I have been using Cubase for preparing professional scores for use with symphony orchestras etc. for many years. And the have been accepted by my publisher for public use. Cubase has always been able to fullfill my needs (apart from specialities such as tuplets within tuplets). It is true that Cubase has its quirks - but then again: all programs does. It is also true that the scoring page hasn’t been developed much since Atari days - but the reason is mainly that Cubase already was a great scoring program in those days. A lot of new features would be welcomed - such as the ability to have two pages on screen - but you learn to live with it. Because the beauty of Cubase as scoring facility is, that - as some of you already pointed out - it is a creativity tool, whereas Sibelius is a layout program. And it is possible to keep your creativity going all through the score writing - with interactive monitoring and midi sequencer options at hand. I tried Sibelius, but it didn’t take me long to return to Cubase.
A feature I think escaped many of you (I can see that from your notes), is the Auto Layout function. The score may look cluttered when you open it, but when you do the Auto-Layout thing (bars and staves) - everything will be clear and readable.
It is a little difficult for me to say how hard it is to learn the Cubase scoring (it seems from your notes that it is difficult), as I have been a dedicated Steinberg scorer myself since the Atari days - many hours every day. But one thing I can say is: it is absolutely possible to make a great-looking symphonic score in Cubase. It takes time - but then again: art does!
Well as someone who was about to buy the crossgrade from Finale to Sibelius, this great thread has motivated me to read the Cubase scoring manual a couple of times before dropping the cash, I love creating in Cubase and if I could get my scoring done without flippin between programs that would rock!
Hi Funkstone - yes read that manual, especially understand the essential difference between display quantise and quantize - its essential for a natural performance. You may already realise this of course.
Sibelius has a free trial take a look and then think through your work flow using the two apps, and what is going to happen when you get revisions - especially in relation to expression maps and note expression - is it going to be lost?
For my own, I prefer Notion to Sibelius.
Notion is an excellent basic notation program. It doesn’t do anything advanced, but what it does it does very well. And it’s free!
It’s not really free (there is a demo version) but I think it is a good approach to convergence between DAW and notation software…
Concerning printing issues I think Lilypond is the best for engraving…
To further amplify how important it is to prepare the score using OTHER parts of Cubase, particularly the Project/arrange page when I do drum tabs I like to fit them onto as few pages as possible, one preferably.
What I have to do is to then log the basic layout: V-C-V-C-mid 8/solo-V-C-Coda etc.
All I need on the page is: {segno} V-C + repeat signs/or dotted bars {dal segno, D.S. (back to the beginning)} or D.S. al Coda (to skip the mid 8).
Then what I need to do is to delete verse / chorus 2 & 3 from the arrangement leaving just V-C-mid 8-Coda which is then reflected in the score page and add the relevant signage and numbering.
That’s about as simple as it gets but I hope I’ve given the picture. Scoring can involve several other elements of Cubase as it only reads what you input and if the input is out so will Score be. It does what the program (and you) tells it. But it does not correct anything.
ps: I have always found that playing or step-inputting to the Score page a very risky enterprise as Score READS (or, to my mind, prefers to read) midi input. I usually only use the step or play in the odd note correction.
If you input a whole part working all the time in score then if you want to add pitch-bend, for instance, the score may be in danger of crashing as that is not the usual data that is passed thru it.
I know that on the face of it it looks like you can work from the score page, in practise I find it unreliable. My reasoning above for the crashes could be tenuous but the reality isn’t but it’s the only logical explanation that comes into my head for it happening.