouble entering the right note lengths. What happens, and what would you want instead? Are you totally against using the key editor in conjunction with the score editor, and/or playing notes on a MIDI keyboard instead of entering them with a mouse?
My understanding is that many composers who prefer to work in a score editor choose Sibelius and then either (a) export the notes to Cubase where they edit the notes, and insert controller data, or (b) start again by playing the notes into Cubase and adding controller data – with the objective, in either case, being to get something that sounds more like a real performance, compared with the somewhat “wooden” and mechanical playback that score-editing software tends to do. In other words, they use Cubase (or a similar prog) to simulate a performance, because the score-editing packages aren’t good for that. In fact, there are composers and other Sibelius users who’ve been critical of the developers’ attempts to improve the sound coming out of Sibelius, because they’d prefer Sibelius to stick to what it’s really good for - ie editing and printing scores (and parts) - and not dabble in the territory of Cubase, Logic, etc, which are more orientated towards creating what sound more like real performances.
It seems that, at present, no software is good at both working with scores and creating realistic mock-ups, though (if I’ve understood correctly) the developers of Notion 3 want that software to be more suitable for composers than Sibelius is, in terms of working towards realistic-sounding playback, more in line with what can be done in a DAW.
I’d suggest that, if you want, in the near future, score editing half as good as what Sibelius offers, then forget about Cubase. But if you don’t want to forget about Cubase, join the numerous composers who use other software for entering their scores, and reserve Cubase for the depth of control that it offers to people who want to make realistic “mock-ups” of their pieces.
But, if you’re not interested in Cubase as a tool for constructing fairly realistic-sounding mock-ups, but only want to use if for score entry and playback, well, I’m afraid you might have chosen the wrong program for your needs.
If you haven’t already done so, try listening to the demo orchestral pieces on East West’s website, together with users’ own pieces put up on the EW forum for comment. I think most of those start their life in Sibelius and end in a DAW such as Cubase. Many are meant to sound like bombastic film music, but some are more like ‘classical’ music of the 19th or ealier centuries. And some people have created fairly believable mock-ups of well-known classical pieces (again, I think most started in Sibelius and finished in a DAW). A lot can be done, but not easily all done within Cubase - and I suspect that’s the way it’ll be for some years.
While I’d love to be proved wrong by the appearance of a massively improved score editor in C7 at no extra charge than a normal update price (in spite of all the many extra man-years effort that would be required to develop a great score-entry package fully integrated with Cubase), I won’t bank on it. 