How to write a preset or template for VSTi?

[dgriffee]

...be patient folks, they are indeed working out what would be best ways to help users to do useful custom presets that will work properly. This is much trickier than it looks, so they have to figure out mechanics of how to best enable power users without inadvertently misleading nontechie users into confusion and failure. Fiddling with the internal rules-engine config is a razor sharp double edged blade, potentially very powerful and wonderful in the right hands, versus undesirable side effects that can result from improperly done hacks.

We will be seeing more info about this forthcoming soon enough, these guys are outstanding in the "keeping promises" dept.

For those adventuresome souls who just can't resist futzing with the knobs, best clues I've seen are scattered along the following thread...
http://forum.notionmusic.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=519&p=2154#p2154

...but still I'd suggest rather to just wait for Lubo's tutorial and skip the headaches of playing with the unknown, they will give us a safer way to do such things soon and you can bet they will do it right.

[astinov]

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to pitch in here and say, please be patient, we certainly are looking into making this easier and "safe" for users who want to tweak their scores rules. Already I'm worried that some of you would have forgotten to backup their files and inadvertently lost their tweaks during an update for example (Mac users especially).

Documentation is being prepared also for rules tweaks and tutorials will be available when we've got everything setup properly. Just bear with us for now, this information is very powerful indeed, but we need to make some things on our end to ensure we're not letting users just "shoot themselves in the foot" so to speak and, additionally , not flood our tech support with questions that could have been easily answered by a well done tutorial/document.

Please bear with us, we understand there are lots of users who want this and we will provide the necessary helpful materials.

Lubo Astinov

[pcartwright]

Thanks for the update Lubo. I just wanted to make sure that I hadn't missed something earlier regarding rules customization. Notion has been great so far; keep up the good work!

[labou]

Thanks Lubo for the quick reply.

So you can confrim that not only VSL and EWQL in the future could be use to achieve great result? So there is no reason why Kontakt library such as Kirk Hunter could not be use in the same manner or even Halion Symphonic Orchestra. The reason I'm stressing that out is that I choose not too long ago to go for KH library instead of VSL or EWQL and that I don't want that the Notion purchase lead me to want to add either library because it is the only way to get great result with it.

Thanks.

[sghoughton]

Yes agreed on the Kirk Hunter diamond library as well. Would be nice to be able to program these ourselves for sure if they arent available from the source.

steve

[Dewdman42]

I just upgraded to Notion3. It has really improved a lot since last time I looked at it! Even the included sounds are fantastic. I also use Kirk Hunter and hope that support for it will be included sometime.

[fandango]

Another Kirk Hunter user here (vastly prefer it to EWQLSO, etc.).

I think the fact that it's hosted inside Kontakt 4 may be problematic, and also the fact that Kirk has chosen a rather... eclectic smorgasbord approach to his presets which makes them somewhat confusing to access and organise (imho).

At the moment, if I want to use the KH libraries I tend to go to Cubase rather than work in Notion. (i.e., mock everything up in Notion and then move a MIDI file over to Cubase)

Would love to be able to do it natively in Notion, but I imagine the workload is probably immense.

[Dewdman42]

KH is a bit of a mad scientist its true, but I also prefer his sound over EW, which to me just sounds bland and generic now.

The newer KH stuff is much more consistently organized with better names and tends to have single Konakt instrument files with many key switches and controllers to do what you want...particularly his very latest stuff is what way, which I don't have yet due to cost, but in any case....he's better that way.

nonetheless, I can't think of any reason why this can't be done with any version of KH, in kontakt, its just a matter of creating the right XML for Notion.

[Dewdman42]

I just watched the videos and read the PDF document on how to create custom rules. Looks pretty straightforward.

question for the guru,

is it possible to edit the prules used for notion3 internal sounds? Like if I wanted to tweak how loud or soft various dynamic levels actually turn out to be, etc.??

One suggestion to improve the engine, unless I'm mis understanding it, is to have a condition that can also test the name of the preset currently loaded on the track in question. So that I can setup rules that correspond to a particular preset loaded into a particular plugin in the Notion3 mixer. Using midi port and midi channel also works, but only if I always use the same midi channel assignments.

[wcreed51]

In Finale, there’s a user interface for setting up custom rules which is straight forward and easy to use. It allows you to select rules based simply on staff name. I just setup the KH solo strings as a test.

KH stuff uses key switches and mod wheel, so should be easy to write Notion rules for. The BIG problem is that if you use Kontakt as a VSTi, you can only address on instance of it.