MachFive 3 scripted instruments

[pcartwright]

My concern is that others won't find answers they're looking for because your posts are so long and tend to go off topic. I'm sure a lot of people would love to see detailed responses, but don't hijack a thread to make your observations. It makes the thread difficult to search, difficult to follow, and difficult for others to contribute their thoughts.

[Surfwhammy]

My concern is that others won't find answers they're looking for because your posts are so long and tend to go off topic. I'm sure a lot of people would love to see detailed responses, but don't hijack a thread to make your observations. It makes the thread difficult to search, difficult to follow, and difficult for others to contribute their thoughts.

Everyone has an opinion, which is fine with me, but one of the realities of digital music production is that it is vastly complex, and while it is possible to make it easier by developing a verified deep and rich system, it requires a bit of work and a lot of technical expertise which includes at some point at least a basic understanding of the principles of acoustic physics, where to be specific acoustic physics spans nearly everything involved in the sound, including auditory perception and other neurological aspects . . .

Regarding the teaching style I use in my posts, it is based in part on the teaching style of one of favorite mathematics professors, who would spend the first hour and fifteen minutes of Calculus III class talking about something which was interesting but appeared to have absolutely nothing to do with mathematics, let alone Calculus III . . .

For example, one evening he devoted most of the time to describing the behavior of the common house fly, which included diagrams, overviews of stuff that common house flies do, and so forth and so on, where eventually the focus shifted to the curious ability of the common house fly to find and to follow a person, including outdoors when there is a light breeze . . .

And then in the remaining fifteen minutes of class, he explained that some researchers had taken high-speed video of common house flies as they tracked test subjects, and after analyzing extraordinarily detailed maps of the paths flown by the common house flies, which the researchers did one high-speed video frame at a time, they discovered that the common house fly--which has a brain about the size of a grain or two of salt or sugar--continually solves differential equations in real-time, which is the reason that it is virtually impossible to elude a common house fly once it gets your scent . . .

Knowing that the common house fly solves differential equations in real-time to track people does not make one an instant expert in differential equations, but for a few folks it provides a high-level insight which certainly can map (a) to having an epiphany with respect to one of the practical ways differential equations are used and (b) to a way to visualize what is happening mathematically . . .

The intriguing aspect of this teaching style is that the professor essentially was able to embed a key bit of information in an instant but in a completely roundabout way which at times bordered on being magical, where the basic requirements for enlightenment were (a) coming to class and (b) paying attention for a while even though whatever the professor was discussing appeared to have nothing to do with mathematics . . .

Regarding the suggestion that I somehow hijacked this topic, I refer readers to the original post which started this topic . . .

Motu’s Machfive 3 introduced a new technology: MachFive’s scripted instruments
Is there any chance to see them supported by Notion any time soon?

Christoph

So far, this is what I have done:

(1) I called MOTU Technical Support and got the official MOTU determination regarding using MachFive 3 and all its capabilities when it is functioning as a VST plug-in (specifically, as a VSTi virtual instrument), where the MOTU folks said that everything is available, including scripting . . .

(2) Being a bit curious about the new capabilities of MachFive 3, I ordered a copy using a combination of the competitive upgrade and a stellar discount at Musician's Friend due to being an loyal customer, and I also reluctantly decided to get an iLok2 dongle, which is required, even though I greatly dislike the general concept of using dongles for licensing verification . . .

(3) I verified that MachFive 3 on the Mac definitely works with NOTION 3 as a VSTi virtual instrument for the standard sampled sound instruments . . .

(4) I verified that the Telematic scripted instrument works as a standard VSTi instrument, although there was a bit of annoying noise at the end of each note, which I am investigating and will call MOTU Technical Support to determine if it is something that can be remedied by changing parameters or doing something involving configuration, ports, or whatever . . .

(5) I verified that MachFive 3 on the Mac runs scripts in real-time on the fly when it is working as a VSTi virtual instrument for a NOTION 3 staff, which I did by adding the Tremolo scripted effect to the MachFive 3 Jazz Stratocaster with Chorus instrument, which is a standard instrument rather than one of the new scripted instruments . . .

(5) I discovered that there is a MachFiveScript language, which is based on the Lua embedded scripting language and is very similar to Visual Basic and RealBASIC (a personal favorite), with the similarity to these two programming languages and the event processing aspect essentially making me proficient in a general way with the MachFiveScript language, hence I only need to learn the specific stuff rather than all the general stuff, since I have been doing event-driven BASIC programming for nearly two decades, first with Visual Basic and later with RealBASIC after Microsoft destroyed Visual Basic, which is one of the reasons I switched to the Mac . . .

(6) I am in the process of making sense of the new MachFive 3 scripted instruments, which from what I have determined so far appear to work in a way similar to what happens when one uses loops, where a script spans some number of notes and measures and is triggered by a specific MIDI command or instruction, which probably maps to note granularity, which if this overview is correct maps to being able to use a single note in a NOTION 3 score to cause some number of measures of scripted instrument notes to be played, which is an intriguing concept with respect to being able to specify articulations and dynamics in great detail for the handful of MachFive 3 scripted instruments using a visual interface rather than specific music notation articulations and dynamics in the NOTION 3 score proper, since for example the Telematic scripted instrument has a guitar pick that can be controlled via scripting, and so forth and so on, which among other things provides a potentially stellar solution to the problem of doing upward strums, which some of the more standard electric guitar VSTi virtual instruments do not do, since they only do downward strums, although at least one of the EWQL VSTi virtual instruments does upward and downward strums (specifically, the EWQL Fab Four Virtual Instrument) . . .


Telematic Scripted Instrument ~ Guitar Pick Lever

THOUGHTS

I could have stopped at (1), but my best guesses are (a) that the MOTU folks do not have NOTION 3 and (b) that the Notion Music folks do not have MachFIve 3, so instead of replying something essentially meaningless like "Go for it, dude!", I decided to provide a definitive, verified, and highly detailed answer for which my rewards are (a) that I get to discover a bunch of great stuff and (b) that I get to compose a new song along the way . . .

Being flamed was not something I expected, but then nothing is simple at the dawn of the early-21st century even among otherwise gracious musicians, singers, lyricists, composers, arrangers, producers, audio engineers, mastering engineers, and music theorists, really . . .

Really!

[Surfwhammy]

I got some information from MOTU Technical Support this morning about the annoying clicking and popping noises that the Telematic guitar was making, and it mostly is a matter of the available resources in the VST host application, which for NOTION 3 maps to the 32-bit application workspace constraint, which in turn causes MachFive 3 to run in 32-bit mode . . .

[NOTE: There are 9,562 separate Keygroups for the Telematic, which take approximately 55 seconds to load when MachFive 3 is running as a 64-bit application in standalone mode. This maps to needing a lot of resources and a very fast hard drive to do the advanced scripting work, which in 32-bit mode as a VST plug-in makes MachFive 3 very "heavy" when it is running one of the new scripted instruments, but so what . . . ]

When I run MachFive 3 as a standalone application in 64-bit mode, the annoying clicking and popping noises do not occur, so I did an experiment where I created a new NOTION 3 score with only one staff, which I assigned to MachFive 3, and the annoying clicking and popping noises did not occur with the Telematic. . .

Then I added a regular VSTi virtual instrument(Addictive Drums [XLN Audio]) and everything continued to be fine, so I will continue doing this until the problem occurs, at which time I can determine the upper limit for VSTi virtual instruments in a NOTION 3 score on the Mac, but from a practical perspective, having two VSTi virtual instruments is sufficient, since I can use one as a reference for determining the rhythm pattern, song section, and so forth, and the other staff can be one of the MachFive 3 scripted instruments . . .

However, from the previous experiment, I already know that the upper limit when there are two instances of MachFive 3 is eleven VSTi virtual instruments in total, where only one is a MachFIve 3 scripted instrument but another is a regular MachFIve 3 instrument, with the caveat that nine of the tracks also had one VST effects plug-in and some fo the tracks had an additional VST effects plug-in for reverberation, so without the VST effect plug-ins the upper limit will be higher . . .

The practical reality here in the sound isolation studio is that I use multiple NOTION 3 scores for a song, so adding yet another NOTION 3 score to the set of NOTION 3 scores for a song toward the goal of having a bit of FUN with MachFive 3 scripted instruments fits nicely with the system and is not a problem from my perspective . . .

The next experiment involves doing a bit of scripting for the Telematic, and if it works, then I just need to do the ReWire experiment, where I record the NOTION 3 generated audio as soundbites in Digital Performer 7.24 (MOTU) via ReWire, and then I will have verified that all MachFive 3 stuff works nicely with NOTION 3 on the 2.8-GHz 8-core Mac Pro here in the sound isolation studio, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous!

[Surfwhammy]

I did the ReWire step, where the NOTION 3 generated audio is recorded as soundbites in Digital Performer 7.24 (MOTU) via ReWire (Propellerhead Software), and everything worked smoothly, as shown in the following video, which shows the first 23 seconds of the ReWire recording session, which is fabulous . . .



[NOTE: The MachFive 3 (MOTU) VSTi virtual instrument graphic user interface (GUI) is shown playing the new Vibrato Wurlitzer scripted instrument, which at present is doing half-note chimes for a bit of texture . . . ]

Digital Performer 7.24 recording NOTION 3 generated audio via ReWire -- Windows Media Video (WMV, 846KB, approximately 23 seconds)

Fabulous!

[Surfwhammy]

You remind me of one of my neighbors. I'm in the rural South presently, and it's indeed a colorful place.
And colorful you are my friend. And also crazy as a Hoot Owl.

On September 10, 2001 I had a stellar job doing advanced software engineering that paid more than most plastic surgeons make, but it ended the next day through no fault of mine, and once it became obvious that there was no alternative but to change careers, the folks at the employment counseling center told me in no uncertain terms that based on my "1,000 points of light" I had a grand total of two career options:

(1) professional truck driver . . .

(2) Rock and Roll teen idol in Japan . . .

And since I did not have a truck at the time, I opted for (2), which a decade later is coming along nicely considering that the Surf Whammys have sold over one copy of an album in Japan via the iTunes Store, which in the grand scheme of everything is one copy more than most of the people on this planet have sold in Japan, as well as moving the total international gross revenue to over $5 (US), really . . .

Really!

The important thing from my perspective is to decide what you do--which for me is music--and once you make the decision, everything about your career becomes completely and totally fascinating, regardless of whether you make any money doing it . . .

[NOTE: The connection to being a Rock and Roll teen idol in Japan is a bit abstruse, but it is based on the fact that the fine people of that island nation really like Instrumental Surf Music, which happens to be one of my specialties, although I have switched focus to even more abstruse but nevertheless popular Japanese genres over the past few years, where as you know my current focus is on silly DISCO and Pop songs about ladies underpants, which when combined with Instrumental Surf Music might lead to the long anticipated Surf Whammys megamillion album breakthrough in the Japanese market . . . ]



"Nuke Out" (The Surf Whammys) -- MP3

[NOTE: This was done with real instruments several years ago when I was doing everything in real-time on the fly on the first take, where there actually is just one drumkit with everything composed, played, and recorded on the first take, which in part was possible because (a) I use custom made 22" drum sticks and (b) I discovered a way to stack cymbals and Latin percussion instruments (primarily cowbells) and to position the various drums so that it is possible to play multiple drumkit components with a single downward or upward drum stick or foot pedal motion, which includes using Duallist D4 kick drum pedals and an highly customized hi-hat rig . . . ]



I might not always be the brightest candle on the cake, but I work on stuff 18 hours a day every day, and over the long run I make more progress than the less dedicated folks who only work on stuff 40 hours a week, which is something I learned several decades ago . . .

Two weeks ago I knew next to nothing about MachFive 3 (MOTU), but now I know a lot about it, and my best guess is that I should be able to become proficient in MachFiveScript very quickly, which has the potential to be a significant tool for automating stuff both (a) within NOTION 3 with MachFIve 3 working as an advanced VSTi virtual instrument and (b) separately with a MIDI keyboard or MIDI electric guitar when MachFive 3 is running in 64-bit standalone application mode, with the latter (MIDI electric guitar) being a custom modification I am planning to do for The Fabulous Fifty Million Dollar Trinaural Stratocaster™ via the GraphTech GHOST® MIDI System, which is fabulous . . .

GHOST® MIDI System (GraphTech)

Fabulous!

[Surfwhammy]

As part of the ReWire step I disable all the VST effects plug-ins, including AmpliTube 3 (IK Multimedia) in NOTION 3 and set all the NOTION 3 Mixer volume levels to 0 dB, although I set the panning locations for everything very precisely in the NOTION 3 Mixer . . .

Once the NOTION 3 generated audio is recorded as soundbites in Digital Performer 7.24 (MOTU) via ReWire (Propellerhead Software), I add the VST effects plug-ins to the respective tracks in Digital Performer 7.24, although the VST effects plug-ins I use in Digital Performer 7.24 sometimes are different from the ones I use in NOTION 3, since some of the VST effect plug-ins are very "heavy", hence are better used in Digital Performer 7.24, because once the NOTION 3 generated audio is recorded as soundbites, the work switches to Digital Performer 7.24, which has more available resources, since it is not going all the work that NOTION 3 was doing, which makes sense if you think about it for a while . . .

And this is when I start having a bit of FUN with Timeless 2 (FabFilter Software Instruments), which is the best VST echo unit in the known universe, for sure . . .

For sure!

So, after doing the initial ReWire step and having a bit of FUN with VST effects plug-ins, I cloned the original 11 VSTi virtual instrument NOTION 3 score; zapped the MachFive 3 Vibrato Wurlitzer scripted instrument; replaced 3 of the existing instruments with a set of "sparkled" Latin percussion instruments; and did a bit more work on the Crunch Stratocaster, which included running it through a subtle Timesless 2 stereo echo unit set to do the echo repeats at the tempo of the song (90 BPM), which it determines through what appears to be magic, which is fine with me, since the Gestalt thing is coming along nicely, which is fabulous . . .

[NOTE: The "Gestalt thing" refers to what happens when there are enough simple tracks to satisfy the threshold for what might call "being too much stuff to hear completely in an immediately conscious way", and what happens is that it sounds like more stuff than actually is present in the recorded and enhanced tracks, which is one of the techniques that makes digitally generated and produced music sound like a real musical group, which basically (a) is a way to engage a bit of synergy and (b) is done mostly with reverberation and echoes in "play by ear" mode, since it primarily is a matter of listening to the raw tracks and being able to hear what actually was recorded, which makes sense if you consider the fact that digital computers obey the laws of quantum mechanics, hence are not so easily predictable as most folks imagine them to be, especially when everything is done in an event-based transaction-processing operating system like Mac OS X or Windows, where it is possible to manipulate event queues productively toward the goal of altering spacetime, which in an odd way makes it metaphysically possible to have a bit of FUN with time travel, especially when you consume huge quantities of very strong Vietnamese iced coffee (a personal favorite for time travel here in the sound isolation studio) . . . ]

"I Want To Dance With You" (The Surf Whammys) -- Basic Rhythm Section (May 25, 2012) -- MP3 (9.9MB, 286-kbps [VBR], approximately 4 minutes and 34 seconds)

Fabulous!

[Surfwhammy]

After listening to the previous version of the song for a while, I decided that I like (a) "sparkled" shakers with guiro better than (b) "sparkled" cowbells with guiro, so I changed the "sparkled" Latin percussion to do a shuffling back-and-forth accenting motion that enhances the dreamy aspect of the rhythm pattern in a mesmerizing way . . .

[NOTE: For the "play by ear" folks, in some respects the ability to adjust phrases based on the way they sound is the most significant aspect of NOTION 3, and while it takes a bit of study and work to make sense of music notation, it happens sooner rather than later and, most importantly, it works wonderfully. Additionally, in what I think is great contrast to the way things work for folks who pursue the more traditional and formal music theory paths, instead of composing and improvising on the fly in real-time being the last things one learns to do, this happens first for the "play by ear" folks, which in the grand scheme of everything tends to make it vastly easier for "play by ear" folks to compose songs while in a sense maintaining at least some of the desired level of being completely and totally clueless about music theory which more than anything is the hallmark of "play by ear" musicians and singers . . . ]

And I added a few more lead guitar phrases for the IK Multimedia Xpansion Tank 2 "Electric Guitar Collection 2" multisampled instrument collection Crunch Stratocaster, which was a lot of FUN, since this is the first song I have done where the lead guitar stuff is done with music notation, and it is fascinating to see how lead guitar phrases look when written in music notation . . .

The first lead guitar phrase is done as an 18-note tuplet spread over however many beats are required to fill the measure without causing the ending eighth note to turn red, which this description providing a clue to how "play by ear" folks conceptualize technical music theory stuff . . .

[NOTE: I know how lead guitar stuff is supposed to sound, so I tinker with the music notation and try different strategies until it sounds right, which for reference is the way I made sense of music notation for percussion instruments, where it took a few months of diligent experimenting and tinkering to discover the rules for the way I like drumkits and Latin percussion instruments to play . . . ]


1st Lead Guitar Phrase

The second lead guitar phrase took a bit longer, since it has a ritardando or extended holding type of thing happening on the first note, which mostly is a matter of holding the note for a bit longer, which is a subtle way to grab a bit of spotlight or whatever . . .

[NOTE: Technically, it is not ritardando for the note--although the note appears to linger--but (a) it is an instance of ritardando for the lead guitar player and (b) it is something that lead guitar players do to grab the spotlight by playing an apparently illogical or asynchronous note or phrase, which works all the better when the note arbitrarily is played "bad" (or if you prefer, intentionally flatted or sharped), at which time it is best accompanied with a grimace or some type of facial gesture that conveys a sense of pain, as well as embellishing it with a bit of note bending or whammying, depending on the lead guitar player's proclivity for being a "drama queen" . . . ]


2nd Lead Guitar Phrase

The third lead guitar phrase spans two measures, and it is played on tempo, where it mostly is doing what I suppose is a set of Heavy Metal or Gothic arpeggios or scales . . .


3rd Lead Guitar Phrase ~ 1st Measure


3rd Lead Guitar Phrase ~ 2nd Measure

I also adjusted some of the volume levels for a few of the tracks, but this was done while listening with headphones, so the mix is approximate at best, really . . .

"I Want To Dance With You" (The Surf Whammys) -- Basic Rhythm Section (May 26, 2012) -- MP3 (9.9MB, 285-kbps [VBR], approximately 4 minutes and 34 seconds)

Really!

Connecting a few dots, one possibility for the next experiment is to determine whether the lead guitar phrases can be done via scripts with the MachFive 3 Telematic or perhaps doubled on the MachFive 3 Vibrato Wurlitzer, which at least in theory should be possible, since there is a MachFiveScript for doing arpeggios, which incidentally works on all the VSTi virtual instruments rather than only on the new scripted instruments, but it also needs some rapid Heavy Metal double kick drums in a few places, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous!

[tubatimberinger]

True I have to scroll bit more than I would like. But as you have mentioned, you are not the first to say this out loud. And he has been asked even DIRECTLY to make his posts more succinct. He is not gonna change. I just scroll past his posts. Problem solved.

[Surfwhammy]

True I have to scroll bit more than I would like. But as you have mentioned, you are not the first to say this out loud. And he has been asked even DIRECTLY to make his posts more succinct. He is not gonna change. I just scroll past his posts. Problem solved.

FYI: You realize, of course, that you responded to a SPAM post generated by a kōan robot that is promoting ladies platform shoes . . .

Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto . . .

THOUGHTS ON SCRIPTED INSTRUMENTS

This is the original post that started this thread:

Motu’s Machfive 3 introduced a new technology: MachFive’s scripted instruments
Is there any chance to see them supported by Notion any time soon?

Christoph

Being vastly fluent in English and highly literate, the way I read the question is that "them" refers specifically to "MachFive's scripted instruments" . . .

One might suppose that another way to read the two sentences is that Christoph is asking whether a future version of NOTION will have scripted instruments and a scripting language like MachFiveScript, in which case what one might characterize as the "Twitter Generation" answer is "???", which in the grand scheme of everything provide absolutely no useful information, at all . . .

So far, I have verified that MachFive 3 general scripting works very nicely when MachFive 3 is running as a VSTi virtual instrument in NOTION 3, and I did this by using the Tremolo scripted effect on the MachFive 3 Jazz Stratocaster with Chorus instrument, which for reference is not one of the new UVI scripted instruments . . .

The fascinating aspect of MachFiveScript is that it makes it possible to write scripts that perform elaborate work on individual notes, where for example there are MachFiveScript effects provided in MachFive 3 that do arpeggios when a note is played; that construct and play chords based on individual notes; that do vibrato; and so forth and so on . . .





I am particularly intrigued by the Vibrato effect, since it is done via an algorithm which I think can be modified so that the vibrato can be tailored to specific notes, which is important because intuitively there probably is a difference in the way vibrato is done when playing a lower pitch note than when playing a higher pitch note, since for a lower pitch note varying the pitch by a small amount maps to a big change, while for higher pitch notes the pitch variation tends to be larger, if only because for a higher pitch note varying the pitch only by a small amount maps to no easily observed change due to the logarithmic nature of pitch . . .

For reference, vibrato and all articulations for VSTi virtual instruments are done in two general ways:

(1) played on a real instrument by a skilled musician, where the sampled notes are recorded and digitized . . .

(2) emulated by computer algorithms based on sampled notes that were played on a real instrument by a skilled musician but not in the specific articulation, where this occurs in three general scenarios:

(2.1) when the specific note was not sampled, hence is generated by a computer algorithm using logarithmic extrapolation . . .

(2.2) when the specific note was sampled but was not played in the particular articulation, where again the articulation is emulated by computer algorithm . . .

(2.3) when the specific note was not sampled but (a) adjacent notes were sampled and (b) they were played in the particular articulation by a skilled musician, where in this scenario what happens is that, using tremolo as an example, the speed of the otherwise constant tremolo either increases or decreases depending on whether the next lower adjacent note or the next higher adjacent note is used as the basis for the logarithmic extrapolation used to generate the truly virtual note, which is "truly virtual" because it was not actually sampled, instead being generated via an algorithm that uses nearby actually sampled notes . . .

This is the example for simple Vibrato in MachFIveScript:

Code: Select all

freq = Knob("Freq", 4.0, 0, 10)  -- vibrato frequency in Hz
depth = Knob("Depth", 0.1, 0, 1) -- the vibrato depth in semitones
grain = 5 -- vibrato updating period in milliseconds

function onNote(e)
  local duration = 0
  local id = postEvent(e) 
  while isNoteHeld() do
    local modulation = depth.value * math.sin(2 * math.pi * freq.value * duration)
    changeTune(id, modulation);
    wait(grain)
    duration = duration + grain/1000
  end
end

And this is the visual interface for the Vibrato effect:



[SOURCE: MachFiveScript Tutorial (UVI) ]

For those folks who know a bit about software engineering, scripting, and acoustic physics, it should be obvious that MachFiveScript is very similar to the BASIC programming language, which makes it like VBScript but with the addition of a semicolon, which is something one encounters in the C programming language and is more along the lines of JAVASCRIPT . . .

So, it is a combination of a scripting language, acoustic physics, mathematics, geometry, and music theory, where instead of doing everything based on music notation, the work is done mathematically and geometrically via algorithms that deal with notes in terms of scientific notation, cents, functions, and so forth and so on, which is where the PI, sine, and other mathematical and geometric stuff comes into play . . .

Another thing I discovered recently is that Kontakt 5 (Native Instruments) has a scripting language, and for example the Kontakt 5 scripting language is used in doing drumkit rhythm patterns, which is not particularly new, since this has been available in various versions beginning with Kontakt 2, but so what . . .

So what!

Kontakt 5 works nicely in NOTION 3; MachFive 3 works nicely in NOTION 3; and both Kontakt 5 and MachFive 3 have scripting languages . . .

QUESTION: Does it make any sense for a future version of NOTION to be a full-featured Digital Audio Workstation application and to have a full-featured scripting language for its native instruments?

It might when NOTION is 64-bits, but it makes no sense when NOTION is a 32-bit application, because this is too much stuff to do in a 32-bit application . . .

And I am not overly enthused by the idea of a future 64-bit version of NOTION attempting to do everything, which is the case based on the facts (a) that there are full-featured DAW applications and (b) that there are full-featured VSTi virtual instruments that provide deep and rich scripting . . .

There is a bit of overlap in the sense that most of the high-end DAW applications provide some level of support for music notation, but this is one of the areas where NOTION rises above everything, which based on the perspective here in the sound isolation is the most logical focus for NOTION in the future . . .

On the other hand, I certainly think that it makes excellent sense for a future version of NOTION to have a scripting language and a local SQL database engine, where SQLite will be a stellar choice, but instead of the focus of NotionScript being tweaking the individual notes of a VSTi virtual instrument, I think the focus should be on adding elaborate artificial intelligence capabilities to music composing activities specifically with respect to composing rhythm patterns, chord patterns, melodies, harmonies, counterpoint, and so forth and so on, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous!

P. S. Whether anything I write is useful to anyone is something that other people can determine, but I think it is accurate to state that at least some of the information I provide can be very helpful to those folks who did not focus so strongly on Computer Science, Mathematics, and Physics when they were in college; have not studied Joseph Schilllinger's System of Music Composition (SoMC) for several decades; do not play at least two instruments proficiently; and cannot make sense of all this vastly complex stuff in a practical way that relates directly to being able to do digital music production on the Mac, really . . .

Really!