Hey guys a few quick questions that I've been pondering.  (Feel free to move this topic if it would be more appropriate elsewhere...)

I recently (about 2 weeks) switched over to Sibelius to see the benefits of working in this environment (I've been on Finale for almost 6 years or so?) and so far I'm pretty impressed by it's ease of use.  There are a lot of features that I've already been able to take advantage of especially in the note entering area.  My questions more directly deal with engraving and the printing of parts for students/ensembles.

Going off the topic that Allen was a part of late last year in regards to Logic, I would prefer to make Logic the main part of my workflow.  I like all of things that I can do with it so far (which isn't a lot) and hope that I'll be able to do all of the things that I would like to do in the future.  My question is:  if I want to do ALL of my note entering and part engraving, how professional does it look in comparison to Sibelius and/or Finale.  I have heard many differing arguments on different forums and wanted to get the opinion of everyone on here.  That said, I suppose I am looking for more of a comparison rather than a marketing pitch..?  Know what I mean?

Second main question, if I were to compose in Logic for audio recording purposes, is it even possible to bring the midi information over to Sibelius/Finale and apply the keymap templates on top of them, or would I have to enter the notes again for printing purposes?  Or how easy does this work vice versa (going from Sibelius to Logic, I'm assuming easier than the first, right?)

I would clarify more but I'm running late for work.  Thanks in advance for the help/advice.

-Felix

Edit: Bueller..?

Hi Felix - I've had a decent amount of experience in both Sibelius and Logic. Though, I'll be the first to admit I haven't yet had the time to dedicate to learning the ins and outs of the notation side of Logic yet based on what Allen was outlining in his process. That's still something I'm looking forward to doing. With that disclaimer, my basic assessment would be this. If you're planning on publishing something with a finely engraved notaion look, I wouldn't use Logic for that. In my opinion, the notation output doesn't look as professional as something you'd get from a program that specializes in that. However, if your goal is to simply have notated parts of what you write (passable, but maybe not published quality) it's a very appealing option to consider. The new playback stuff in Sibelius 5 is pretty slick, but it does somewhat force you to play by its rules, whereas something like Logic will allow you the utmost in flexibility and easy mixing and matching of all your VIs without worrying about sound sets and all that sort of thing.

In regard to your second question, importing MIDI info into Sibelius isn't going to be as easy as it might seem. This is primarily due to the fact that your MIDI file from Logic would contain different notes to trigger different VDL sounds (for example). But since these notes wouldn't import with correct noteheads and staff placement in tact, Sibelius would have a heck of a time interpreting it. I wonder if there's some sort of plug-in that could be developed for Sibelius that would allow MIDI pitches to be analyzed, then converted to correct noteheads and staff placement. It'd be a big undertaking I'd imagine. But in the meantime, I think the notation you'd get from this would be really messy and would require more manual tweaking than would make it worth the time messing with.

With Digi and Sibelius under the same umbrella, it may be interesting to see what's on their horizon for pro notation integration within the ProTools environment. That would seem pretty appealing, but as far as any of us know today, it's just guesswork as to whether or not that will happen.

[quote author=Jim Casella link=topic=2386.msg12724#msg12724 date=1207328075] I wonder if there's some sort of plug-in that could be developed for Sibelius that would allow MIDI pitches to be analyzed, then converted to correct noteheads and staff placement. It'd be a big undertaking I'd imagine.[/quote]

That would be somewhat possible with some limitations. You'd have to import one staff at a time and the plugin would have to dictate which instrument that staff is for. Midi being essentially only a data protocol there isn't any way (that I can currently think of) to maintain which instrument the midi data is associated with. VDL2.5 doesn't really fit within the General Midi standards. :P

I'm a firm believer that midi needs to be replaced, (it's 20 years old) especially in this sample based production world we live in now. But that's a topic for another day. ;)

Jim and Josh - Thanks for all the input!  I appreciate it a lot.  That answers all of my questions...for now at least...until that plug-in comes along.  :-) I was basically wanting to do everything in Logic and hope to get ";publish quality"; parts even just for students and what not, but I'll just have to weigh the difference and see what my preference is in the end.

Thanks again for the insight.

You may still be fine with the notation printout from Logic. One person's perception of 'publishing quality' may not be the same as another's. Depending on if students are memorizing parts (not needing to continually look at them), that sometimes affects how ";pretty"; I try to make them look. :)