Findings on the dynamics.

[Francois2010]

Hi,
With time I realized that the only way to hear the dynamics with N3, is to put the dynamics over the notes. I think this is unacceptable. Will the next update will fix this?
Thank you!

[Admin]

I don't understand what you mean?

My dynamics work just fine when placed below the staff.

[Surfwhammy]

Hi,
With time I realized that the only way to hear the dynamics with N3, is to put the dynamics over the notes. I think this is unacceptable. Will the next update will fix this?
Thank you!

It will be helpful if you can be more specific regarding "dynamics" . . .

As I recall, there were some discussions about articulations and dynamics in other topics, and my recollection is that for some types of dynamics it is better to put everything below the staff, and another recollection is that it is not a good idea to put some stuff below the staff but to put other stuff above the staff, all of which was a bit confusing at the time, since for the most part I had no immediately conscious idea what "articulations" and "dynamics" were in a strictly music theory way, since it had been over a half century since I learned all that stuff, hence had forgotten nearly all of it, but so what . . .

So what!

My strategy at present is (a) to click in the middle of a staff when I add dynamics ("p", "mp", "mf", "f", and so forth), as well as the arrow crescendo and decrescendo things, and (b) to position the mouse cursor on a note when I am adding an articulation like staccato . . .

And I also recall reading in one of the discussions that it is best to do it one way consistently, so if you put the dynamics below the staff, then do it consistently below the staff rather than putting some of the dynamics below the staff but other dynamics above the staff . . .

On another point, as best as I can determine, "articulations" sometimes but not always include dynamic elements, and depending on the type of note and the direction of its stem (if it has one), they might go above the note or below the note, but I generally treat these as being different from "dynamics", where for some at present unknown reason intuitively I put the dynamic marks underneath the staff ("p", "mp", "mf", "f", and so forth) . . .

However, one of my more recent discoveries is that I can select a set of notes and apply an articulation to all of them (or remove articulations from all of them) in one user interface action, which is pretty cool . . .

Pretty cool!

From the perspective of Computer Science, (a) it is impossible to determine generally whether a program is flawless, which is explained mathematically and computationally by "The Halting Problem" (Alan Turing) and "Church's Theorem" (Alonzo Church), as well as quite a few other set theory and mathematical theorems, hence (b) all I care about is being able to devise a "workaround" when I encounter a quirk or strange behavior in a computer program, which has been the case very consistently every time I have encountered a quirk or strange behavior in Notion 3 on the Mac . . .

For example, the most recent quirk or strange behavior I encountered with Notion 3 on the Mac is that it simply would not do ReWire with Digital Performer 7.22 (MOTU), starting after the recent update to Mac OS X 10.6.6, with the most consistent result being that Digital Performer crashed the instant I clicked on its "Play" button when Digital Performer was the host controller of Notion 3 via ReWire . . .

This started last weekend, so there was no way to call MOTU or Notion Music technical support, but on Monday January 17, 2011 I was able to have two discussions with MOTU technical support, which mostly involved was the technical support specialist telling me that Digital Performer did not have any problems with ReWire, although he had a few quite brilliant suggestions for doing some experiments, one of which led me to decide to purchase a copy of Reason 5 (Propellerhead), since the suggested experiment was to download a demo version of Reason 5 and try it with Digital Performer . . .

Yet from my perspective, Digital Performer crashed when trying to control Notion 3 via ReWire, which here in the sound isolation studio automatically maps to "it has a problem", since my view is that computer programs are supposed to fail graciously rather than to crash abruptly, but so what . . .

So what!

On the other hand, GarageBand (Apple) had no problems controlling Notion 3 via ReWire, but then Digital Performer had no problems controlling Reason 5 via ReWire, which is ambiguous at best . . .

The "workaround" I devised was (a) to add four empty measures to the start of the Notion 3 score and then (b) always to start everything in Digital Performer at the beginning of the fifth measure, as well as to avoid using the first nine Notion 3 channels for ReWire . . .

I have a few guesses regarding why this "workaround" works, but what do I care?

Not much!

It works, and I am very happy when stuff works, for sure . . .

For sure!

So, if putting "dynamics over the notes" works for you, then from my perspective this is fabulous . . .

Fabulous!

The reality is that Notion 3 is doing so much remarkably-advanced and highly-sophisticated computing in real-time on the fly that I am quite amazed by it, which in the grand scheme of everything maps to my having a very gracious perspective with respect to not allowing myself to become annoyed by an occasional quirk or strange behavior . . .

On the other hand, this does not suggest that whatever problem you are experiencing is unimportant or insignificant . . .

For all I know, it might be the case that "dynamics" are supposed to be placed below the staff and doing it any other way makes printed music notation very difficult for musicians to use . . .

I have no idea, since while I can compose songs using music notation and VSTi instruments in Notion 3, the reality continues to be that I cannot read it or play music notation on real instruments, which is a bit mind-boggling, except that I can "sight sing" Classical music, but only as a soprano when the music notation is on the treble clef, which also is a bit strange, since I am baritone or tenor . . .

Basically, I like computer stuff to work, and when computer stuff works I simply do not care how or why it works and for the most part do not want to know why or how it works, because although I am quite skilled in computer software engineering, I much prefer to focus on consuming huge quantities of very strong coffee while composing and performing silly DISCO songs about ladies underpants, for sure . . .

For sure

P. S. If you can provide an example in a Notion 3 project file (a.k.a., "score"), then I can do some tests on the Mac toward the goal of providing a bit of help or at least verifying that the behavior occurs on the Mac, but if you are using a Windows machine, then there is not much I can do . . .

[Francois2010]

I don't understand what you mean?

My dynamics work just fine when placed below the staff.

I said that my dynamics dont work placed below the staff. This seems to happen when there are many articulationss (accent, staccato etc..)

[Admin]

I don't understand what you mean?

My dynamics work just fine when placed below the staff.

I said that my dynamics dont work placed below the staff. This seems to happen when there are many articulationss (accent, staccato etc..)

Sorry for the misunderstanding. Dynamics certainly work when placed below the staff anytime I've done it. Can you provide a score with examples?

[pcartwright]

The only time position on the staff seems to matter is when you are assigning different dynamics to two voices on the same staff. Otherwise, both (below and above the staff) seem to work as intended.

[Francois2010]

The only time position on the staff seems to matter is when you are assigning different dynamics to two voices on the same staff. Otherwise, both (below and above the staff) seem to work as intended.

Hi pcartwright,
I'm not sure about that! Everything seems to work with a new file is very simple. (Listen to the attached file). N3 appears to destabilize when there are many commands: ariculation (accent, staccato, etc.), dynamics, copy / paste etc.. I have not really found the problem. What is very clear however is that N3 ceases to give the good dynamics if they are placed under the notes when doing many operations on the file.

[Francois2010]

I don't understand what you mean?

My dynamics work just fine when placed below the staff.

I said that my dynamics dont work placed below the staff. This seems to happen when there are many articulationss (accent, staccato etc..)

Sorry for the misunderstanding. Dynamics certainly work when placed below the staff anytime I've done it. Can you provide a score with examples?

I could send the original file so you can do tests but not here.

[Admin]

Great! Send it on over....

kyle@notionmusic.com

[Admin]

The problem seems to be the fact that you've got dynamic both on the top and below the same staff. This is a known bug, but you'll need to choose to place them either all above or all below the staff for the dynamics to function properly.