Notation Software Inc. Notation Composer v2.2 Review

Overall Rating

This software is very intuitive, and is obviously designed by someone with a significant musical background. I would say designed by a musician not a software engineer, but well executed on the software side as well. I started with the first release version, and have never had such an quick ramp up to productivity with new software. To be sure there were some bugs, but the response from the company was amazingly fast, and attentive with respect to all requests for help! I tried Notation Musician first, but quickly realized that I needed Notation Composer.

I really can't say anything bad about Notation Composer, since it does everything I want to do, faster and more efficiently than any other software I've used, which includes Finale, Cakewalk, Cubase SX3, and Musicator. Perhaps the addition of SYS X command capability would be the only addition I would appreciate. Even though the editing of parts and scores produces, a good result once you get the hang of it, this area was probably the most challenging, and it often took more time than expected to get the score into the exact format desired since it didn't seem at first to stay formatted from reload to reload. I eventually with help from the company discovered how to hold things in place, but it was not as intuitive as all the other aspects of the software. I should say that the right from MIDI score default layout was faster and better than any of the other comparable software that I've used. I just want unique layouts which were perhaps not always typical.

Notation Composer, can turn a MIDI file into playable and quite musical sounding sequence, with less effort than any software that I've used. The ease with which volume, velocity, tempo, and note articulation can be adjusted is unbelievable. It's score producing capability is very well worked out as well. The basic music display is with score or parts, as a musician would find easiest to work with, but it uses a neat way of showing piano roll, and velocity info note by note when required for making certain adjustments. Score notes that are staccato can easily be made staccato with out displaying the note as a shorter value, and trills, and rolled chords, and grace notes can easily be added with no extra work creating these notes.

I can only say that this software is excellent for composing, arranging, and many other tasks that a musician may want to do!