Scoring in A DAW

[Jeff]

Now that Cubase has added scoring, I'm wondering a couple of things. How many folks actually using the scoring if a DAW has it, or will scoring programs always be the place that composers prefer? I am just a hobbyist but find that composing/orchestration is why I love making music using the tools of DAW but also like using the scoring part of SO. Now that PreSonus has included their orchestra, one can try scoring/composition without spending additional money. As in all things, there are Orchestras and there are really good Orchestras. I use East West stuff and TOC 3.3, I find these orchestras are very good (especially for the price points now) and the scoring in SO allows you to really see the tonal relationships when you drag the midi files out of Orchestrator in Opus. Nothing wrong with the piano roll, but if you read music I think the ability to score really allows you to understand the music you are creating, of course much more flexibility in scoring instrument types rather than classical. I don't think that SO has to fully complete with Dorico to be useful. Infact it might be better to let Notion (I have it on my tablet) die and build out what is in SO.

I love the fact that you print out the score with the chords names, on long scores I find that very useful.

Maybe Cubase/Dorico and more focused on classical due to the parent company's focus on pianos while Fender is more focused on other types of music. I find SO a more "friendly" environment to create in. I switched from Samplitude about 4 years ago and just love SO interface.

If your focus is scoring for video/movies or classical music, what do you like about SO, and what is your orchestra(s) of choice?

 

[SwitchBack]

Doesn't that mainly depend on individual way of working? Traditional scoring is with pencil in hand behind the piano, nothing to do with the specific strengths and uses of DAWs. Better then to use an app specifically targeted to support that routine.

Where I'd like scoring in Studio One to go is to automatically and on the fly produce 'clean' scores of session tracks, played or sung. By clean I mean easy on the eye, proper quarter and eighth notes etc., correct key, bars, ties, slurs and other symbols, lyrics too (as provided). AI should be able to get that 98% done, and before the next take. A tweak here and there and the session can motor on with the sheet music available too. In such an interactive mode scoring in a DAW would totally make sense.

 

[Jeff]

Yes it does, and from what I know both conductors and players have the right to demand certain things on scores. I would love to see Articulations for the instruments also (realize that in things like Opus or TOC you have many instruments on one line and it would be impossible for readability issues.

I would think that now, most composers might use programs like Dorico (I would say Notion but I think it is on life support) because of the ease of producing a fully formatted score. When DAWs add notation section (both Studio One and Cubase) where the files can be transferred to a notation program I think it allows a lot of freedom. With orchestras like Opus/TOC3 you have many of the controls found in DAWS so a notation program may not have to go to a DAW to do things like mastering. The tools are changing quickly, IMHO, and it is very exciting and interesting.

 

[SwitchBack]

In a perfect world you would take a picture of a score which meets your formatting preferences (amount of detail, position of systems, lyrics, symbols etc.) and the smart scoring tool would use that as a format template for whatever tracks you select in your DAW. In combination with your song's settings (key, tempo, swing, ...) it should produce something pretty close to 'as intended'

 

[Gray Wolf]

One advantage to working with musical notation - even for the musically illiterate - is that once you put in the work to map Sound Variations to Musical Symbols, key switches become library agnostic. You can use any library in any song without worrying about key switch mismatches when you replace parts from different libraries.