Dec 08, 2019  I have one powerful machine, in a beautiful form-factor, with a great keyboard, and all the ports I missed on the 2016 MacBook Pro. It's worth nothing that the Surface Book 2 was last refreshed in November 2017, and is due for a refresh in late 2019 when Intel's next-generation chipsets arrive.

In this post, we’ve created a summary of some of the best music notation software options for music teachers for serious musicians who want to produce written scores on their computers/iPads. You might be composing your own music or creating an arrangement for a student. It is essential to have a good notation app to record your music journey.

Notation 6

Notion 6 is available for Mac and Windows computers and has all the important editing tools we look for. You can input notes with a MIDI keyboard, virtual piano or virtual guitar fretboard.It’s easy to install and register the program, and the software recognized our MIDI keyboard instantly. This composition software’s standout feature is its incredible instrument sample library.

• Available on: Mac and Window
• Price: $149

Touch Notation

Do you prefer to write your music by hand, but enjoy the convenience of having scores saved to your device? With Touch Notation, you get the best of both worlds. You’ll use simple gestures to draw different notes onto the screen, and they’ll automatically be converted into clean sheet music. The app might take a while to get used to, and it doesn’t learn your individual writing style, so be prepared for a little frustration early on.

• Available on: iOS
• Price: $11.99

Notation Pad

A great sheet music notation app on iOS. For any music lover, Notation Pad gives you the ability to read, compose, edit, playback scores and write lyrics. With it you can be a talented composer and great musician anywhere. As long as you have a little knowledge of sheet music, you can write music composition simply by touch and move. You could use it as your songbook or scoresheet.

• Available on: iOS
• Price: Free

StaffPad

StaffPad is a brand new class of notation app, designed to take advantage of the active pen and touch input found on Microsoft Surface and other compatible Windows 10 devices. As you write notation using the pen, It recognizes your handwritten music and converts it into a beautifully typeset score which you can further edit, playback, print and share.

• Available on: Windows 10
• Price: $69.99

Ensemble Composer

A great sheet music notation app for music composer to write great composition. With it you can be a talented composer anywhere. As long as you have a little knowledge of sheetmusic, you can create wonderful music simply by touching. With Ensemble Composer on your phone or tablet, you can easily record your flashes of inspiration wherever they strike.

• Available on: Android
• Price: $9.99

Noteflight

Noteflight is an online music notation program with an intuitive workflow and a great selection of editing tools. Because you don’t have to download any software or save project files on your computer, this program is a great option for laptops and desktop computers with limited CPU power and storage. Also, you can start a project on your home computer and continue work later on a different computer with internet access.

• Available on: Any device
• Price: $49.99/yr

Musescore

MuseScore is free, open-source notation software that’s compatible with Windows and Mac operating systems. Even though it’s free, it includes many of the same features and tools found in the best for-pay programs we reviewed. The instrument samples aren’t as realistic or dynamic as those in the best notation programs, but if you are interested in composing music with software, MuseScore is an easy way to learn for no investment.

• Available on: Any device
• Price: Free

Maestro

The interface is easy to understand, and you can write music quickly and easily by tapping on preset notes and choosing where you’d like to position them. The app is mainly aimed at songwriters and music students. Maestro supports multiple instruments like Piano, Violin, Drums, etc., and lets you compose in multiple tracks. When needed, you can play back the music you wrote. Once done, you can even export it as an image.

• Available on: Android
• Price: Free

Symphony Pro 5

A pioneer in touch-based music composition, Symphony Pro lets you compose complex orchestrations, lead sheets, chord charts, and guitar tabs on the iPad and instantly hear them played back. This is the easiest and most comprehensive way to compose sheet music on your iPad. When you’re done composing, print out your score, or export it as a PDF, MusicXML, AAC, MIDI or Symphony file. Share your files via email or directly to a computer with iTunes File Sharing, or save images of your score directly to the Photos app and share them through Photo Stream.

• Available on: iOS
• Price: $14.99

Being an Apple enthusiast and an Apple Logic Pro certified trainer, it’s not often you’ll hear me singing the praises of a non-OS X computer or tablet for music production or live performance… but the Microsoft Surface Book has turned my head. Here are 8 reasons why.

Note: Thavius Beck has been testing out the Surface Book and you can find out more about him and his workflow in this video here:

This release was created for you, eager to use FreeHand 9.0 full and with without limitations. Our intentions are not to harm FreeHand software company but to give the possibility to those who can not pay for any piece of software out there. The purpose of this study was to develop a new casting machine for titanium and Ni-Ti alloys. Properties of cast pure titanium and Ni-Ti alloys were studied by means of the tensile and casting tests. Compre-o no Mercado Livre por R$ 107,00 - Compre em 12x. Encontre mais produtos de Livros, Revistas e Comics, Livros. MANUAL DE PROTESE PARCIAL REMOVIVEL - SANTOS - CLAUDIO KLIEMANN/WAGNER DE OLIVEIRA.

#1 - A Flexible Laptop And Tablet

It works great as a laptop, but the detachable display turns it into a portable tablet… or alternatively, turn the screen around and you’ve got a sit down/stand up and use touchscreen canvas.

An iPad, as good as it is, after all is only ever going to be a tablet. Surface Book can be your serious studio production machine running full versions of Bitwig Studio, FL Studio, Reason, etc. But it can also be turned into a touchscreen for sketching out musical ideas, or as a mobile mixing desk, or a portable, throw-in-your-bag DJing surface.

#2 - Windows 10 Improved MIDI Performance

Where Windows as an OS for musicians and producers often fell down in the past (compared to OS X) was the lack of stable audio and MIDI performance. Don’t get me wrong, my techie Windows-wielding friends were more than able to get things working well, but it took effort, time and know-how.

Windows 10 features a new MIDI API (for their desktop, tablet and phones) designed to reduce jitter. Good news when running a bunch of MIDI controllers or devices.

#3 - Windows 10 Improved Audio Performance

Aside from the ability to dedicate all audio processing to one core of your PC (which is really great in itself), there’s the promise of lower latency. Every recording musician knows this means improved audio performance when tracking instruments. Generally, the lower the latency the easier and more enjoyable it is to record to your Windows 10 music apps.

Microsoft have also revealed they’re looking into support for Thunderbolt 3 (think even lower latency audio interfaces) and audio aggregation (Apple already offer being able to create aggregate audio devices in OS X, but not on iOS yet).

#4 - Powerful Processor

In laptop mode, Surface Book packs an Intel i5 or i7 and up to 16 GB RAM, with similar specs to a MacBook Pro. There’s no compromising with mobile/tablet processors here. Admittedly, iPads don’t suffer from processor issues, but for more processor intensive DAWs, the Surface Book seems an obvious choice.

#5 - Big Drive

While useful for non-musicians too, iPad is somewhat limited by the onboard storage of between 16–128 GB. Surface Book storage starts from 128 GB and goes all the way up to 1 TB! No more syncing to iTunes or the Cloud to free up space every day or two…

Plus being a Windows 10 machine you can access your files easily. For me personally, iTunes syncing to access files is a creativity killer and I wish Apple would give me an easier way to access files without the hand holding.

#6 - It’s a Touchscreen Laptop

The title says it all. While you may not want to be reaching for a touching the screen all the time, having the option of quickly editing something on screen with your fingers but also having quick access to the keyboard and trackpad (which does't feel like an afterthought) is something iPad doesn’t allow for as easily.

Multi-touch is supported in Bitwig Studio 1.3 on Surface Book.

#7 - Ports

We all know about the limitations with iPad connectivity via a Lightning port. I’m a fan of the iPad being as thin as possible, but it can be inconvenient and costly when you want to connect a simple USB controller but don’t have the correct converter or forgot/lost it. Suddenly you don’t feel so mobile anymore!

Surface Book has two normal sized USB 3.0 ports, and SD card reader, headset out, and a Mini DisplayPort. There’s also been rumors of support for Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C, so the future looks bright in terms of connectivity.

#8 - Developer Support

Bitwig, Avid and StaffPad are all putting support into Windows 10 and the Surface Book, and with good reason. Bitwig Studio 1.3 adds functions to take advantage of the Surface Book with features such as Touch Controls, Touch Keyboard (yes, you play a musical keyboard on the screen), a specially designed “Radial Menu”, and more.

StaffPad looks to provide an intuitive way to create and edit music notation on Surface machines, and Avid’s Sibelius has new touch controls with support for the Surface Pen too.

And there’ll be more coming too. It’s good news to see music app developers looking to support a platform outside the Apple ecosystem. Surely more will follow!

Conclusion

Microsoft appear to be keen to capture the hearts and minds of music makers. Aside from this being a marketing drive, it shows they care about this segment of the creative demographic. No longer are they only concerned about the next Office update for business users, they’ve been putting a lot of time and energy into improving features in Windows 10 for music makers and now creating a Surface Book which would render the need for a separate tablet as pointless…

Am I going to rush out and buy a Microsoft Surface Book? Not yet. I’m currently happy enough with my 2015 MacBook Pro running Logic Pro X and other music software. I’m happy enough with OS X El Capitan. I’m also satisfied with the growing number of excellent music making apps for iPad and my Mac-only music software options, especially now that FL Studio is coming out for OS X soon.

There's the obvious disparity between comparing a machine that can run a full laptop OS and therefore run powerful DAWs against a dedicated tablet which isn't designed to do this. However, if I was looking to buy a new machine now for my studio, then the Microsoft Surface Book would definitely be a serious contender, when nothing used to come close before. And without a doubt I'd recommend pausing before buying a fully spec'd out iPad and taking a look at what Surface Book running Windows 10 could offer as an alternative.

Links: