NOTION Music Forum

I’ve had some issues in the past with rewire playback when Notion is used in rewire with Reaper (Reaper as host). Basically, the first few notes of the piece would be out of tempo and sometimes would remain out of tempo or off beat for several measures before Notion caught up to Repaer. I have a feeling this may be due to Notion's performance features but I'm not completely sure.

I don’t know if anyone else has had this problem, but for those who have, I think I have a solution. I usually have four blank measures in my DAW prior to the beginning of the song/piece (it’s just part of my workflow) and I compensate in Notion by adding several blank measures as well. However, when I fill the first measure with arbitrary eighth notes, Notion seems to come in at tempo from the start of the main piece (that is, when the actual song/piece start in measure 5). It's like Notion needs a series of notes in order to calculate the playback tempo.

Anyway, it’s not pretty looking, but it’s a fairly quick and easy process to delete the extra measures and arbitrary “start” notes once I’m ready to print my sheet music.

Hey, Pcartwright:

Usually, ReWire plugins have an option on their ReWire interface (notion doesn't have one) to specify the amount of "downbeats" or bars to wait before playing to the host. The ReWire client for FL Studio (as well as vsTi and dXi client) does this.

There's definitely something to be said here, however. Very little documentation under Notion Support is actually dedicated towards how to set up ReWire. What concerns me is that the "ReWire Slave" video at http://www.notionmusic.com/support/tutorials.html does not even talk about ReWiring MIDI. How would any composer even benefit from ReWiring to Notion without having the same instruments available to him on both tracks and knowing how to ReWire MIDI data?? This seems to me to be the practical use of ReWire, though I'm told you are limited to 16 tracks (see my post at http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=61320). Internal MIDI ports can be used to dodge the limitation.

If someone wants to direct me to a link or some documentation on how to do redirect my MIDI channels in Notion to tracks in Reaper, that would be much appreciated.

Fermented_Digeridoo wrote:Usually, ReWire plugins have an option on their ReWire interface (notion doesn't have one) to specify the amount of "downbeats" or bars to wait before playing to the host. The ReWire client for FL Studio (as well as vsTi and dXi client) does this..

First, I need to say that I’m not a rewire expert nor am I an employee of Notion Music, so take my words with a grain of salt. I’ve never seen the option you describe above; though my experience with rewire is limited to Notion and Reason with Reaper and Sonar as rewire hosts, so I really have no opinion on this. The method to sync Notion with the rewire host I noted earlier works for me and I’m satisfied with it.

Fermented_Digeridoo wrote:There's Very little documentation under Notion Support is actually dedicated towards how to set up ReWire.

This is true, but I don’t think rewire is really that complicated on the user end (or at least, it’s not supposed to be that complicated). The folks at Notion are aware of a few bugs concerning rewire (currently, I can’t use Notion as a rewire host with Reaper as rewire slave and can't record MIDI to Notion while Notion is in rewire slave mode), but Notion as rewire slave seems to playback reasonably well (a lot better than Sibelius as rewire slave).

Fermented_Digeridoo wrote:What concerns me is that the "ReWire Slave" video at http://www.notionmusic.com/support/tutorials.html does not even talk about ReWiring MIDI. How would any composer even benefit from ReWiring to Notion without having the same instruments available to him on both tracks and knowing how to ReWire MIDI data??

I’m not really sure what you mean by this. Rewire is meant to share audio, not necessarily MIDI (though some applications do share MIDI). I think sending MIDI from a host like Repar to Notion would be rather useless (unless we could record MIDI to a staff, wink wink) as Notion (as a score editor) is designed to create MIDI information from music notation.

You can send MIDI information from Notion to the rewire host, but you need to use Notion’s external MIDI ports (currently four labeled A, B, C, and D; each with 16 channels giving you a total of 64 MIDI channels to work with). However, you will need to utilize LoopBeMIDI or some other virtual MIDI cable in order to send MIDI information back to the host. Furthermore, you use these MIDI channels in lieu of staff presets in Notion (thus, you can’t access Notion’s rules files). There is a utility program posted on the Notion forums (designed by one of the users) for people to create custom rules files for these MIDI channels. You should definitely search for this and read up on it if you would like to use Notion’s rules capabilities with MIDI outputs.

Anyway, I think what you need is a way to isolate track audio from Notion back in the host for sound shaping and mixing, correct? I don’t know about other DAWs, but Sonar and Reaper can receive up to 32 stereo audio tracks from Notion in rewire mode. Simply go to the mix view in Notion and set any track’s output to a rewire channel (by default, all tracks are routed to Notion’s master stereo bus).

Fermented_Digeridoo wrote: This seems to me to be the practical use of ReWire, though I'm told you are limited to 16 tracks (see my post at http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=61320). Internal MIDI ports can be used to dodge the limitation.

Again, this is a little bit unclear. Are you talking about audio tracks or MIDI channels? There are 16 MIDI channels per MIDI port, but the number audio channels in VSTs and rewire programs is defined within the program (VSTi “ABC” might only output to one stereo channel while VSTi “XYZ” can output to 16 stereo channels; Notion can output to 32 stereo channels).

Does this make sense?

pcartwright wrote:

Fermented_Digeridoo wrote:Usually, ReWire plugins have an option on their ReWire interface (notion doesn't have one) to specify the amount of "downbeats" or bars to wait before playing to the host. The ReWire client for FL Studio (as well as vsTi and dXi client) does this..

First, I need to say that I’m not a rewire expert nor am I an employee of Notion Music, so take my words with a grain of salt. I’ve never seen the option you describe above; though my experience with rewire is limited to Notion and Reason with Reaper and Sonar as rewire hosts, so I really have no opinion on this. The method to sync Notion with the rewire host I noted earlier works for me and I’m satisfied with it.

Fermented_Digeridoo wrote:There's Very little documentation under Notion Support is actually dedicated towards how to set up ReWire.

This is true, but I don’t think rewire is really that complicated on the user end (or at least, it’s not supposed to be that complicated). The folks at Notion are aware of a few bugs concerning rewire (currently, I can’t use Notion as a rewire host with Reaper as rewire slave and can't record MIDI to Notion while Notion is in rewire slave mode), but Notion as rewire slave seems to playback reasonably well (a lot better than Sibelius as rewire slave).

Fermented_Digeridoo wrote:What concerns me is that the "ReWire Slave" video at http://www.notionmusic.com/support/tutorials.html does not even talk about ReWiring MIDI. How would any composer even benefit from ReWiring to Notion without having the same instruments available to him on both tracks and knowing how to ReWire MIDI data??

I’m not really sure what you mean by this. Rewire is meant to share audio, not necessarily MIDI (though some applications do share MIDI). I think sending MIDI from a host like Repar to Notion would be rather useless (unless we could record MIDI to a staff, wink wink) as Notion (as a score editor) is designed to create MIDI information from music notation.

You can send MIDI information from Notion to the rewire host, but you need to use Notion’s external MIDI ports (currently four labeled A, B, C, and D; each with 16 channels giving you a total of 64 MIDI channels to work with). However, you will need to utilize LoopBeMIDI or some other virtual MIDI cable in order to send MIDI information back to the host. Furthermore, you use these MIDI channels in lieu of staff presets in Notion (thus, you can’t access Notion’s rules files). There is a utility program posted on the Notion forums (designed by one of the users) for people to create custom rules files for these MIDI channels. You should definitely search for this and read up on it if you would like to use Notion’s rules capabilities with MIDI outputs.

Anyway, I think what you need is a way to isolate track audio from Notion back in the host for sound shaping and mixing, correct? I don’t know about other DAWs, but Sonar and Reaper can receive up to 32 stereo audio tracks from Notion in rewire mode. Simply go to the mix view in Notion and set any track’s output to a rewire channel (by default, all tracks are routed to Notion’s master stereo bus).

Fermented_Digeridoo wrote: This seems to me to be the practical use of ReWire, though I'm told you are limited to 16 tracks (see my post at http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=61320). Internal MIDI ports can be used to dodge the limitation.

Again, this is a little bit unclear. Are you talking about audio tracks or MIDI channels? There are 16 MIDI channels per MIDI port, but the number audio channels in VSTs and rewire programs is defined within the program (VSTi “ABC” might only output to one stereo channel while VSTi “XYZ” can output to 16 stereo channels; Notion can output to 32 stereo channels).

Does this make sense?

I uploaded an image showing the "time offset" in the vsTi plugin for FL Studio.

I remember way back, with an older Cubase/FL Studio ReWire setup, that I was able to sync MIDI across both DAW just fine. I configured the MIDI in, MIDI out settings within the FL Studio ReWire client and Cubase's settings. I haven't been able to do this, though, since upgrading to a 64-bit setup. I'm also running Reaper as my host, but I can't quite figure out how to make the MIDI data travel across to Reaper. I see the 16 Channels coming from Notion, but I can't seem to configure staves with those channels in Notion. But I'm new with Notion... VERY new. It may just take a few more days for me to figure it out!

Fermented_Digeridoo wrote:I'm also running Reaper as my host, but I can't quite figure out how to make the MIDI data travel across to Reaper. I see the 16 Channels coming from Notion, but I can't seem to configure staves with those channels in Notion. But I'm new with Notion... VERY new. It may just take a few more days for me to figure it out!

As I said before, you need to utilize the Notion ports (See 9.8 in the manual http://www.notionmusic.com/support/pdfs/Help.pdf).

Fermented_Digeridoo, I just noticed that you said you received some MIDI data back in the host (presumably by not using the external MIDI ports); I apologize for not reading more carefully the first time.

Does anyone know if Notion sends MIDI information with the audio after staves are processed by the rules files and the VSTis?

Fermented_Digeridoo, I haven't been able to replicate your findings with Reaper as host. I have seen the option in the Reaper effect bus (where Notion is rewired) for MIDI to be routed from Reaper to Notion (not the other way around), but I don't think Notion supports MIDI directly from a host. If anyone has a method to route MIDI from host to Notion in rewire mode, please let me know.

I went looking around other forums, and it looks like rewire is purely MIDI in/audio out (http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=27844). I think using Notion's external midi ports with a virtual MIDI cable is your best bet for routing MIDI directly from Notion to the rewire host.

pcartwright wrote:I went looking around other forums, and it looks like rewire is purely MIDI in/audio out (http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=27844). I think using Notion's external midi ports with a virtual MIDI cable is your best bet for routing MIDI directly from Notion to the rewire host.

Pcartwright, I don't think we should give up hope just yet. I am certain that I had a working MIDI in and MIDI out setup running a while back...

One user on the Reaper forums saying that ReWire is MIDI in and audio out is not terribly convincing when both Wikipedia and the Propellorhead website state otherwise:

Real-time streaming of up to 4080 individual MIDI channels from one application to another (255 MIDI buses with 16 channel per bus). This feature requires ReWire 2.

I think the answer to this question is really a matter of configuring Notion. Reaper's ReWire interface (in the FX bin as you mentioned) does seem to recognize 16 MIDI channels coming from NOTION. NOTION's way of setting up MIDI out is truly unlike any other DAW, so I think we all need to take a breather and try to troubleshoot what might not be working here.

Oh, and if you don't want to struggle with this... why not just install Linux and use Jack? Notion works fine in Linux (using Wine and WineAsio). If you are struggling with learning Linux and typing in passwords and "sudo su", then my best advice for you is to wait for the Windows/Mac release of JACK.

I will keep you posted on whether I have any success while using the internal Notion ports.

Fermented_Digeridoo wrote:

Real-time streaming of up to 4080 individual MIDI channels from one application to another (255 MIDI buses with 16 channel per bus). This feature requires ReWire 2.

Although this MAY refer to only one-way communication. From one to another, but not the other way round.