PreSonus has been hard at work coming up with ways to make our lives easier as musicians! This is NOT an easy feat to accomplish!
Back in October Notion Mobile was released as a FREE – CROSS PLATFORM music notation tool! Now…. I KNOW I am a bit behind but life has hit hard these past few months! At the same time as Notion Mobile released my family started a journey that eventually led to loosing three family members. So now they are all laid to rest and I am on Christmas Vacation!
So let’s talk about this new app. Yes I did indeed say new app. On iOS if you update you will in fact loose access to the previous version of Notion for iPad so please make sure you have backed up all your scores, make sure you have read and researched and make sure you are actually ready to update. Never update ANY music app or computing device that you are relying on whilst in the middle of critical performances/projects.
On my Mac I actually have both Notion 6 and Notion Mobile ruining at the same time and may MacBook has not blown up so….
I will also be up front and clear in the fact that on my iPad I am running the iOS16 beta while my MacBook is still on Montery 12.4. All that to say that I am also on the beta testing group for Notion Mobile. I know there have been a bunch of updates for the beta app and am not totally sure what all has been released to the public.
GET ON WITH IT:
Go download the app (FOR FREE – did I mention that?)! Here is what you get….
“Notion Mobile provides unlimited staves and full editing features, as well as an intuitive interactive piano keyboard, guitar fretboard and drum pad for fast, convenient entry of pitches, drum parts and guitar fingerings. A chord library makes it easy to enter chord names and voicings. Play in parts, tap them in or use optional handwriting recognition, which now works on a phone as well as a tablet or computer. The customizable user interface enables users to adjust the size of the icons, show a dark or light score area, place the note palette on the right or left side, increase the width of the piano keyboard keys and more. A palette of articulations, expressions, and dynamics can be used to add realism and the multi-track mixer allows users to create the perfect balance between instruments.”
So currently you have several major players for Music Notation on iOS that allow you to start for free!
- Notion Mobile – Allows unlimited staves for free.
- Sibelius for Mobile – Allows four staves for free
- Dorico for iPad – Free for 2 players but with registering you are given up to four players.
Now with each company there are upgrade options but this year has been a great year for music notation on iPad! There is really absolutely no reason for people to NOT get busy exploring and creating!
WHICH IS BEST?
That is really not the topic of this blog post but it does need exploring just a little bit here and I think I will simply give you a bit of advice as to some critical elements for each of these three that I have found which may help your decisions.
First – Sibelius for iPad- for my use I absolutely need to be able to transfer XML files between the music notation apps that I use. Sibelius for iPad now actually does support IMPORT of XML files but NOT export! Now… if you have the subscription upgrade that also gives you desktop Sibelius then you simply do whatever work you want on your iPad, transfer it to desktop and export there. BUT that is not a step I am always wanting to do.
Second – Dorico for iPad – holy smokes this app does it all. Super powerful and the iPad version is almost the same as the desktop version. But in order for me to get super fast with the iPad app I feel this app relies on having and external keyboard and mouse. So, if you are a person with a smart folio – you are set. I am not. That means I get frustrated when I don’t have my bluetooth Logitech keyboard and the bluetooth track pad. Absolutely do not NEED them but in my head I know I could be working faster and that drives me nuts!
Third – Notion Mobile – years ago I jumped ship from my then music notation app of choice to Notion. I mean, I went hardcore! I didn’t have a choice because I had upgraded my MacBook and lost access to that other app. Plus at the time Notion was the only option for a music notation app with both a desktop version as well as an iPad app. It took me awhile…. it was DIFFERENT…. I kept on longing for THE OLD WAY in that other app. But soon I discovered how to use Notion AND I found out that I liked it! It was fast, efficient and I was amazed at the solid sync my iPad and MacBook platforms had via iCloud. I think many users using this new Notion Mobile are in the same boat as I was back then….. Notion Mobile is DIFFERENT… things are in different spots and there are new ways to accomplish what we need to get done.
SO LET’S GET ON WITH IT
So this version of Notion is called Notion Mobile because we finally have an app that runs on a TON of different platforms – iPad, iPhone, Mac, Windows and then let’s keep going here…. How about an Amazon Fire Tablet or on Chrome OS and yes… even Android! Start on one device and switch to the next without even blinking an eye! But the app adapts to whichever device it is running on so you get an interface that works for whatever size of screen you are using! Currently I have NOT been able to test this out on a school Chromebook but if anyone else has please let me know in the comments how it is working!
Things get really fun when you realize that by joining PreSonus Sphere you can use Notion files inside of PreSonus Studio One DAW! Or start the other way around, start sequencing tracks inside Studio One and then instead of using the ‘standard ol’ MIDI piano roll editor that comes standard with about any DAW, you actually can pull up the Score editor to edit those tracks with standard music notation. But the thing is that what you are seeing is actually Notion running INSIDE of Studio One. This brings to fruition what has been an very long search for me…. sequencing with editing capabilities in BOTH MIDI Piano roll AND Music Notation! Which then also allows you to print quality looking sheet music for your musicians. This integration demands a Blog Post all it’s own though! Also this is not a part of the free version of Notion Mobile.
Another part of what is not included free is the hand writing and the extended sound set. Those are a part of the Feature Bundle for $14.99.
I will say that the sounds you are given for free are outstanding and are one of the reasons I switched to Notion when I did. I have been able to use Notion on Desktop in place of having an entire string section for several performances! These sounds have been recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra – let me tell you what… they are NOT just some general MIDI playback sort of sounds!
By the way, you will want to go in and download these sound sets right away upon starting use of Notion – what ever version you are using – iPad, iPhone, Desktop or whatever. It’s very confusing when you add a Flute part to your score and you instead hear a piano.
YOUR FIRST SCORE
So one of the new methods of working is the way in which you create a new score. Now I can hit the create button, type in my score title and then select and entire array of parts for my score to be created with. In one fell swoop I can quickly create a score for an entire band! In the past it took SO much longer! In the screenshot to the right you can see I have five instruments selected and as soon as I hit that Add button I will have a score with all five instruments in it!
Once I get into the score there are so many ways in which to start entering notes. I can start tapping them in with my finger. Now this is a great time to mention that Notion Mobile is freaky great at figuring out where you are tapping too! Whether it be to enter notes, to erase items, or to tap in the score to start a new verse of lyrics. Notion Mobile is really good at figuring out what you want it to do!
To enter notes there are also methods that allow the use of an on screen keyboard. Or how about using the fretboard? Wait…. you are working on drum parts? No problem Notion has had a wonderful way to deal with drum notation entry. Using their drum pads to enter drum notation has been one of the fastest ways to get my drum parts into the score ever! I used to HATE drum parts…. now I only mildly detest them. I mean, let’s be honest…. they need specific ingredients to make them work right!
You can of course enter using your stylus as well. When using your Apple Pencil, or other stylus, you can change the length of time before Notion will recognize what you wrote and change it into digital notation. Another nifty feature is the ability to double tap your Apple Pencil to set into motion that recognition! Also new with handwriting is that it works now even on iPhone!
A note about Hand-Writing… Some people kind of talk down at making use of Hand-Writing music notation and simply say that it is a slower option. I would like to argue the other side of that and state rather emphatically that I LOVE to use handwritten music notation when I am in my rehearsals and working with students on music theory concepts. It is SO MUCH easier to use my Apple Pencil and simply handwrite what ever concept we are working on instead of trying to tap, click and drag through menus to get the notes on the screen. And I am here to tell you that when you are standing in a room full of middle school students every second saved is worth it! Those little buggers WILL find a way to fill the time if you don’t keep them engaged!
But wait… I should also mention the ability to adjust the tool set which at first shows up on the left side of the screen. I always like finding out what capabilities are hidden below the surface which help me work faster. If you tap on the three stacked dots on the top right side of the screen you will find an all important Options Menu. In this menu you have several different color schemes – helps with visibility and just plain looking cool. Then you see the choices to move the tool palette to the right side of the screen and to have an Extended Palette or to have a small UI! How cool are these options! I prefer to have the tools on the left and to leave the Tool Palette Extended because I am usually working with my 12.9″ screen size. For those times when that palette is not extended there is a sweet little tap, hold and drag option to get to more tool options and to help you select your choices faster!
I also like the new abilities to tap on an existing note in the score and drag that note up and down – at which time you will see some crosshairs show up so you can actually see where you are dragging the note to (Yes this is a big problem when you have big fingers like me!) You are now also able to add flats, sharps and naturals by dragging your finger to the left or right!
When you start working with the new selection tool you will notice immediately that this has new functionality compared to the old version. You get the ability to drag to select, Tap to select and can even select only some of the items in any given measure. So tap and drag to select for instance on the top notes in those chords! When you do select items like for instance all the notes you get a pop up menu that allows you to cut, copy, paste and duplicate items then you can also transpose the notes or if you select the three sideways dots (the same as the little context menu icon under the pencil tool in the Extended UI) you get an entire menu of options that changes depending on the context of the selection! A number of dialogs from the previous versions have been rolled into this adaptive context menu making things simpler to find – although it may take you a minute to discover the new places for the options you are looking for!
As you can see in my amazing composition in the screenshot up above…. Entering lyrics is pretty amazing. You can enter any number of verses for instance by simply entering verse one, then tapping underneath to enter verse 2. Notion Mobile automagically spreads everything out and aligns the lyrics with the melody! It’s kind of amazing to see!
EDITING OF SCORES – Notable Improvements
In my editing of scores that I am usually working on there are usually some common edits that I have to make across several staves at once. Like for instance – adding dynamics…. In the past I had to tap in a dynamic marking on each individual staff but now if I select all the staves I simply tap on the dynamic marking once and it goes into all staves at once! Same with crescendo/decrescendo markings! Another nifty feature now is if I have a crescendo in five different staves and I wish to extend that crescendo then I can simply select all of them at once, then drag the handle out on one crescendo and Notion Mobile is now smart enough to understand I want ALL of them longer! These are the sort of time saving improvements that make our lives easier!
Improvements have been made as to how you can copy and paste selections as well. Paste Reflow paste selection into new a rhythmic position in the bar, and Notion will re-spell durations over barlines! Check it out below. Super cool!
You can now select a passage and drag it up or down to transpose that selection super fast! In fact when you select a portion of music that has chords you can now select just the highest or lowest notes and do things like drag to transpose! Once a section is selected you can quickly change the duration of all those notes by simply tapping a new rhythmic value in the menu. Only problem here is that if you change the notes values to something that creates more counts than what should be in a measure then in order to re-flow that rhythm properly you need to Cut those notes then turn around and Paste them right back in and Notion will reflow the notes over multiple measure to make it rhythmically accurate. An extra step but quickly accomplished.
Drum Notation Editing improvement are just bloody spectacular – once again speeding up the entry of any drum part and actually making me want to create drum parts just to play around with the new capabilities! If you take a look at the screen shot below you can see that I have pretty much spilled the entire proverbial salt shaker and gone overboard with what is in this drum part. The fun part is all of those special technique markings were mostly achieved by simply selecting the rhythm, then tapping/holding/dragging my finger to get different drum techniques! You can see where the blue cross hairs are that it currently says Hi Hat half-open but if I were to drag my finger left to right I would end up with different types of Hi-Hat techniques and all of them are already setup with different note heads and such! Adding the rolls are as easy as selecting the roll type from the contextual menu and tapping away. Same with the accents and dynamics. All of which makes entering the drum parts a breeze. Oh…. but let’s NOT forget the fact that I can never remember if the bass drum parts are supposed to be Voice 1 or 2 but switching voices after the fact is super easy!
One more important note here about Drum Notation is that when using hand-writing to do the percussion parts Notion Mobile will automatically change things for you like for instance voices and notepad types!
EXPORTING AND SHARING AND SAVING
Now that you have your glorious masterpiece entered into Notion it is time to go perform it! Notion Mobile now has more ways in which you can make use of your score. You can of course print or share as PDF’s – nothing new there. Music XML is of course supported as is MIDI. But if you take a look at this screenshot you will see that now there are more audio formats supported then ever before! Wave, FLAC, M4A, Opus and MP3! And of course since Notion uses such amazing sounds you will get the same sort of comments I always get – “That sounds amazing!”
Another new option is the ability to Transmit your files to another app or device on your local network that is compatible. So in this screenshot you see that my iPad has picked up my MacBook that is running Studio One and I can transmit it with ease!
I will have to say that when I use Notion Mobile on my MacBook it appears to be storing files in a very buried location inside my hard drive where even I am not sure where the heck it is! I’m a pretty tech savvy user too! I mean it’s not a total issue – I can simply open Notion Mobile and there is my document in the Recents List but come on PreSonus – why this choice to bury it someplace? Maybe someone can explain this to me? On my iPad things are fairly straight forward there
AREAS TO IMPROVE
This new version I feel is quite the improvement over the last. There has been quite a long time since the last major revision of Notion. That is because the old version worked pretty stinking well! It had its drawbacks but was fast, efficient and worked well enough to take care of most everybody’s needs to get music notation into a computer and out to others to share in one manner or another. I feel they had not made that bump up to the next level for so long simply because of this fact. Notion was great – mind you not perfect but it was great!
With the new version there has been some issues with bugs – like for instance if you are currently on an iPad and working without an external BlueTooth keyboard there isn’t a way to select an entire part quickly. You have to drag from measure one to the end. Now if you have an external BT Keyboard available you can click in the first measure then simply type Shift, Command + A and then you now have the Entire Part Selected. Another bug that was driving me crazy was the ability to transpose AND change key signature all at once was not working. This issue is now fixed – thank goodness! PreSonus is working hard to iron out the wrinkles quickly though!
Just be sure you are ready to set aside a little bit of time to figure out the new ways of this new version if you are a veteran Notion user!
There are some other areas I’d love to see improved like in the mixer and onscreen keyboard – I’d LOVE to be able to drag that top of the mixer up to make it taller. I’d also love to be able to record automation from inside of the mixer just like I can do in most any DAW on my iPad. You are now able to change the width of the keys but I’d also like to be able to change the height.
I’d also love to be able to use other iPad apps as the sound sources for my music notation. Audio Units could make this a breeze.
I’d also love to see a way for me to remember what those Cut/Copy/Paste/Duplicate icons mean as it seems I am ALWAYS forgetting. Plus I do believe there is a bug in working with those icons as they do not always seem to work (Also another possible improvement would be for there to be SOME sort of indication that I have actually successfully tapped one of those icons!) If the tapping of those icons do not work then a quick visit to the Contextual Menu saves the workflow everytime.
TO WRAP UP
I do believe that some of the first words out of my mouth after trying the new version of this Notion Mobile were “By golly, they have actually made this app EASIER to use! I didn’t think that was possible!”
So…. if you are curious… go download it and start playing around with it! Use it in conjunction with some MIDI files or some XML files. In fact…. if you are a band teacher I’d Strongly suggest the use of a Sheet Music Scanning app, exporting the result as XML, and editing the result in Notion Mobile! It’s a time saver! As a piano major I used to use my MIDI keyboard and record my music notation projects in real time. That is no longer the fastest way – snap a picture of the sheet music I need to alter, use music OCR, XML into Notion and boom….
Ok… well you get the idea! Now, go use those amazing sounds and get creative!
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