Hi, I'm a composer looking to more seriously invest in a computer music setup. I'll soon be getting a new Mac (I'm not sure which; I currently have an iMac and some MIDI stuff), and I was thinking about Logic, but a trip to the music shops here in NYC has convinced me otherwise. I like to compose on a Score page using a mouse and computer keyboard, not a synth keyboard. The Logic Score page doesn't seem to lend itself to this approach. A salesman told me that on Dec. 1, there will be a Nuendo 2.0 that was designed with people like me in mind. Does anyone here have any knowledge of this, or have any other suggestions as to working this way without having to import from a notation app? Thanks.

Sibelius is top dawg (with pedigree and price tag to match), and plays back your compositions, purportedly with exceptional quality. Samples of that are on their site:

http://www.sibelius.com/

A more budget-oriented means to that end is Harmony Assistant:

http://www.myriad-online.com/harmony.htm

It has many devotees, but obviously no graphic designers among them.

Levon,

What I'm looking for is software that will allow me to record audio as well as enter MIDI easily on a Score page using my computer keyboard and mouse. I'm already pretty happy with my notation software (Overture), ti plays pack nicely, but I'm looking for an all-in-one. Sibelius is just MIDI, yes?

take a look here:
http://www.macmusic.org/softs/softcat.php/...ang/EN/id/7014/

maybe...

As far as I know, yes. Sorry to be the harbinger of bad tidings, but I don't know of any sequencer/DAW packages that have as full and flexible an implementation of score editing as I get the idea that you're looking for.

They all (Logic, Steinberg, Digital Performer, and even Metro, I think) give it a lick-and-promise, but in my limited experience in hacking around in the score editors, none of them are in the same league as the standalone notation packages. It's one of the many trade-offs that keeps us all hopping around like fleas into and out of different specialty applications.

I love editing with standard notation, too, but the piano-roll editors in the DAW packages is where most of the MIDI-related editing power is packed. Best recommendation I can give you if you're editing complex scores is to do all that part in the standalone score editor you like best, then export it as a MIDI file, pull it into the DAW package of your choice, and use *all* of the editors there to finalize it with feel and marry it to audio. I--personally--don't know any other way to go about it with the existing state of the art. If you find something else out, lemme know, will you?

Good luck.