With the caveat that I generally avoid reading user manuals until there simply is no way to avoid reading them, I am a bit puzzled by the posts in this thread, because it appears to me that everyone is talking about a completely different Notion 3 than the one I am using . . . For reference, I started using Notion 3 sometime around the end of Spring 2010 and the start of Summer 2010, which was a week or two after I discovered Miroslav Philharmonik (IK Multimedia) and then got an email from IK Multimedia about Notion SLE for Miroslav Philharmonik, which soon led to upgrading to the full version of Notion 3 and a bunch of other stuff . . .
At the time, it had been decades since I did anything with music notation (more like half a century), and I had no idea what a VST or VSTi was, even though unbeknown to me I had been using VST plug-ins in Digital Performer (MOTU) for several years, which is what tends to happen when one avoid reading user manuals.
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NOTE: I learned how to read, write, and sight-sing Classical music at an early age, and I am quite proficient in doing anything that involves the treble clef. And regarding Digital Performer, at this point I am on the third major version upgrade for Digital Performer--going from 5 to 6 to 7 in sequence--and I have read perhaps 10 pages of all the user manuals, and then only because there appeared to be no way to avoid it, which specifically was done when MOTU technical support referred me to a particular page in one of the user manuals with a tip along the lines of, "at least read page nnn" . . . ]
Also for reference, I think it is reasonable to estimate that I have used Notion 3 somewhere in the range of 1,500 to 2,000 hours, with approximately half of the time devoted to rediscovering how music notation works (as well as discovering for the first time how percussion notation works, since I never learned percussion notation) and with the other half of the time being focused on making sense of VSTi instruments and doing elaborate things that I call "sparkles", which are typically short bursts of notes that appear in various panning locations and add motion to songs . . .
It is true that there are a lot of discussions in this FORUM about things called "rules", as well as XML and MIDI stuff, but none of it makes any sense to me, and I never use it nor have any reason to use it, although in an odd way it is nice to know that if I do need to use it sometime in the future, then apparently (a) there is way to use it and (b) there are some folks who participate in the FORUM who are skilled in using and customizing it . . .
Of course, I might be using a lot of it without actually being aware of it, but if so, then great . .
Great! On the other hand, which is the puzzling aspect of reading all the posts in this discussion, I do a lot of customizing and tailoring VSTi instrument sounds via the standalone user interfaces for Mirosolav Philharmonik and the virtual festival of VSTi instruments that IK Multimedia provides for SampleTank 2.5 XL, which for reference includes being able to work with Miroslav Philharmonik, since all the IK Multimedia stuff ultimately uses the SampleTank 2.5 XL engine or whatever . . .
Whatever! Consider French Horns for a moment . . .
I like French Horns, and at first it was a bit disappointing that there did not appear to be many French Horns in the N2 and N3 VSTi sound libraries (London Symphony Orchestra) or in the standard set of Miroslav Philharmonik mappings that Notion 3 provides, but after doing a bit of what I call "scouting around" with the standalone user interface for Miroslav Philharmonik, I discovered that there are at least 150 French Horn presets in Miroslav Philharmonik, all of which I think are "parent" sounds, which maps to thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of potential "child" sounds for French Horns, which effectively maps to so many French Horns that it becomes a bit overwhelming to try to make sense of it, because while I like French Horns, having 150 different types of French Horns--solo and in various sections with different numbers of players in the respective ensembles and with a virtual festival of articulations and so forth--pretty much does it for me, especially since it took me about an hour to count the first 150 of them by stepping through all the subfolders that had the key words "French Horns" in the standalone user interface for Miroslav Philharmonik . . .
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NOTE: This screen capture shows all eight of the lowest level items in the "French Horn + LP" subfolder that is a subfolder of "Solo FR Horn Looped", which in turn is a subfolder of "Solo French Horn", which itself is a subfolder of "Solo Brass", and as you can see there are eight items in the third-level "French Horn + LP" subfolder. There are 17 French Horn subfolders in the "Solo French Horn" subfolder, and each of the subfolders has approximately 8 items, which alone maps approximately to 136 or so different types of French Horns, and this is just the "Solo French Horn" stuff, which does not include the "Ensemble French Horn" stuff, so the estimate of 150 French Horn articulations actually is low rather than high, but while I can do essentially the same thing over and over for quite a while, there is a limit to the number of times I am willing to expand nested subfolders and count all the items in the expanded nested subfolders, with the result that I decided 150 was more than enough counting for a while . . . ]
Detail of a Third-Level Fully Expanded Solo French Horn Subfolder ~ Miroslav PhilharmonikCan you ever have too many French Horns? YES!
Consider the standalone user interface for Miroslav Philharmonik for a moment . . .
QUESTION: WHY do I need to have "rule sets" and a visual interface for working with "rule sets" in Notion 3 when I have the standalone user interface for Miroslav Philharmonik and it interacts very nicely with Notion 3?
Miroslav Philharmonik (IK Multimedia)If you study the standalone user interface for Miroslav Philharmonik carefully, you will observe that there are a bunch of round knobs and a lot of rounded-edge rectangular buttons and stuff, and depending on which of the rectangular buttons you click, this activates various subsets of the round knobs, where you then can customize and tailor all the "parent" sounds, thereby creating "child" sounds, and you can save the customized and tailored "child" sounds as user-defined "child" sounds, which in turn can be used as "parent" sounds to create even more customized and tailored "child" sounds that can be saved as user-defined "child" sounds, and so forth and so on virtually infinitely, which is a bit beyond mind-boggling . . .
Mind-boggling! And the same thing happens when you switch to the SampleTank 2.5 XL standalone user interface, which actually is the standalone user interface that IK Multimedia recommends using, since it does everything and works with all their virtual festival of VSTi sound libraries, which as best as I have been able to calculate maps approximately to 250,000 instruments, more or less . . .
QUESTION: WHY do I need to have "rule sets" and a visual interface for working with "rule sets" in Notion 3 when I have the standalone user interface for SampleTank 2.5 XL and it interacts very nicely with Notion 3?
SampleTank 2.5 XL (IK Multimedia)Doing a specific highly customized and tailored VSTi instrument sound might take a few hours at first, but so what . . .
So what! The reality is that it takes a while to discover what an "LFO" is, which for reference is a "Low Frequency Oscillator", as well as what one can do with an LFO, but so what . . .
So what! SampleTank 2.5 XL has two of them in terms of round knobs, but they work independently for each of the various rectangular button options, so there actually are a
lot more than two LFOs . . .
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NOTE: If you look carefully at the 3x3 matrix of rectangular buttons, you will see that there are "LFO1" and "LFO2" buttons on the bottom row, and depending on which one you select it activates the row of round knobs to the left for controlling and setting the various parameters of the specific low-frequency oscillator . . . ]
3x3 Rectangular Button Matrix ~ SampleTank 2.5 XLThe important thing is that Notion 3 fully supports everything that SampleTank 2.5 XL does, which maps to being able to use everything that one can do in SampleTank 2.5 XL in a virtual festival of VSTi instruments, although as noted in my other posts, there are some guidelines or criteria that govern how much stuff you can do in a single Notion 3 score or project, which for those folks like me who need to have perhaps 500 to 1,000 "heavy" VSTi instruments maps to working with them in subsets of approximately 25 at a time in a synchronized set of Notion 3 subscores, which is the easiest and most practical way to do it, where each "cloned" Notion 3 subscore has perhaps 5 common VSTi instruments that are used as reference points for such things as the beat, basic rhythm guitar or piano chords, simple melody, and whatever else happens to be necessary . . .
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NOTE: For all practical purposes, every SampleTank 2.5 XL VSTi instrument is what I call "heavy" in terms of computer resources, memory, and so forth, and on the Mac working with 25 of them at a time in Notion 3 works very nicely, since in addition to everything that Notion 3 is doing, there also are 25 instances of SampleTank 2.5 XL, which is a lot of very resource intensive real-time processing for a 2.8-GHz 8-core Mac Pro to do within a virtual festival of 32-bit workspaces, which is yet another reality to consider diligently, since everything is 32-bit (Notion 3, SampleTank 2.5 XL, Digital Performer 7, Reason 5 [Propellerhead Software], MIDI, and ReWire [Propellerhead Software]) . . . ]
Explained yet another way, the folks at IK Multimedia make it possible to do elaborate customizing and tailoring of somewhere in the range of 10,000 to 25,000 standard "parent" and "child" sounds, which in turn map approximately to 250,000 additional sounds, which when customized and tailored can be used to create user-defined "child" sounds, which in turn can be used as "parent" sounds to create even more customized and tailored user-defined "child" sounds and eventually maps to millions or perhaps billions of potential sounds . . .
Since all these sounds are VSTi instruments, Notion 3 is ready, willing, and able to work with them via music notation, where Notion 3 is the controlling, coordinating, and synchronizing application for everything that happens behind the scenes, which is a
lot of highly resource intensive computing, for sure . . .
For sure! But there is more to it when one considers how Reason 5 (Propellerhead Software) fits into the overall system . . .
Reason 5 is not a VSTi instrument, but it works nicely with MIDI, so you can create a VSTi instrument in Notion 3 and then export its notes in MIDI format, which you then can import to Reason 5, where Reason 5 works with the MIDI notes and then exports its audio to a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) application like Digital Performer 7, which is a roundabout way to add Reason 5 sounds to the system but in a way is synchronized with Notion 3, since the MIDI used with Reason 5 originates as the notes for a VSTi instrument in Notion 3, which requires one to know what one needs to do in Reason 5, but so what . . .
So what! If it cannot be done with the N2, N3, and SampleTank 2.5 XL VSTi instruments or with real instruments and voices, then if it can be done with Reason 5, (a) there is a way to do it and (b) there is a way to keep everything synchronized to the tempo and music notation framework provided by Notion 3 . . .
Basically, when I need to wander into the Reason 5 universe to do something, I use a simple piano VSTi in Notion 3 to do the music notation that I export as MIDI for input to Reason 5, and this works for me, since I can do the mind-mapping of what the piano VSTi music notation needs to be to drive the Reason 5 synthesizers, so while I am in Notion 3 I hear a piano VSTi, but I map it in my mind to what I want to hear and then use Reason 5 separately to create the desired sound . . .
And if I need a bit of basic rhythm section or whatever for reference purposes when I am working in Reason 5, I simply export that stuff from Notion 3 as a WAVE file, which I then import to Reason 5 as a reference audio track. . .
Or, I can do essentially the same thing but in a more elaborate way by using the Notion 3 generated audio that I get into Digital Performer 7 and record as soundbites via ReWire, since Digital Performer 7 can control Reason 5 via ReWire . . .
It can appear to be a bit complex, and in some respects it is complex, but once you discover how everything works, it is pretty easy to do, really . . .
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NOTE: This is what I call a "basic rhythm section" for a DISCO or Pop song, and it has approximately 50 "heavy" VSTi instruments, most of which come from SampleTank 2.5 XL, and this is all done in Notion 3. It is at the upper limit of what Notion 3 can handle in one score or project file, so adding more stuff will require cloning the Notion 3 score and then modifying the cloned score where its VSTi instruments are replaced with other VSTi instruments, which takes a few hours, since the fact of the matter is that it takes a few hours to compose another bunch of instrument parts. And when I switch to working with clones, I first get the original instruments into DIgital Performer 7 via controlling Notion 3 via ReWire, so what one might call the "clone phase" moves the high-level work from Notion 3 to Digital Performer 7, since by that time there are perhaps several hundred instrumental parts, which is much easier to do in Digital Performer 7 than in Notion 3. There might be a way to do it in Notion 3 by using exported WAVE files and then importing them, but Notion 3 is doing so much work that I see no added value in doing anything additional that uses vital application and system resources, so here in the sound isolation studio, Noton 3 does what it does best and Digital Performer 7 does what it does best, which I think is the smartest and most efficient way to do everything . . . ]
http://surfwhammys.com/Feel-Me-1-31-2011-Extended.mp3Really! A future version of Notion certainly can do a
lot more than Notion 3 currently is doing, but most of it is abundantly obvious when folks do their homework diligently, and at present I am not so motivated to explain it in great detail, although I have provided a few clues in my posts to this FORUM . . .
Summarizing, I have no idea at present what a "rule set" might be, and I suggest that there is no practical reason for me to know what a "rule set" is . . .
I am more interested in having smarter ways to do music notation that do
not require me to work with one note at a time, at least for purposes of establishing a basic framework for a melody, chord pattern, drumkit rhythm pattern, or whatever . . .
Whatever! Working at the individual note level of detail is necessary for fine-tuning, but there are ways to use mathematics, music theory, geometry, and algorithms for doing a lot of the initial framework stuff, which is where I think the future focus needs to be for future version of Notion, for sure . . .
For sure! ![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif)
P. S. Regarding the need to have perhaps 500 to 1,000 "heavy" VSTi instruments, the reality for
DISCO and
Pop songs at the dawn of the early-21st century is that there is a lot of stuff happening musically, and while most of might not be so immediately obvious even when one is a highly-trained and skilled listener, it is there and if you listen to a song 50 to 100 times you are quite likely to discover that there is a lot more stuff than you initially noticed in any immediately conscious way . . .
Consider the European Single of "Who Owns My Heart" (Miley Cyrus) for a moment . . .
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NOTE: This is the official YouTube music video for the European Single of "Who Owns My Heart" (Miley Cyrus), and it is easier to hear everything when you listen with studio-quality headphones like the SONY MDR-7506 (a personal favorite). I cannot sing like Miley Cyrus, but I know enough about music to be able to do all the instrumental stuff, provided I take the time to hear all of it in sufficient detail to be able to do an accurate mapping of everything to music notation and custom-tuned and tailored VSTi instruments, where the first step simply is listening to the song enough times to hear everything distinctly, which for reference is what I am doing with "Feel Me" (The Surf Whammys), which is the corresponding "inspired by" song here in the sound isolation studio and at present has the first 50 or so VSTi instruments working nicely, with approximately half of them being what I call "sparkles" . . . ]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVbQxC2c3-8The music is at a lower resolution than the iTunes version of the song, but it is sufficient for a bit of studying, and there is so much stuff that it is a bit mind-boggling . . .
Mind-boggling!Overall, I estimate that there are approximately 250 instrument tracks and 250 vocal tracks, but there might be more, since I count some of the instrument and vocal tracks by grouping them when it is more likely that they originally were not grouped and that the apparent grouping is done to make it easier to do the mixing and sequencing . . .
In some respects, it is a bit easier to count the instruments in an orchestra, unless it is an elaborate recording of an orchestra done for the soundtrack of a motion picture, in which case it is entirely possible that there are more instruments heard in the "produced" music than there are instruments and musicians in the orchestra, since for example a string section might be recorded several times to create a Phil Spector "Wall of Sound" string section or whatever, so no matter what the genre, it is not so unusual for there to be somewhere in the range of 500 to 1,000 instrument tracks at one time or another, although as everything progresses there is a lot of track combining and so forth, since nobody can handle working with 500 to 1,000 track sliders, panning controls, and so forth and so on, so you combine stuff and make an effort to keep it as simple and high-level as possible, really . . .
Really! ![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif)