should I get GPO?

[Dewdman42]

I'm on mac. There is no program directory. if I open the contents of the Notion3.app I can find the plugin data, but how do I use those? Those are not templates, they are some kind of GPO data, but what? Hmm, this is not very out-of-the-box.

[lazerlike42]

Hmmm, I'm not sure how you find these things on a Mac. In Windows, there is an additional folder underneath "Plugin Data" called "Rules" which I forgot to mention before. That's where the rules are. Now I don't know how things work on a Mac - I know very little about the file system in general, never mind where a specific program keeps stuff.

However, I did search the forum and found this: "They are inside the application package /resource/rules" Does that help?

[lazerlike42]

When you find the file, in any case, you just need to do two things. First, you'll find in the sections for certain instruments (I believe only the strings) this (I've made the all the code red in order to distinguish it from my explanations):


<cc type="note-on-prefix" controller="64" value="127" />
<cc type="note-off-suffix" controller="64" value="0" />

You just need to chance those 64s to 68s, so it says:

<cc type="note-on-prefix" controller="68" value="127" />
<cc type="note-off-suffix" controller="68" value="0" />

Next, immediately after every instance of the above, you need to add this:


<cc type="note-on-prefix" controller="21" value="115" />
<cc type="note-off-suffix" controller="21" value="64" />

That's all! By the way, note that the formatting may be different. In other words, it may look like this:

<cc type="note-on-prefix" controller="64"
value="127" /> <cc type="note-off-suffix" controller="64" value="0" />


Or, something similar. It doesn't matter. Spaces don't matter. What DOES matter is that each statement is contained inside

< />

If you forget to close it off with the />, or if you forget the slash and just have >, or whatever, it won't work. Other than that, spaces, going across more than one line, etc. doesn't matter.

[Dewdman42]

what is the name of the file I am looking for?

[lazerlike42]

what is the name of the file I am looking for?

Well, once you're in the rules section that the other poster I cited pointed to, I'd think it should be pretty obvious. The file I have is called "GPO_Aria.prules" There must be some file in there that mentions something about GPO in it's name.

If not, I am sure someone reading this can tell us where to find it...

[lazerlike42]

I've also just discovered a way to make the strings sound (at least usually) MUCH better. For each section, I pulled up the VST interface and added a solo version to the 2nd bay, and changed that to channel 1. In other words, the staff for Violins I is now pointing to an instance of GPO which has the Violins I Key switch patch and the Violin Solo 1 Key switch patch both on channel 1, so it plays both. The solo violin on top of it adds much of that "life" that seems so absent from the section patches.

Unfortunately, it makes tremolo sound fairly weak, but that's an easy fix. I can just load the Violins section tremolo into another bay in each staff's Aria instance, set it for channel 2, and change the rules file so that section strings change to channel 2 rather than activating a key switch.

It honestly sound (again, for the most part) like an entirely different library by just adding this "solo layer" on top of each string section.

[pcartwright]

It honestly sound (again, for the most part) like an entirely different library by just adding this "solo layer" on top of each string section.

That makes sense. The GPO manual describes the process of ensemble building where users do that very thing, add solo instruments on top of sections sounds. You should try adding different/additional solo players to change the overall tone/quality of a section.

I usually did this in Notion by simply adding solo staves and copying the section parts to the solo staves, but I like your method with rules changes better. Well done.

[lazerlike42]

It honestly sound (again, for the most part) like an entirely different library by just adding this "solo layer" on top of each string section.

That makes sense. The GPO manual describes the process of ensemble building where users do that very thing, add solo instruments on top of sections sounds. You should try adding different/additional solo players to change the overall tone/quality of a section.

I usually did this in Notion by simply adding solo staves and copying the section parts to the solo staves, but I like your method with rules changes better. Well done.

Does it say that? I know it talks about building ensembles out of individual players, but I don't remember it mentioning layering on top of section patches. In any case, it doesn't really matter what the manual says - I can do this if I like it.

I do wish Notion allowed a few more things which would make GPO actually very usable with it. For example, if you could set up rules for certain dynamic levels, rather than just using dynamic velocity maps. That way, I could add the brass overlays onto a second channel and have Notion swap to them when you use forte or fortissimo dynamics.

Or, if you could set up different voices on each staff to use different channels. Actually, can you do this? You might be able to - I will need to look it up. If you could do this, then I could set up divisi for the string sections.

[Dewdman42]

Thanks for the help. I found the file, made the edits. Things seem to work, I have no idea yet whether legato mode is working or not yet or how to verify this prules file is being used, but anyway, no errors.

I see all those notion files in same general area, one for each instrument, so obviously those are used when I go into score setup and select Garritan instruments. Too bad it is creating seperate instances of Aria each time. Anyone know a way around that? How can I know for sure this particular prules file is being used? If I manually create a new score and add the aria player mayself and create the score the hardway, how can I make sure it will use this prules?

After reading through this, I'm a little dissapointed to find out Notion can't support GPO trills, but anyway, I will play with this a while.

[Dewdman42]

another question I have for you guys, in looking at the prules file, i see a lot of instrument-id references and I have absolutely no idea where those numbers come from. That is the kind info i need to figure out a prules file for Kirk Hunter. But where on earth are those instrument-id's defined such that they can be referenced by this prules file?