JohnStacy

You missed my point, but I definitely see how you could. I was giving the example of *a* song. This is to contrast the idea that a song that is just chorus chorus chorus chorus chorus chorus verse chorus chorus chorus chorus chorus intro wouldn't work as well. Makes sense means that it is logical and follows a system that is consistent with both itself and other songs in the same style. I just threw an example and maybe wasn't as clear with what I meant as I could be. You nailed it, actually.

Preface: I am a formally trained musician. Went through public school band from 6th grade through high school, got 3 undergrad degrees in music (education, horn performance, and classical composition), and am almost finished with a master's degree (classical and jazz composition). I finished my undergrad with 214 credit hours and am currently 23/31 hours through the master's degree. I am a professional performer (classical and jazz), and a high school band director, but have taught theory and private lessons and classes on guitar, bass and piano. I have performed in almost every genre that uses live performances, on many different instruments. I see many discussions about the importance of music theory, and honestly most of these discussions disappoint me, but not in the way you would think by the preface above. All musicians fall into one of two categories - Music theory is necessary, or Music Theory is unnecessary. There are no other categories, although there are subgroups. I'm going to start off by saying, that by far, modern music theory is one of the worst taught classes in the history of classes. I put it below most high school Spanish classes. If you compare the standard expected of music theory students to that of a standard biology or English class, it is almost laughably low. I don't know many classes where it is not only normal, but understood by the *teachers* of a class that half or more of your students are going to not learn the material. This is absolutely absurd. Further than this, I don't know of any creative art other than music where the system of organization used to understand it is emphasized so heavily as rules. Let's give an analogy to help this sink in. You're in an English class, studying Shakespeare. You're learning about the plays of Shakespeare, but it's communicated that the traits that were used in Shakespeare's style of writing are the rules that dictate how books are written, and if you don't follow them, you're wrong. Right off the bat, you should see some red flags with this. "But what about Earnest Hemingway? He breaks the rules here, does that mean he's not a real author?" "Yes. He broke the rules, so he doesn't write real books." This is about how music theory is approached by many teachers. If you see this, and understand that this is not what music theory is supposed to be, you'll see why almost all arguments against it fall apart really hard. So what is music theory? Music theory IS a form of analysis. It is a way to listen and analyze music and understand what's going on. It's a way to learn music, and a way to communicate music. Music theory IS NOT a bunch of "rules" that tell you how to write music. It IS NOT a way for classical musicians to point at things they don't like and say "this is worthless." If it is used that way, it's used very wrong. Music theory IS a way to compare styles of music to see what is similar and different, and be able to understand what makes an unfamiliar style of music relatable to styles you are familiar with. Music theory IS NOT tied to or directly related to sheet music. If you don't read sheet music, you are no less of a musician. Theory actually doesn't have much to do with notation on a fundamental level. You know how I mentioned I used to teach guitar classes to high school kids? When I taught guitar classes, I taught theory. But I didn't say "we're learning music theory today, here are the rules." It really was more like this: Let's listen to this Johnny Cash song. Let's learn it, do this now. Alright, how is it similar to <song we learned last week>? These chords here, are they the same as <other song>? Yes. This is called a 12-bar blues progression. Let's look at it. The class learned 25 songs in the next week. Because we had the framework of what a 12-bar blues progression was, and the theory behind it, we went from learning one song a week, chord by chord to 25. We learned 25 songs that used the 12-bar blues progression. This was music theory applied directly to understand music better. We then did a quick lesson on lyric form (the rhyme scheme and whatnot) of most 12-bar blue songs, and I had them write one. There was no lack of creativity here. They could write a song then teach it REALLY easily because everybody had the common language and framework. Further than this, in similar ways, my students could play in all 12 major AND minor keys. They could figure out how to finger chords they didn't know. For example, this chord is an Ab major 7th chord. How do you finger it without looking at a chord chart? They knew what notes were in that chord, and what do do with the strings to get that chord to happen, and then they remembered the fingering. This is what music theory is If you're looking at my description and saying "But you didn't teach music theory." You're wrong. I gave them the same written test that I gave the students I was just teaching theory to. They did just as fine as guitar students as the ones who were specifically theory students. Test scores showed very little deviation when compared. This is how music theory is supposed to be. Music theory is the inner workings of music, and why things sound the way they do. Music theory is the reason I can hear a song I've never heard before, and learn it in a short period of time. Any time you hear a song and go "That's the same chord progression as <different song>" you're using theory. If you write music AT ALL, you're using music theory. You may not think that's what you're doing, but that's what you're doing. If you know that *this chord* followed by *this chord* sounds good, but don't know what those chords are called, you're still using theory. If you know that writing a song using the form "Intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus" makes your song make sense, you're using theory. All musicians who produce music are using theory whether they know it or not. The advantage of knowing theory is that you can talk about music in a consistent way and help others understand either the music you write, or the music you like. If you hear something I write, and really like it, I can tell you EXACTLY what I did to create that sound and where I got that chord progression/texture from, so you can learn more about it. You know how I mentioned that I have degrees in composition? I have a degree in composition, and am almost done with another one. I took 14 theory classes in my undergrad. The same 4 intro classes, and 10 specialized classes (such as jazz theory, 20th century analysis, 18th century counterpoint, and electronic music). In all of these classes, the professor (a composer) would ALWAYS have us listen to the piece before doing any theoretical analysis on it. It didn't matter if it were by Bach from 1730, or if it were by Charlie Parker in 1950. We listened to it and thought about how it was similar and different to what we knew. The analysis ALWAYS fit what the music was doing. If we were analyzing a Bach chorale, we looked at it using the style tendencies and traits that defined that style. If we were analyzing a Charlie Parker tune, we looked at it using the style tendencies and traits that defined that style. We didn't do this with one set of rules and traits for both styles, unless they were similar enough where we could do that and actually make sense of that. As a composition student in lessons, if I wrote a piece in the style of Glenn Miller and his big band, we would look through Glenn Miller sheet music and listen to the charts to find out "Why does it sound the way it does, and what can you do to get that kind of sound in your pieces?" If I wrote a piece in the style of modern, 20th century classical music, we would analyze pieces of classical music from the 20th century and find out why they worked. Then, when writing a piece, I could express myself in that style. The argument that music theory destroys your creativity is valid only if you're viewing music theory as a set of rules that you have to follow. If you view any creative adventure like that, your creativity will be stifled. However, if you view it as a series of tendencies and style traits that make music sound the way it does, it frees you to write in any style you want, authentically, and express yourself. As a composer, I write a lot of music that blends jazz, fusion, and classical. I write things I'm proud of and think are pretty creative. But they are that way because I know how to look at music I like and take things from it and use them to express myself. THIS IS THE WAY MUSIC THEORY SHOULD BE TAUGHT AND USED. THIS IS WHAT MUSIC THEORY IS AND WHAT IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE USED FOR. One little side note If you're using your knowledge of theory to say that somebody else is not a real musician, or they don't know what they're doing, or that music has rules, shame on you. You're giving formally trained musicians a bad name. Alternatively, if you are one of those people who brags about not knowing theory and tries to flex on the people who say you need to know theory, you're as big of an ass as they are. I hope that my little essay here has helped you understand a new perspective on music theory and why I feel the argument against it is not particularly valid in most cases.

SO For the most part, find out what you like. Go on a soul searching adventure to find out what you like, and why. A friend of mine was active at OCR, and several other communities as a metal guitarist. More recently, he learned that while he was okay with metal, he really loved and wanted to do other things - jazz, gospel, blues, classical, etc, but felt before this point that he had to play FOR other people. Find out what kind of music you like and why you like it so you can put yourself into what you produce. If you are making something because you think other people will like it, it will be hard to put yourself into it and the result may not be something you're proud of. Once you have an idea what you want to do, really dig into what makes that thing sound the way it does. If it's rock, is it a certain guitar tone? Is it a type of drum groove? If it's classical, is it a type of orchestration, is it a type of chord voicing? Etc. Once you find out what you like, really dig into it and find out what makes it tick so you can create things in that style authentically and effectively. Create, A LOT. Start a remix, and challenge yourself to finish it regardless of whether it's good or not. If you produce a finished thing, and it's bad, you can quickly find out what is good or bad about it, then start a new one. Use what you learned, avoid some mistakes, etc. Create as much as you can. You really won't make the same mistakes over and over again, right? Experiment with new things, find out if they speak to you. An important thing to note about that last point, it's easy to get caught in this insecurity of thinking that what you produce isn't good or people won't like it, then hide it, or not finish anything. Nothing will ever get better that way. Join the community. The forums are nice, but a lot of conversation and activity happens on the discord server, link at the top of the page. This is what I have off the top of my head.

Well Since I do literally everything in notation first, THEN record, I actually should have sheets for everything I've ever done. Just looking through old files, I have these scores: Metroid Title Screen is Cazador De Recompensas Underwater is Reflecting Pool (to be posted soon) As Blew the Winds So Forward Marched Time - Full Score.pdf Metroid Title Screen - Full Score.pdf Underwater (Horns) Double - Full Score.pdf

I saw it on a date with my wife a few days ago. I thought it was very good. Enjoyed it from start to finish and would highly recommend to people.

I have a lot of music I need to write over the next few months. None of it is NDA (most of it is for my entry portfolio for a doctorate program), so I can be completely open with it. If I were to livestream composition on twitch, what kind of format would you enjoy to watch? Just dry composition, or what?

Wait, so Renaissance modes are basically quite similar to modern modes, just following counterpoint rules from the period? I thought they were more similar to the ancient Greek modes.

I was mainly approaching from a performance practice standpoint and how to apply it appropriately in the writing process. I am going to read through this Treatise you have presented here, because I am quite interested in learning about Renaissance modes, and possibly applying them to modern music.

You know what, now that you put it this way, that really seems to be it, now doesn't it?

The identity thing is one I actually hadn't even considered, but now that you bring it up, I definitely think that is a big factor. I actually realize that I did the same thing with both the playstation and xbox, and also different games and series. My first jrpg was Tales of Symphonia, and turn based games really didn't appeal to me after that. This was 2004 and it has taken me until this year (2 months ago) to actually start playing Final Fantasy, and that's because I actually played Tangledeep first. But I think that was because the people who played those games were people I didn't want to be around, so I did make the association. You've given me a lot to think about.

For the most part, any good DAW will be good for this, provided it has the right features. Apple Logic, REAPER, and Cubase are all used to varying degrees. It's also dependent on how many mics you're using, what your interface/console options are, etc. If you're wanting to use a spot mic on every section, a decca tree, and hall mics, you're using something like 19-20 mics minimum. If all you have is an interface with 2 inputs, it isn't going to work. Alternatively, if you have the most awesome 64 input console ever, but only 2 mics, that obviously won't work. Even more, the amount of mics/inputs you have is completely irrelevant if you don't have a good connection. A lot of larger interfaces with more inputs use firewire connection, and some use other specialized connections. Most DAWs that are worth anything have the capability to process/record from many different inputs at the same time, provided everything on the input side of things is configured correctly. I get a lot of hate when I say this in certain circles, but Protools (we affectionately call it proodles) is the industry standard BECAUSE it's the industry standard. For the most part, there's this huge complex around "GOTTA USE THE INDUSTRY STANDARD OR YOU AIN'T KNOW CRAP ABOUT WHAT YOU'RE DOING." This is wrong. Even more so, the sentiment continues to Logic, Cubase, etc. If it functions well and does what you want it to do, it works. Reaper is a perfectly functional DAW for what you want to do for $60. Logic is cheaper than it's ever been, but still highly functional.

You're really asking about an area that people actually get degrees in. Early music is basically the study of performance, theory, and history of the early classical period and before, usually about 1775 and earlier. Is a thesis on the subject. A treatise on the subject is not likely to exist. For the most part, instrumental training of the period required a master teacher to teach their students using their own methods, many of which either didn't survive or didn't age well. Composers also didn't really document these things until the end of the Baroque period, in that area of music that could just be called "18th century." The divide between classical and baroque at 1750 really doesn't make much sense, especially if you're trying to find stylistic information to inform your writing in the idiom. Rameau wrote a treatise on music theory, but that is more theoretical and less performance practice. I did some research, and found that harpsichord methods actually do an okay job of introducing the concepts, although a lot of it isn't really clear unless you have somebody familiar with the style going through it with you. You're going to have to look at it through the lens of a performer, and really try to dig in to the performance aspect of it before you try to apply it as an arranger.

It was a very good deal. I only bought 2 more games since then for that console. I sold it to one of my wife's friends this last summer. Wanted her kids to be able to play what she had growing up. So now it is being put to good use.

Lately, there has been a storm of things attacking Ocarina of Time as being a sub-par game entering my view, and I find the different perspectives interesting, and a lot of valid points are made. A lot of these things actually come from a wide time span, from about 2010 to a month ago, but for whatever reason the first time I see them is today. So I am going to offer my opinion on the subject, mainly because my graduate thesis piece on Ocarina of Time is to be released soon. Background in spoiler tags. Critiques are a wonderful aspect of the creative process. As a music composition graduate student, my professor tells me that if nobody hates what you do, it's because it's bland and uninteresting. If you have anything of value, somebody somewhere will hate it. So I see things I like in the same light. However, the intent of critique seems to carry a lot more weight because of this. More times than not, the intent is a lot more clear than the author may have thought. Most of the recent criticisms of Ocarina of Time seem to come from a place of "let's knock this game off its pedestal because it is only good because nostalgia." The reason I have a problem with critiques that come the place of dethroning is that they critique aspects of the gameplay and story much more harshly than they do for other games. In the example of story, one such critique praised Wind Waker, Link to the Past, and Zelda 1 for their stories, but attacked Ocarina of time for being uninteresting purely for the aspect that the whole story was centered around "go get these things, beat Ganon." The bad part about this is that the games they praised were centered around the exact same concept so the critique fell flat. This kind of critique happens any time somebody doesn't agree with the success of a creative endeavor. A few years ago, a list started circulating of the most overrated jazz artists throughout history, along with reasoning. The two most overrated jazz musicians on this list were Maynard Ferguson and Stan Kenton, with Charles Mingus being 3rd. This really struck me weird, as the reasoning was very shallow. Ferguson was attacked for his "sparkly, overly bright sound." He was a trumpet player who played in the high range. High trumpet is sparkly and bright. You can not like trumpet, but you have to admit that bias if you're going to give the defining aspect of the instrument as the main critique of the artist rather than dancing around it entirely. The same thing happens in critiques of software all the time. A while ago the notation software Sibelius was featured in a video on bad design, and within days there were people who had never touched the program talking about it like they were long time experts on it. It was interesting, because these people I know had never used notation software were suddenly questioning me why I used it, as if they were a mentor suggesting a better alternative. People who had never used notation software were all suddenly popping up with the exact same complaints about the program overnight. (Manifested in discussions about notation software and people trying to convince others away from sibelius because "but the ribbon is bad, and so are the dialogue boxes!") Back to Ocarina of Time, and to a similar extent Majora's Mask, a lot of the critiques really do seem to be trying to say "you only like this game because of nostalgia, and if you didn't have the nostalgia you wouldn't like it, and if you do like it it's because you don't know anything about good games." I will not contest that first part. If you honestly think that Ocarina of Time is viewed like it is without at least some nostalgia, you're wrong. The second point also is somewhat valid. I have known of quite a few people who played it for the first time as adults and didn't like it. Younger people who played it for the first time also don't get it. So you can make the argument that nostalgia fueled the view of the game as a masterpiece. However, if you're going to make that argument, you have to take into account that Link to the Past, Zelda 1, and Wind Waker typically get the same response. Apply to Mario games, Metroid, etc. This is where the argument actually falls apart in most cases. The last point is one I highly object to. I really never have gotten into the idea that people have where "if you like this, it's only because you don't know what good <thing> actually is." I was told that I only like Herp Albert, Weather Report, and video game music because I didn't know what good music is. I am almost done with a master's degree in music composition, have played as a professional session musician for a groups of a lot of genres (pop, rock, country, jazz, Latino, etc). I STILL like Herp Albert, Weather Report, and video game music. But now I know what really good music is, and I can listen to that too. I can listen to the greatest composers of the Classical music canon. I can listen to the greatest jazz artists. I can appreciate the greatest rock artists. I enjoy and appreciate all of those. But I can still listen to the ones I used to listen to. I have played great video games. I still like Ocarina of Time. I still like Majora's Mask. I am a casual gamer. I don't like highly difficult games, and never really have. Difficulty isn't a sole factor in determining a game to be good or not. I am not really interested in playing Cuphead for this reason. I play games mainly for story and progression. Yet, people like me are referred to constantly in these critiques as being "not real gamers." This is the equivalent of being told that "because you play casually, you don't know what a good game is, therefore you are wrong if you like this game." Part of the reason I dislike this kind of critique is largely because the intent drenched in passive aggression. The passive aggressive tone quickly becomes very obvious the more the person giving the critique repeats the phrase "I just don't get it is all." Backing away and looking at the discussion as a whole, it is perfectly clear that there is no intent to understand or try to communicate about it. You can say "I don't like this thing" without having to hide it behind a "I don't get why people like this" if you're not actually going to make an attempt to understand. It is okay to not like things, and it is okay to accept that people like things. It is okay to come out and say that you don't like a thing, and it is okay to justify why you don't like it. On the other hand, it's okay to like things, and it is definitely okay to not attack people for not liking things, which is what got us in this mess in the first place. For the most part, most of these critiques are riddled with people in the comment section that just attack back without actually contributing. "THIS GAME WAS GREAT YOU"RE STUPID" kind of comments. I guess that's just what has been bugging me lately.

First game I bought with my own money was probably Super Metroid. From an ebay auction for a SNES and 16 games. This cost me $100, which I got from allowance from doing a lot of chores for people up and down the street. My family was quite poor, so $100 was a big deal.

A good starting place is: http://vicfirth.com/percussion-101/ It serves to introduce concert percussion, which can help in writing for them. A lot of people venture into orchestral/cinematic style writing, and write really bizarre things for percussion that sound mechanical and unmusical. Understanding how these instruments are actually played helps write for them effectively and improves the humanization of the music. For drum set, there is a spot here: http://vicfirth.com/a-fresh-approach-to-drumset/ Also published by Vic Firth, this is a good starting place to understand drum set. If you have a functional understanding of how drum set is played, you can write and sequence drum parts that don't sound mechanical. Then just a general percussion thing: http://vicfirth.com/education-resource-library/ These places are a solid place to start to understand percussion.

Actually my focus for my master's is recording. The issue is that I'm isolated from campus, so all original composition recording basically falls on me, and I haven't been able to record the stuff yet. BUT I am releasing an original album in the next few months.

So as an orchestral musician and and a brass player myself I really just wait around this forum for people to send orchestral stuff. So this hits both of the areas of things I do. The first thing I notice is that the mixing is actually pretty good, everything is really clear, and it's for the most part orchestrated well. That said, I do have some objections to the use of samples here. It seems like you're using cinebrass (or another similar sounding brass library), which is just fine. Cinebrass is awesome. I think you could do a little bit different job of using the articulations patch. In this case, using 2 layers, an articulation patch, and the legato patch under it. That gives you the sustain and power of the brass, but without the "pretty" articulation that that patch normally has. Let's take a timestamped journey: Beginning - Your use of the Captain Falcon samples throughout are hilarious, in a very good way. Beginning - This brass figure where you're repeating the note over and over, I can tell by listening that the velocities are either very similar or the same and you're just relying on the round robin articulations of the patch. I would suggest using the repeated notes in the strings, and letting the brass just hit accents. This is my orchestral brass player side talking. I have had to play many parts written just like this. They're tiring and really tedious to rehearse, for not much musical reward. I also think that doubling the horns and trumpets in octaves like this would be more effective with just the hits rather than every note. You can hear that this adds some mud to an otherwise clean mix. :21 - I'm listening with headphones now. I think you actually are using the sustain+articulation thing I mentioned, but the sustain is so much quieter than the attack that it just sounds like attack to me, and it ends up doing that car horn, honky kind of sound. Balance out articulation+sustain and it'll work really well. Actually that covers most of the things I'm hearing here.

I have a few non-vgm endeavors. I am currently working on a master's degree in music composition, and planning to continue in a DMA in music composition. As a result I'm doing a lot of composition and arranging of many different non-VGM things. Sadly I don't have that many recordings, especially of things done during the master's degree (I have recordings of undergrad things). The university I go to has absolutely horrible sound recording capabilities and most of the recordings of my pieces are borderline unusable. The performance quality is also iffy for some of them. BUT thanks to the magic of remote session musicians and modern recording technology, I am starting to get recordings this way. If you ever see anything released by the February 33 Jazz Orchestra, note that although it sounds like a hoppin 28 person jazz band, it really is only 6-10 guys that record everything themselves in about 6-10 locations from around the world and mixed.

@Craig Stuart Garfinkle Oh wow You're the real deal! Looking over your blog, this is some killer info!

Are there any tools, like for an emulator, that allow you to replace the music in older games? Say I wanted to rewrite the soundtrack to Ocarina of Time, mainly for the fun of it, and wanted to get together with some friends and play through the game with the new soundtrack. I'm not too bothered about authenticity here, no need to actually program in the original format, as the soundtrack would be more of an original composition AND production project. I don't really have much interest in trying to make a big public deal of it, more for my amusement and that of some friends. After working on How to Save the World in 20 Minutes or Less, I kind of want to expand that into a full soundtrack and play around with it a bit. I could probably contact that guy on youtube that is recreating the game in Unreal (Cryzen?, something like that.). If you know of any way to do this, your input would be appreciated.

Get the hell out of my thread. I have no idea what your problem is or what the hell is wrong with you but I was actually seriously pursuing this idea. If you read my first post, and the discussion that followed, you could see that we were actually seriously discussing this concept, which was much different from the other thread, the point of which you also missed. If somebody is asking a question on a forum, saying "hurr durr just google it noob" doesn't actually do anything. It's 2019. No shit people can google things. I can google "daw based on sheet music" to see if there's anything out there. Do you know what comes up? Not much. Stuff on Reaper's notation feature (which is not a DAW based on sheet music), and other similarly related things that aren't actually helpful to what I am looking for. I'm a professional musician (studio musician) with a degree in music composition. I am most comfortable working with music notation. A DAW based on notation would save me a lot of time by cutting out the middleman of having to use a notation software and a DAW. Somebody asking for a DAW based on notation probably knows how to read sheet music. Do you know what is helpful? @Dextastic mentioning Overture 5, which most of us had never heard of, and which seems to fit the bill closer than anything else. Asking a question on a forum brings a human element that interprets the question and answers in ways that google just simply doesn't. Do you know what wasn't helpful? You, at all. "Please use google if you want to use a DAW based on sheet music instead of a piano roll. It is too complicated to explain here, of all places. " I fail to see the relevance of this to the original thread. Nowhere ANYWHERE did the OP ask about a daw based around sheet music. I saw this comment and was curious if it existed so I started a new thread (see how the topic was different so I started a new thread?). Keep your bulllshit away from these discussions.

I am currently working on my master's degree in jazz composition. My degree is a research based degree, in addition to being composition. My thesis material (and material for the classes) is mainly in the area of audio production. While mulling over a topic, I realized that there is not a lot of academic literature on modern audio production, and most of what I could find is far too technical to be practical for those outside of the target audience (sound engineers people working in the development side of audio). I also found that resources on the internet for audio production are really heavily saturated. However, a lot of these are very obviously geared toward pop and rock music. You can find thousands upon thousands of pages with more detail than you ever could want on how to record and mix vocals, guitars, drums, and bass. The amount of unique material I could find on how to record brass, woodwind and stringed instruments was much less, and usually went into much less detail. Beyond that, these were shoved into the rock or pop genre as well. For example, almost all brass recording information I could find is essentially variations on how to record a pop horn (trumpet+trombone+sax) section. So I aimed to take a stab at both. I started to compile sources and open dialogues with professional composers and engineers to make an intro guide to audio production aimed at young composers. While it is a compilation of basic techniques and tools used to produce audio, it is also a brief look at the standards placed upon composers in this area by clients in soundtrack work and also by publishers. My actual thesis, the big paper to graduate is a development document for an album of original music. I have composed all the music for this album, and will be recording and producing it with the guidance of several mix engineers, and documenting the whole process. If you are an experienced composer or audio producer, I would love to have your input. I have a short, 6 question survey to answer, that can then lead to further discussion. Please email me at johnstacy@johnstacy.net if you are interested in contributing to my research!

Actually Overture 5 looks pretty awesome. Very clean interface. I wonder if it has a number pad entry like Sib does If so I would totally consider switching over because I don't like dealing with AVID.

I'm not actually looking for anything. I'm really happy with what I have (Write everything in Sibelius then record on live instruments in REAPER). This was a thought experiment to see if anything like this existed. Right, for mockups, I'm actually pretty satisfied with noteperformer and kind of wish there was more versatility there. For example, a cinematic orchestral mockup in noteperformer sounds pretty neat. A jazz big band mockup sounds laughably white bread. If I were to move over to samples for mockups I would have a hard time anyway because jazz samples aren't that great. How's Cubase? Reaper's is decent but seems to be aimed at output rather than input. It would. The point isn't to not use midi, the point is that there are quite a few people who aren't really that thrilled with using piano roll, and for the most part do all their writing in notation. Like...piano roll makes my blood boil because it's really clunky. All notation software works through midi, just with an interface that is much more friendly to people who have used notation their whole lives. It's kind of like somebody who is proficient at a professional level on a wind instrument using a piano that they are much less than mediocre at. DAWs are built around midi instruments, which are based on piano. This is fine, that's how they're designed. But if I could use my primary instrument for entering midi, good lord would my productivity skyrocket.