Notion App Reviews

The app is great and is definitely one of my favorites, but there are too many annoying problems. 1) When converting scores to music xml or midi files, all of the accents, articulations, dynamics, crescendos, and other stuff gets removed, which nearly makes xml and midi export useless. 2) There are glitches that make adding titles, headings, and footers very tedious. When you tap to change a credit or text, it often doesnt even edit the one that you selected, which gets very annoying when it happens a lot. Also, when adding a subtitle, it doesnt get aligned exactly in the middle. 3) When in print view, sometimes it will randomly push me back a few pages whenever I make an edit. Its not that big of a deal, but it can get frustrating. These are all small bugs, but theyre also very annoying, as they happen frequently. Would give this app five stars if all of the above problems get fixed, especially the xml and midi export bugs. Still a great app though, aside from all the bugs, but would really like to see a lot of fixes in the next update.

Worth every penny. Ive been transcribing popular tunes for a 4 piece and this gives me everything I need from multi instrument scores to basic lead sheets. The ability to have a fretboard or keyboard or notate directly to the staff is a great feature. And to be able to hear it with instruments as you are writing? Wow. Two things I wish it had, (or I have not found it yet), is one, the ability to organize how many bars per line for print, and two a B3 organ in the instruments to choose from. I want the ability to choose if I want 3 or 5 bars on a line. I like codas and second endings and the like to be on the left of the page if I can.. But for under $20 bucks are you kidding me? This is absolutely awesome. Its not perfect but as a value and because its so easy to use it far exceeds other programs that I paid hundreds for.. I mean really, its $20 bucks.. crazy

Ive been using Notion for years on both iPad and desktop. I love it! My favorite notation app by a mile. The new version is a huge update and Im so excited. So much new stuff...and now on iPhone too!!! And the handwriting feature available for in-app purchase, works well, very cool.

The 6s speakers frequency has been changed to 48khz. As such any Apps such as Notion which hasnt made the change has distorted audio. I know this will change and Ill update my rating at that time.

This is by far the easiest notation app out there not only for the PC and Mac but also for the iPad and now iPhone. I love the interop between all of my devices and sharing files is seamless so I can work on an arrangement while Im traveling then simply open it later on my Mac when Im home! No other solution comes close to this functionality. Simply the best! This is a must have for any musician! The new iPhone version is full featured and is fun and easy to use. The latest handwriting feature is truly mind-blowing way ahead of its time. Cant wait to finish my next masterpiece!

Love the addition of handwriting to this app. Really accurate and a GREAT addition to my workflow for writing. Keep up the awesome work!

I just updated to the latest build and purchased the new handwriting tool. It’s amazing what these guys are doing. This is a huge leap in the world of music notation.

If you are skeptical of paying for this latest handwriting feature, dont be. I am taking some time from arranging a choir piece right now to thank the good folks on the Notion team for this unbelievable upgrade to their product. They have shown themselves to be serious players with supporting and improving this app, and it is incredible what little money buys in software these days. This handwriting feature propels their app so far forward, it is truly a different product now. Yes, I am sure there are some bugs, and I will find them, just like I have found other bugs and annoyances with the previous releases, but this is some complex processing going on here, and the results are mostly just astonishingly good. This is a great time saver, and yields professional looking printed music.

Well I am not the only one on this : Trying to download the instruments for days and got errors. The same happening with others customers around globe. Wondering why Presonus didnt fix this yet. I cant try fully what I just bought because Presonus servers. Please fix this

-With a high quality stylus the handwriting is only OCCASIONALLY recognized. -Handwriting ONLY works for notation, not tablature. -They wont tell you in the information, but the handwriting is an in-app purchase of $8, which is about half the price of the app itself. *** When contacting Apple to get a refund, they said to contact the developer. When contacting the developer (a very big company with many expensive software and hardware products) they said, "Contact Apple." These types of deals are among many reasons the App Store needs cleaning immediately. I wouldnt recommend this to any professionals. Furthermore, this is a terrible "copycat" version of StaffPad. Although StaffPad is great, the company has some sort of contract to degrade Apple on their website and not make an iOS version. As horrible as that sounds, I dont see this app as any better than StaffPad and the developers there.

Its obviously not the iPhone. Since this is the newest iPhone the processor is faster than my iPad, which the sound works fine on. The sound started fine, actually better than my iPad, and it ran much faster on my iPhone than my iPad since the processor is much better and faster. Then out of nowhere everything started crackling loudly, and it played at about half tempo. There was one piano playing. So I reset my phone. Still there. I erased the app, reset my phone, download it. Still there. What?

Love the app, Ive been using it for quite a while. But with the last update, sound has stopped working for the app on both my iPhone and my iPad, not sure what is wrong.

Im not sure if some of these reviewers are being paid by Presonus, or if they are actually Presonus employees, or incredibly simplistic in their needs for writing music, but I have to be honest, while the new handwriting feature is fun, it is from usable. This is actually an understatement. Try writing a dotted eighth followed by a sixteenth. No prob. Try writing another dotted eighth followed by a sixteenth. Big problem. It will turn the previous sixteenth into an eighth note, which doesnt even make sense in 4/4. Actually anything you write following this will do the same thing. This is just one of the myriad of issues with the handwriting feature. Sometimes notes disappear, or you write the next beat grouping and it changes the beat grouping before, or you write an F and it inserts a C (a fifth away), or you write a phrase and it ignores everything you just wrote. This is not ready for commercial release. They need to spend more time debugging and getting feedback from musicians who can actually read and write music. To be honest, unless you are interested in writing rudimentary music which only contains quarter, eighth, and sixteenth notes in 4 note groupings, you are not going to find this feature usable! I am using the Apple iPad Pro with Apple pencil. Doesnt work for me.... Im going to request a refund from Apple.......

I like the Notion app on the whole, and Id give it 4 stars, but the handwriting add-on is a total dud. Ive already asked Apple for a refund. The other reviewer is right: Its unusable. For anything other than the most basic notation, it doesnt properly recognize the input - and worse, it messes up the notes you have ALREADY put in (regardless of what input method you had used to put those notes in). In other words, if you try to write into a bar you have already partially notated in another way, the handwriting will change what you have already written. For instance, I had a bar with a grace note, and when I added an eighth rest using handwriting, it turned the grace note into an eighth note, which totally ruined the bar. In handwriting, when you attempt to change the duration of connected notes, it just puts in a slur. For instance, if I entered two connected eighth notes, and after they have turned from handwriting into actual notation I want to turn them into sixteenth notes, when I put in the second line to connect them with a double line, it just adds a slur or a tie. Handwriting only works occasionally, only for very simple notation, and only when you dont want to go back and change anything you have already done in the bar. Its really worse than useless. Ive requested a refund. Other than that, I like the app, although some things seem to take a lot more taps than they SHOULD. When I select a measure, why cant I just tap and drag to transpose the entire measure? Why does that only work for one note at a time? Why do I have to go into a special hidden menu for transposing anything? Also, when I want to delete notes Ive already added, Notion moves the entire bar to the left. Why not just replace the deleted note with a rest? In practice Im forced to rewrite the entire measure.

Sound has stopped working making the app unusable. No update for a month, irresponsible.

In the past I used Finale, then Sibelius and finally Notion on my desktop. Though an avid iPad user, I found the Notion app little better than a scratch pad to capture ideas while travelling. When on vacation, I’d haul a keyboard with me, but even so I found the iOS interface really slowed me down. The new handwriting interface changes all that. While I doubt it will become my primary tool (I use EastWest, Hauptwerk and Pianoteq instruments on my desktop), it nonetheless is now possible to do real work wherever I am. -Thank you Presonus. Keep it coming.

Handwriting cant create ledger lines below middle C. At least on mine. As long as you dont mind adapting yourself to Notions expectations I guess its okay but if your needs are simple then Notion will find a zillion ways to make you miserable. Back to my ancient, partly corrupted Finale 2.6.1 which can do everything I need a woke lot easier than Notion. I think my Finale is about thirty years old! Not much progress since then.

Most powerful, sounds amazing and has the best developers, notion is the best composing app in the appstore, you should try it. Looking forward to the new update.

Whoa. The new handwriting recognition is really cool. Its especially great for quickly adding slurs and articulations. This is a great music notation and creation tool, and it keeps getting better.

The interface is well designed and fairly priced but, as a guitar teacher, I have fairly limited use for the app because you cant create custom chord diagrams and barre chords are not included. I havent spent the money yet on the handwriting upgrade due to this snafu but, overall, still a great product.