Most compatible DAW

[ceg]

Hi All,

I'm a long-time user of Sibelius hat has taken the recommendation to try and use keyboard shortcuts wherever possible and try to put the mouse somewhere awkward to discourage yourself from using it.

So, I've got used to keyboard input, and a lot of the shortcuts make sense (or are at least memorable) - R for repeat, CNTL up for up an octave, CNTL down for down an octave, Home and End to move backwards and forwards a screen and the use of the numeric keypad to specify different durations of note, etc.

So I'm now wanting to use a DAW to compose with using MIDI instruments and finding Cubase somewhat does my head in from a perspective of keyboard shortcuts - it seems to be better at integrating live audio recordings rather than MIDI "performances". Are there any other DAW's which are closer to the "use the mouse as little as possible" philosophy of Sibelius and hence which are less of a steep learning curve for a Sibelius user? Or have I just not understood Cubase yet?

Cheers

Charles

[Ed Sharpe]

I think you will find most DAWS are audio-centric. As for midi input most are geared towards having the midi inputed via a midi keyboard, that is you play the part into the DAW using your midi keyboard.

For my personal work flow, my DAW is not a composing tool, it is a mixing tool. I have everything written out before I open up the DAW, but that is my way.

There are LOTS of examples and tutorials on youtube of various DAWS, you might want to start there.

[ceg]

Thanks Ed,

It's the infrastructural navigational commands I guess I'm particularly interested in - e.g. moving forwards and backwards within a project, switching between the various editor windows that can be typically open (Cntl-F6 doesn't seem to work in Cubase ), cutting and pasting bits of one track to another.

I agree with what you're saying about doing the main composition not on the DAW, but I find that once transferred to the DAW, I'm thinking "oh yes, that would sound better with those few notes doubled on the piccolo" or "that's a bit thin, the bottom part needs taking down an octave and moving onto the cello" which I'd like to quickly do within the DAW (perhaps just as an experiment) rather than having to go back into Sibelius.

Which leads me onto another bugbear - 'what counts as an "action" within the DAW that you can undo?' I'm forever mis-selecting what I want to edit, then pressing Cntl-Z to have another go (which works great on Sibelius) only to discover that you can't just undo selections on Cubase and I've actually just undone the action previous to selecting stuff...

[Deleted]

I begin a new project by thinking about it, sometimes for a long time (50 years at least one piece).  Then I write out a brief sketch of the ideas I intend to use.  These ideas are the entered into a midi file, using the staff notation view, for years, only Sonar.  This gives me a view similar to Sibelius panoramic view. 

Sonar makes it very easy to transpose, move, invert, etc.  Much easier than Sibelius.

When the score is more or less finished, use Sibelius to import the midi file, use the Sibelius score to do the final editing and create a decent score.  Sibelius will show details easily and clearly, and I often find errors that are not so apparent in a Sonar file.  Finally, after nit picking and comparing, I find that I have a decent score, and create also a wav, mp3, and PDF file.

This method has served me will for at least eleven years.  A final advantage:  it is easy to chose and control instruments for playback (and entry) using Sonar. I intensely dislike Sibelius audio,  which was at one time fine for me, but they improved is to it's present unusable state. Strictly my biased opinion, naturally.

Richard

[Deleted]

From the tutorials and forums I have seen and read, Apple's Logic sequencer seems to be capable of many keyboard short-cuts. But I'm afraid I have to agree with Ed Sharpe. DAW producers have purposely avoided keyboard intensive user interfaces for quite a while now. That is not to say that one can't create user defined keyboard short-cuts (to some extent), but there are crucial and repetitive tasks that cannot be assigned a keyboard short-cut by design, and it will drive you crazy.

Your concern is one of the reasons that prompted me to seek a means to integrate Sibelius into a sequencer's work-flow. That I am using Presonus Studio One sequencer to do this has more to do with Studio One's relative simplicity and with it being an Avid product as well (in faint hope of more compatibility in the future), than any similarity to Sibelius' interface.