Notion on iPad Tips

Notion for iOS – $14.99

Well this weekend I decided to create four keyboard parts for my electronic group. I also decided that I was going to use Notion on my iPad to do that. I’ve come up with a few tips for you….

I worked WAY better in “Continuous View” which is strange because I kind of hate that view in Sibelius on a laptop.

Part of learning if an app will work for you is to force yourself to just sit down and USE it exclusively! Don’t allow your self to go back to whatever you HAVE been using. Just bite the bullet and use the new app. It’s going to be frustrating but the more you have to dig for answers, the faster you will become better at it!

When Entering Notes…

1. Use the record feature if you can play the part from an external keyboard. It’s pretty darn accurate!
   1. turn off tuplets if you don’t need them though!
   2. Set your split point if working with a grand staff.
   3. Really think about the Multi-Voice – try it both ways. Sometimes I thought having this on would work better and as it turned out it was actually worse!)
2. Learn what each mode does fro entering notes –
   1. The two quarter notes besides each other allows for entry of one note at a time
   2. The chords allow for entering of more than one note
   3. The Pencil one allows you to step entry
   4. the speaker icon allows you to hear the selected note
   5. Learn where the Voice One and Voice Two options are in the fifth menu over from the left
      1. Voice One has a solid note on top of an outlined note
      2. Voice Two has an outlined note on top of a solid note
      3. Of course if you are entering drum parts there are four voice choices right there to the left of the drum pads.

When selecting many measures at a time to copy and paste into another part…

1. To grab the little blue handle you have to tap and wait a moment THEN drag!
2. You HAVE to let go of the blue handle to move the screen over – you CANNOT drag the handles and expect the screen to scroll at the same time.
3. After moving the screen over wait for it to stop moving BEFORE grabbing the blue handle again. Then tap, wait a moment and drag your selection out further.
4. When the entire passage is selected make sure to select the option you need (Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete, Clear etc…) BEFORE moving the screen back! Otherwise you are going to end up repeating this entire process AGAIN!

Rehearsal Marks….

1. Add all rehearsal marks at the same time – just makes it easier then jumping back and forth between tools.
2. Make sure the spot where you want to insert the rehearsal mark is actually green. If you just selected a note and turned it orange then the rehearsal is NOT going to go there! (See note below about dynamics and this tip)
   1. In fact you can NOT even have the entire measure selected to insert a rehearsal mark (IF you want it to show up in the spot you THINK it should! Which is usually at the start of a measure by the way PreSonus!)
3. Good grief I wish there was a way to have those rehearsal marks be the measure number by default!

Dynamics….

1. Add all your dynamics at the same time – just makes it easier then jumping back and forth between tools.
2. When inserting dynamics the spot you want the dynamic to be inserted can be Green OR Orange either one unlike when dealing with Rehearsals marks as noted above!

Hairpins (Crescendo/Decrescendo)….

1. Yeah…. can’t find them? Select a measure and you will! Pretty slick eh?
2. Oh…. Notion determines if you should ACTUALLY be putting a hairpin in the spot you want to…
   1. For instance you will NOT be able to add a decrescendo in a piano part underneath a whole note.

Page Layout and Printing….

1. Adding different types of titles, credits, page numbers DOES NOT WORK SMOOTHLY so be warned that you are going to have to dink around with this a BUNCH before you get all the text on your page the way it should be. It’s almost as if overtime you add a new one and the iPad AUTOMATICALLY picks a meta type, that if you already had one of those in there (and you usually do) that things get switched all around. BE PATIENT and for goodness sakes I hope PreSonus reads this blog post and gets to work fixing this issue! (I’m sure they already a fix in action!)
2. Please oh please add a title for pages 2, 3, 4 on to the end of the piece!
   1. There are quite a few pre-set Text types you can choose from
      1. Title, Subtitle, Credit, Dedication, Copyright, Date, Page Number, Part Name, or on iPad the type of None
3. Please add the Part Name to each part you print.
4. When changing Page Layout margins make sure you change the size of the margins and then hit the BACK button or else the changes will NOT take place! (Drives me NUTS! I want to change the margins and then just tap out of there back into the score.)
5. Play around with the notation size and margins until you get just the right look for you parts BEFORE you print them! SAVE A TREE!

Score and Part Printing….

1. There isn’t a piano reduction tool in Notion yet so don’t bother looking for it!
2. There isn’t a way to print just two or three of the parts into a condensed score so if you want to do that you will have to have multiple files. One would be the full score and another would contain just the parts you want. (Again, hopefully PreSonus already is fixing this issue and expanding the capabilities of Notion!)

Saving and Sharing….

1. The new options under the sharing menu just simply rock now! (THANKS PRESONUS!)
2. You can now Send As a …. Notion File, PDF, PDF Parts, MusicXML, WAV, AAC, MIDI
3. You can now Save to your Device or to iCloud (Choose this – it’s magic!)
4. You can upload to SoundCloud
5. You can Email (and all those different types mentioned in #2 above are choices when you email it!)
6. or you can Print it

 

If you have some tips for using Notion on iPad I’d love to add them to my list here!