Thanks for the insight. I have discovered that the hard way–by wondering why my Sibelius scores converted into midi and imported into my sequencer don;t sound as I would like. I much prefer writing in notation and don’t find it as efficient to write in a sequencer, either using the piano roll or entering notes by midi controller, particularly with a complicated orchestral score where I would have to enter a lot of lines, many of which are beyond my keyboard skills. I also find it very difficult to see what I am doing in the piano roll, particularly in seeing how multiple lines relate. I was wondering if you have any advice on workarounds for that situation. What about exporting a midi file from Sibelius into a sequencer, clearing all the non-Note midi data, setting all the velocities to a fixed value, and then going through and adjusting velocity, timing, note length and midi volume levels on a note by note basis? I realize that is a lot of work, but at least keeps the conceptual work in notation and allows one to take advantage of some of the work you have already done in entering the score. Any further advice or ideas would be appreciated.

Best,

John

For example, Sibelius sound sets allow you to employ libraries with program switches and keyswitches, so you can end up using VSL, LASS, EWQL, Symphobia, et. al. for notation playback, and have things like staccato symbols in the score automatically keyswitch or program switch to the correct articulation, so your staves really do correspond one-to-one with your channels.

You can also use Rewire now (at least with Sibelius, unsure about FInale), so you can feed both notation and DAW midi channel data into the same virtual instruments at the same time, using one to sketch and another to tweak without breaking into into multiple cumbersome import/export steps. The DAW and notation program don’t need to be on the same machine, either (you could use a tablet PC for manually writing into a notation program, for example, while running Reason, Logic, Pro Tools, etc. on another machine at the same time).

Unfortunately there’s still a lot of controller data missing if you don’t spend some time in a DAW while notating, so the playback even with the best libraries doesn’t sound good enough for a final delivery without these other approaches, just as you say — but I’ve found that it really is better than it used to be even a year or two ago, which turns out to be a meaningful improvement in the case in which you are both composer and orchestrator/copyist and can’t afford the time of a separate midi-to-copyist stage (assuming you are going to have at least one live part performed and that notation is therefore needed at all).

Merely my experiences, ymmv.

Peace,
Sean

This is something I have struggled with all along, because I tend to think in terms of notes on the staff and using the piano roll in a sequencer is a weird new world for me (despite taking two classes from you!)

Now, I compromise and will write a thematic element with notation software and then export the MIDI snippet and bring it into the sequencer where I can copy and paste, transpose, break apart, apply articulations, etc. and orchestrate as needed.

I’ve started using a music typesetting system called Lilypond for doing my scores. It’s not a graphical environment like Sibelius but done entirely with text markup (like HTML). It produces really gorgeous scores. And it appeals to the software engineer in me because I can write little programs to generate scores from templates very quickly!

– Brett

PS. Just enrolled in Berklee’s Master Certificate Program for Orchestration in Film & TV. 2010 is gonna be a good year!