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"Save as"-problem

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"Save as"-problem

Postby Eftwyrd » Mon Nov 22, 2010 9:00 pm

Dont' know if this is a bug and I should submit this but very often I have the problem that when I click "save as" instead of ctrl-s to save different versions, Notion doesn't react anymore and I have to close the program and start it again. Then I try it again with save-as but all the time Notion stops working and breaks down. Don't know if anybody has the same problem but his is very frustrating at the moment. So I hope somebody can help me.
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Re: "Save as"-problem

Postby Robins1 » Tue Nov 23, 2010 8:10 am

Everything works OK for me. I'm running Win 7. I tried it both ways, from the drop down menu in File and clicking on save as and Shift/Ctrl S. Are you on a Mac or PC?
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Re: "Save as"-problem

Postby Eftwyrd » Tue Nov 23, 2010 8:55 am

PC, WIN7. I'm not sure but I have a the assumption that the problem occurs when I have some specific VST's inside Notion. I have to test this but last time it happened always when I have the "Independence Free" VST running on one staff.
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Re: "Save as"-problem

Postby Surfwhammy » Tue Nov 23, 2010 12:31 pm

Platform: 2.8-GHz 8-core Mac Pro with 8GB memory (8x1GB) and 5TB of hard drive storage

I encountered this problem, which also happens with "Save", and after a bit of experimenting I determined that it occurs when there are more than 51 instruments, although it might be more than 50 instruments, and sometimes the only message is that the file cannot be saved, at all . . .

[NOTE: The reason I think that 51 instruments probably is the upper limit is based on doing a lot of C/C++ programming, where indices begin at 0, so an array with 50 items has indices ranging from 0 to 49, hence I think that a "magic number" like 50 might have been used, which creates the possibility for a very subtle "bug" that would map to having 51 items in an array when the "magic number" was used as the upper bound but only 50 items being completely accessible when literal numbers were used (0 through 49), but regardless of whether it is 50 items or 51 items, Notion 3 goes "out to lunch" on the Mac and simply freezes when you add a 52nd instrument, where it will work for a few measures of adding notes but then locks-up, so as with everything it is a good idea to save projects frequently, which also is the case with Digital Performer and every other program. And this does not bother me at all, since there is a practical workaround that completely solves the problem, which is what is important to me. I can lock-up Digital Performer or any other program on virtually any platform, but the key from my perspective is being able to determine the rules and a practical set of solutions, which continues to the case with Notion 3 and Digital Performer. And it is no different than discovering how to avoid breaking guitar strings every 10 minutes, which mostly is a matter of focusing on specific techniques and so forth . . . ]

Whether it happens on other platforms is another matter, but on the Mac the problem occurs when too many instruments are added to a Notion 3 project file . . .

The workaround I devised is to create a separate folder for each song, where I keep a set of Notion 3 project files as the instruments evolve over time, which works very nicely for what I need to do and is not a lot of extra work, although it takes a few minutes for the Notion 3 project file to load when there are 50 instruments based on a rather diverse set of VSTi sampled sound libraries . . .

Basically, when I get to 50 instruments but need more, which is nearly all the time, I get all those instruments into Digital Performer 7.21 via ReWire where I record them as soundbites . . .

Then, I do a "Save As" or whatever for the Notion 3 project file to keep it as a time-stamped archive . . .

If I need more instruments, I work with the original Notion 3 project file but replace some of the existing instruments with new instruments and corresponding VSTi sample sound libraries, and when I have the notes entered I record only the new instruments to new tracks in Digital Performer 7.21 as soundbites, followed by saving everything and making yet another time-stamped archive copy of the now updated Notion 3 project file . . .

Doing it this way makes it possible to have hundreds of instruments, but only 50 at a time in any specific Notion 3 project file, which works and is fine with me, since it solves the problem . . .

And the reason I need so many instruments, as explained in a few of my other posts, is that I use multiple copies of the same instrument to create motion within what I call the "Spherical Sonic Landscape™", where I like sounds to move around from place to place . . .

There are other ways to make sounds move around in the Spherical Sonic Landscape, but this particular technique is very precise and generally easy to do, although it takes a few hours, but so what . . .

So what!

(1) Compose a part for an instrument to play, typically a series of notes that is faster rather than slower, where a simple example is a steady kick drum part where the notes are quarter notes . . .

(2) Decide on how many places from far-left to far-right you want the kick drum notes to appear, and then create a new but identical instrument for each place, assigning the same VSTi to each essentially "cloned" instrument . . .

(3) Copy the entire original part to each of the "cloned" instruments . . .

(4) Using the Notion 3 mixing board, set the panning for each instrument to the desired location, where the panning is set to a smaller region as the number of instruments increases. If you just want left and right, then set the panning for the left instrument to the left half of the entire region and do the same for the right instrument by setting its panning to everything to the right of top-center . . .

(5) Then using equal-value rests, replace notes with rests to determine which of the "cloned" instruments and the original instrument actually plays the note . . .

COMMENTS

Overall I think that 8 instruments is at the upper end of what actually can be heard clearly with respect to panning location, so with the limit of 50 instruments per Notion 3 project file, this maps to being able to set about 5 to 10 instruments in motion, which is good, but if you need more instruments in motion, then you can do the time-stamp and archive thing (see above) . . .

The current version of "I'm Going Goo-Goo Over Ga-Ga" (The Surf Whammys) has a lot of instruments in motion, including the primary kick drums (which alternate far-left and far-right), the deep bass (which also alternates far-left and far-right but opposite of the way the primary kick drums alternate, a double-kick drum that appears every so often at top-center, and an assortment of keyboard synthesizers that move rapidly from far-left to far-right in a back-and-forth motion, along with a somewhat elaborate set of Latin percussion instruments that move primarily among four locations, all of which are what I call "sparkles", with the general technique being what I call "sparkling", which mostly is a Pavlovian type of primitive aural response behavior modification technique that is designed specifically to capture and focus the attention of people who listen to DISCO music, since ongoing research clearly has demonstrated that such folks are not the brightest candles on the cake with respect to being able to focus on anything for more than a few seconds at a time, since if they actually were able to focus on something for longer than a few seconds they would have realized thirty years ago that DISCO music pretty much went out of style, although it is having a resurgence at the dawn of the early-21st century with such fabulous Pop songs as "Bad Romance" (Lady Gaga) and the European Single for "Who Owns My Heart" (Miley Cyrus), hence my current focus on DISCO music, which is fabulous . . .

http://www.surfwhammys.com/Im-Going-Goo-Goo-Over-Ga-Ga-11-20-2010-DP7.mp3

Fabulous!

It might be a bit easier to hear some of the motion in this early version of the "basic rhythm section" for the Surf Whammys parody of the European Single for "Who Owns My Heart" (Miley Cyrus), which curiously is based on the same "basic rhythm section" for "I'm Going Goo-Goo Over Ga-Ga", although it is at the tempo of 136 beats per minute rather than the 119 beats per minutes tempo of the "Bad Romance" parody, although the "parody" aspects are a bit subtle, really . . .

http://www.surfwhammys.com/FeelingYouFeelingMe-BasicRhythmSection-Notion3-10-2010.wmv

Really! :)

P. S. The only other way to move stuff around that I have discovered is to use automation with DIgital Performer, but it takes a lot of work and is not very precise . . .

Doing the motion work with Notion 3 and "cloned" instruments takes a few hours when you consider the composing and configuring time, as well as the time required to configure the ReWire channels in Notion 3; save and close Notion 3; start Digital Performer; create new tracks in Digital Performer and set their input to the correct Notion 3 ReWire channels; start Notion 3; and then record the Notion 3 ReWire channels as soundbites, but so what . . .

So what!

The reality is that Phil Spector did a lot of this type of thing in the early-1960s in his "Wall of Sound" technique, but he did it with real musicians and very simple analog magnetic tape machines . . .

George Martin expanded the technique with four-track analog tape machines in the 1960s, and a bit later Alan Parsons expanded it all the more with multitrack tape machines, where "The Dark Side Of The Moon" (Pink Floyd) . . .

More recently, it is very easy to hear stuff moving around when you listen with studio-quality headphones like the SONY MDR-7506 (a personal favorite) to "Bad Romance" (Lady Gaga) and the European Single for "Who Owns My Heart" (Miley Cyrus), which have a lot of "sparkles", for sure . . .

[NOTE: This is the YouTube music video for "Bad Romance" (Lady Gaga) . . . ]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrO4YZeyl0I

[NOTE: This is the YouTube music video for the European Single of "Who Owns My Heart" (Miley Cyrus) . . . ]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVbQxC2c3-8

Creating the "sparkles" with Notion 3 is very precise, and it takes less time than it takes with other strategies, which makes it very practical, for sure . . .

For sure!

P. S. S. Given the amount of time required to load all the VSTi stuff for 50 instruments, I think that 50 instruments is a reasonable upper limit, so I do not view this as a problem, per se . . .

I can do what I want to do, which is more important to me than it taking an hour or two to put an instrument in elaborate motion within the Spherical Sonic Landscape, since it is a quite amazing technique when it is done very precisely, which is what Notion 3 makes possible in a very practical way . . .
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Re: "Save as"-problem

Postby pianosteve » Sat Nov 27, 2010 5:14 am

Surfwhammy,

You know, I really don't want to sound cold or mean, but does every reply to a post have to include a lengthy treatise with links about your parodies and how you're producing them? I just get this nagging feeling that, even though you're actually answering some element of the questions that get raised, you view every post as a chance for you to promote yourself and your music. And so much of it seems to almost be copy-and-paste.

It's starting to feel more like SurfSPAMMY than Surfwhammy, if you get my "drift".
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Re: "Save as"-problem

Postby Surfwhammy » Sat Nov 27, 2010 12:50 pm

pianosteve wrote:Surfwhammy,

You know, I really don't want to sound cold or mean, but does every reply to a post have to include a lengthy treatise with links about your parodies and how you're producing them? I just get this nagging feeling that, even though you're actually answering some element of the questions that get raised, you view every post as a chance for you to promote yourself and your music. And so much of it seems to almost be copy-and-paste.

It's starting to feel more like SurfSPAMMY than Surfwhammy, if you get my "drift".


Highly literate and numerate people can be a bit annoying to some folks at times . . .

My reply provided this relevant information:

(1) I have encountered the "Save As" problem on the Mac . . .

(2) After devoting quite a few hours to determining what was causing the problem, I identified the specific steps required to cause the problem, and then I devised a workaround . . .

[NOTE: As mentioned in quite a few of my posts, my general perspective is that all software has peculiarities in one way or another, but so long as I can devise a workaround I am not overly concerned when a computer program exhibits a bit of misbehaving, and in this respect one of the stellar aspects of Notion 3 is that I have been able to devise a workaround for the few times when it misbehaves. And although I did not mention it in my previous post, I filed a detailed "bug report" on this specific problem several weeks ago, although my current thinking is that the best solution simply is to provide a more graceful way of informing Mac users that there is a 50-instrument limit, since on my 2.8-GHz 8-core Mac Pro with 8GB of memory (8x1GB) and 5TB of hard drive storage (which includes a 3TB RAID 0 Array), by the time I have 50 instruments that use a virtual festival of diverse VSTi sampled sound libraries, it takes a few minutes for the Notion 3 project file to open, which tends to make 50 instruments a practical upper limit, especially since there is a relatively easy workaround for those folks who actually might need as many as 500 separate and distinct instruments . . . ]

(3) The workaround is both necessary and useful, because while it might be a bit non-standard in the Classical universe to have more than 50 distinct instruments, it is essential for certain techniques in other genres . . .

(4) I explained the technique that requires having considerably more than 50 instruments, which is germane to the topic, since it is one of the ways one encounters the "Save As" problem . . .

(5) And I provided some examples of the technique, so that those folks who might be interested in it but have not noticed it have the opportunity for an insight . . .

COMMENTS

My general focus when participating in music forums is to provide a bit of help and to learn something, since these two activities are synergistic in the sense that when you take the time to do a lot of research to help someone with a problem, it is virtually guaranteed that you will discover something new and useful that is a type of "cosmic reward" for being gracious, and like most folks I usually mention whatever I am doing in the music arena at the time, since it relates to a lot of things . . .

For example, I have been studying the European Single for "Who Owns My Heart" (Miley Cyrus) for a month or so, and so far I have listened to it 98 times in iTunes, as well as at least that many times on YouTube watching and listening to the music video, which is helpful, because Miley is lip-synching, and this makes it a bit easier to identify when what she actually is singing is very different from what is on the studio recording . . .

And while I might be the only person on the planet who needs to listen to a song hundreds of times to begin to hear everything, I think that there probably are a lot of folks who need to listen to a song thousands of times to hear what I hear the first time I listen to a song . . .

Continuing with the example, it is obvious that there is a lot of vocal production, but it was only a day or so ago that I started noticing that there is a bunch of vocal stuff in the lower-middle background, which I first noticed in the "ahhh" echo for a few seconds starting at 1:47 and continuing through 1:54 during which time it pans back-and-forth from far-right to far-left in the lower-middle background layer while Miley is singing "wave, are you feeling me" in the forefront, which happens in one way or another every time this particular section of the song occurs . . .

Once I focused on that for a while, I started hearing soprano counterpoint in the same general region of what I call the "Spherical Sonic Landscape™", so I explored that for a while, and although it was not so easy or intuitive for me to hear it initially, once I recognized it in an immediately conscious way, it now is quite obvious, where for reference it is very easy to hear starting at approximately 1:04 and continuing for about 20 seconds, where the soprano counterpoint singer is doing something similar to the soprano singers featured in "The Great Gig In The Sky" (Pink Floyd), which from my perspective is a mind-boggling instance of reusing a stellar musical technique and probably is not the least bit coincidental or whatever . . .

[NOTE: This is the YouTube video for the European Single of "Who Owns My Heart" (Miley Cyrus), which is the reference song for the various timing information I provided regarding the lower-middle background soprano counterpoint . . . ]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVbQxC2c3-8

[NOTE: This is the YouTube music video for studio version of "The Great Gig In The Sky" (Pink Floyd) . . . ]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAydj4OJnwQ

And while in some respects hearing subtle soprano counterpoint in the lower-middle background of a Miley Cyrus song probably has nothing to do with a "Save As" problem in Notion 3, so what . . .

So what!

It is music, and at some point I think it is important to decide what you want to do with your time, and when you decide that you want to do music, this makes everything involved in doing music quite relevant and on topic in one way or another, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous! :)

P. S. Another reality is that I am a "chatty" person, and regarding why someone might need as many as 500 distinct instruments in a Notion 3 project, this is a video overview of the current Notion 3 instrumentation for "I'm Going Goo-Goo Over Ga-Ga" (The Surf Whammys), which I did last night to help my graphic designer get a better sense of how much stuff is happening in the song, for sure . . .

[NOTE: This is a Window Media Video (WMV, 18.5MB, approximately 10 mintues), and it solos the various tracks in Digital Performer 7.21, all of which except for the singing were created in Notion 3 and recorded in Digital Performer as soundbites via ReWire, which here in the sound isolation studio is a major event in terms of actually being able to do "sparkles" in a very precise and remarkably practical way, which for me is what makes Notion 3 so extraordinarily useful . . . ]

http://www.surfwhammys.com/Goo-Goo-Ga-Ga-Track-Detail.wmv

For sure!
Last edited by Surfwhammy on Sat Nov 27, 2010 1:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: "Save as"-problem

Postby giwro » Sat Nov 27, 2010 1:27 pm

pianosteve wrote:Surfwhammy,

It's starting to feel more like SurfSPAMMY than Surfwhammy, if you get my "drift".


<chuckle>

There's this wonderful feature on the board called Friends and Foes - go to your user control panel...
If someone's posts annoy you, you can simply add them to your "foes" list, and any post they make will
be hidden.

I use such a feature often on forums and boards when I find that a particular poster's offerings push
my irritate button...

:mrgreen:
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