Hi Folks,

Can anyone recommend notation software that works well with the XF8? I’m looking at Notation Composer from notation.com. Does anyone have experience of this? Essentially I want to be able to view multipart songs from my XF8 as sheet music on my laptop screen, edit them and then save the changes back to the XF8 for playback. I also want to be able to print individual parts out but I guess all notation software has this option…

Jampro

Cubase 9.5 Pro and you’re done!

jampro2002 - 25 October 2018 02:43 AM

Hi Folks,

Can anyone recommend notation software that works well with the XF8? I’m looking at Notation Composer from notation.com. Does anyone have experience of this? Essentially I want to be able to view multipart songs from my XF8 as sheet music on my laptop screen, edit them and then save the changes back to the XF8 for playback. I also want to be able to print individual parts out but I guess all notation software has this option…

Jampro

Your profile indicates that you run Cubase. Like most DAWs, it has capable score and notation features.

The best notation package is likely subjective, but Sibelius and Finale are the most popular and certainly lead the market. At a premium price though. 

I’ve had experience of importing MIDI files made on various keyboards and sequencing packages into Sibelius before and it is generally easy and painless.

One big tip that I can give you for any of these notation packages is that you need to pay just as much attention to your note lengths as you would to their rhythmic positioning before you import.  As an example, if you want your notation package to display quarter notes as quarter notes, then you need to make absolutely sure that they are EXACTLY that long before importing them, and not a hair under or over, otherwise a notation package will show them as several shorter or longer notes tied together if they are under or over length. 

This is problematic because you are human and play note lengths that feel right as opposed to checking that they are mathematically correct, but that’s the level of accuracy you need to attain to ensure that any notation package displays you a legible score from a midi file, and it can be a pain.  For this reason, you’ll find many people drawing the notes in on the notation package first and exporting midi files to keyboards and DAWs.

Sibelius certainly splits and allows you to print individual parts very easily, too.

jampro2002 - 25 October 2018 02:43 AM

Hi Folks,

Can anyone recommend notation software that works well with the XF8? I’m looking at Notation Composer from notation.com. Does anyone have experience of this? Essentially I want to be able to view multipart songs from my XF8 as sheet music on my laptop screen, edit them and then save the changes back to the XF8 for playback. I also want to be able to print individual parts out but I guess all notation software has this option…

Jampro

I use Finale (on MacOSX) with both my XF8 and MOX8 very good midi integration far more powerful that the midi notation component that comes with Cubase.

Thanks everyone! Just the information I needed.