LinuxMusicians

I up until now have been using a combination of LMMS and MuseScore, but it would be fantastic if there was a DAW with a MuseScore or Sibelius class notation editor. Unfortunately, the notation editor seems to always be a week link for DAWS, if they at all have one. The worst case I came across recently was with GarageBand. For sake of argument, let's just assume GarageBand to be a DAW. After importing MIDI tracks of the same tempo, I noticed that every quarter note was changed to two tied eighth notes. My understanding of MIDI is admittedly a bit vague, but it seems to me that the very nature of the format should prevent that kind of thing from happening. Anyway, any advice on a DAW that is up to snuff would be appreciated.

Reaper has one in development which seems well liked by its users.

Reaper is windows/osx, but there is work being done to port it to linux, and there is a prerelease that is working quite well now days.

Thanks for the quick reply. I have had some difficulty finding out much about the notation editor in Reaper. Are you familiar with MuseScore (and I assume Sibelius) input that allows you quickly to write notes by using a QWERTY keyboard? There is a shortcut for time length and then you just press a, b, c, etc. and shift octaves with ctrl - arrow - up/down.

I have recently been looking at Overture 5, which looks interesting... combination DAW and notation software.

I'm sorry I'm not a notation user so know next to nothing about it. I do however get the impression that many users are quite happy with it, and that it's still being improved upon. AFAIK it's less advanced than Sibelius, but more than usable (depending on what your goals are).

I'd suggest that you browse chapter 14 in the documentation: http://www.reaper.fm/userguide/ReaperUserGuide540c.pdf.

There is also this thread concerned with development feedback: http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=172782.

Best of luck and hope that you find something useful!

Maybe try Rosegarden.
Don't use it myself but I know it has a decent score editor.

Other option would be to run MuseScore with jack backend and send midi to a jack aware daw (ardour, qtractor) to handle the synths and furtherwaudio processing.

The daw and MuseScore will run perfectly in sync. Will require some fiddly routing within the daw to split the midi channels to separate tracks but once setup you can save that as a template session.

@ Jack Winter Thanks for the links.
@ rghvdberg I am experiencing a similar problem with Rosegarden as with GarageBand. In the case of Rosegarden, it just lazily adds a quarter note to one measure, rather than two tied eighth notes shared between two measures.

Looking for DAW with strong notation editor on any OS.

If I understand, any Operative System?

On OS X - Logic Pro X, Digital Performer, Pro Tools + Sibelius native, Steinberg Cubase + Dorico native.

Not to forget Reaper which is multiplatform, windows/osx/linux, and has recently added a decent notation editor.

I have been using MuseScore with Ardour with Jack synchro and it works. Could be easier if session was handled with more coherence and unity. I did not find an option to tell MuseScore not to create its Midi and Audio connexion.

BrnVrn wrote:I have been using MuseScore with Ardour with Jack synchro and it works. Could be easier if session was handled with more coherence and unity. I did not find an option to tell MuseScore not to create its Midi and Audio connexion.

Thanks for your post. It took awhile, but I finally opted for Reaper and Renoise.

Lately I've been using Ardour to record/compose, then exporting to MIDI via https://github.com/dbolton/ArdourMIDIExport and open up in MuseScore. The notation for complicated piano parts take work to fix, but the single-line instruments (after quanizing in Ardour) come through pretty well.

Cakewalk by Bandlap (free now) has a good notation editor, and it records straight into it in real time when recording with a metronome which is nice.

I have been preferring to use Open Source software though, so just compose and arrange in Musescore then just save as a midi and import into Qtractor. I like to use notation as I am classically trained, although am primarily a performing musician, my theory isn't that strong.

How about exporting your midi files and convert them to lilypond format using midi2ly http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.19/Documenta ... ly.ca.html?

Of course, some knowledge of lilypond is necessary and it might not fit your workflow but it might be an entirely *free** way of doing it.