lingyai, thanks for that Acoustica link. I just d/l'd and installed the Mixcraft demo and I gotta say that it is a pretty cool DAW. I was disappointed to see that it didn't have any sort of built-in notation capability, but as I was digging around, I noticed it had picked up a couple of rewire programs, one of which is Notion, which I own a license for, and it set itself up automatically to load Notion as a rewire device. So that takes care of my needs for musical notation. This package definitely deserves a closer look. Best of all, it is surprisingly affordable, even the most expensive version.

I loaded one of my midi compositions, and it loaded up just fine, no hickups, and I was able to figure out how to select from a good variety of instruments, which in itself is noteworthy. Yep, I'm gonna have to spend some more time with this DAW. I suspect I'll continue to need Sonar for some things though.

Best,
Michael

My Music:
https://soundcloud.com/michaelmcbroom/albums