Notion3 Review: Music Notation and Songwriter Software

This is my personal review of Notion3 software. I will divide the review according to the following criteria:

a.) Ease of installation
b.) Sound library
c.) Music creation process user interface
d.) Audio mixing features
e.) Print out
f.) Export quality
g.) Recommended usage

Ease of installation

The installation process starts with double clicking the exe file (also known as the installer). The rest of the installation process is easy to follow. After installing Notion, you need to check if you are using the correct audio samples folder for your entire musical instruments library sound.

You need to go to File – Preferences – Audio, and the samples folder path will be shown. For example: D:Program FilesNOTION MusicNOTION 3SoundsBundled. The “Bundled” folder should contain all instruments library sound that you can use for your compositions and musical interpretations. For example, this is the content of my “Bundled” folder with different musical instruments category in the library:

So if I click on the “Strings” folder, it should contain the string instruments that you can use for your classical compositions. For example, violin/cello/viola/etc; see screenshot below:

I heard some installation issues particularly from some friends who are music majors. They encounter some issues integrating the bundled/samples of instruments to Notion3. Probably this will be fixed or well documented in the latest build.

Installation rating: 4/5

Sound library

One advantage is that Notion3 set of instruments included in the library is thorough. It seems that Notion3 works best for both classical music composers and contemporary musicians/songwriters in ballad/pop genre. The following are the complete set of samples they are offering:

You can download the entire sound library here (more than 10GB).

Sound library rating: 5/5

User interface assessment for writing music

This is the heart of Notion3. To write music using Notion3, you first need to launch the program. You will be presented with a lot of options on how to start writing music. This can be from a new/blank music score, full or chamber orchestra, jazz combo, rock band, etc. See screenshot below:

Supposing I’m a classical musician and would like to start everything from scratch; I would select “New Score”. I’m then presented with the following options below:

When I see “Exit score setup“, this implies that I’m still setting up my score. Well it’s not confusing at all since a music score should consist of several instruments and I need to select one to start with. Supposing I will select “Strings” — > “Violin 1 (section)”; for the first time, I would see the musical staff such as shown below:

Supposing I’m now ready to write music, I then click “Exit score setup”. This would take me to a completely blank musical score ready to be inputted with notes. Before writing the composition, I would start by writing my name as composer as well as the title and date of the piece. I try double clicking the composer and title field and it accepts text input. So far, so good. Finally, I will enter the musical notes; my instinct (without reading any manuals) is to mouse over the toolbar to select the musical notes.

I then select a quarter notes and then drag it to the musical staff. Alas! The notes are then embedded to the staff. To play them, simply rewind it first (to move to the first measure) and then hit play button.

To select the final notes or pitch, I hold the notes and drag it from staff lines; very simple to use. To remove the notes or cancel it, I simply press ESC and then clear the notes. Good job for Notion 3 developers for this simple user interface.

I manage to compose up to one measure with the score title and my composer name such as shown below:

The user interface is packed with common sense it is because I’m able to write down some notes for my composition without looking at the manuals or consulting in the user forums. You can also add lyrics to the music.

User interface rating: 5/5

Audio Mixing features

This type of software includes a fully functional audio mixer that allows you assign effects such as reverb, EQ, etc that will bring utmost clarity of your musical compositions. To start using this feature, simply click “Mixer” and you will see this:

Learning how to use this mixer as well as applying effect plug-ins is a completely new topic that is outside of this review. I suggest you will read the following tutorials for more details:

Notion3 Mixer Console Guide
Install VST Plugin in Notion 3

It fully supports VST plug-in but I have not read any support for Direct X. The good thing is that it has a default set of plug-ins such as reverb that would be very useful for most orchestra compositions. I suggest you will read my mixer tutorial (link above) to learn more about the techniques on how to use this feature. The mixer console for Notion3 is powerful enough to shape your composition to professional sounding quality.

And then there is a Rewire integration that would allow this software to communicate with other DAW or audio editing software. With this option, you can send tracks to other software for mixing, post-processing.

Mixer console rating: 5/5

Music sheets printout

The printout quality is great. As long as you have printers installed, you won’t have any issues printing your music sheet. Take a look at this example printed music score by Notion3.

This is created using CutePDF driver installed first on your system.. I recommend this open source PDF creator when printing music sheets to Acrobat reader format.

Most students might print the music sheets to PDF. To install, simply go the CutePDF site and click the free download link to install that to your computer. It will require PS2PDF converter (GhostScript) somewhere in the installation process. Simply download that also and proceed to install.

Print out quality: 5/5

Audio Export quality

Finally after completing your compositions or transcribing music in Notion, you can export the audio by going to File – Export Audio. The output audio is a 16-bit, 44.1 KHz wave file. In a more recent build/release, it allows you to export to 24-bits resolution which is appropriate for post-production work such as mastering.

It even allows you to directly export/upload your music to SoundCloud to easily share your music. See some screenshot below from Notionmusic.com:

Export quality: 5/5

This is a sample Bach Fuga VI sound recording created using Notion3:

Recommended Usage

Based on the features as illustrated previously; Notion3 is recommended for songwriters, musicians and for anyone that would like to create music. With its huge sound library and user friendly interface, any aspiring musician can create a fully arranged and produced song using only this software.

Notion3 is also recommended for those musicians with music production background. You will be able to mix your instruments and tracks within the software through the use of VST plug-ins/effects.

My overall rating on Notion3 is 4/5. The price is reasonable at $199 (price can change in the future) in Amazon for all those great features that recently discussed earlier.

Content last updated on July 21, 2012