NOTION Music Forum

I have noticed that all the "voices" sounds are played by a piano. Did I miss something ?

I get the same thing.

If they aren't available in the sample set, they should be presented as greyed and italicized, but that's not the case with the vocal samples:

Do we have some add-on to download ?

This has been asked before on other threads. The Notion3 vocals are indeed piano samples; they vocal defaults are included to quickly add staves with correct lables (Soprano, Alto, etc) and, in the case of the tenor line, transpositions to a score.

Thanks for the explanation. I understand the convenience, but it breaks the paradigm.

Plus, these options aren't available if you've got a library which actually has corresponding samples.

For example, the Vocal menu under GPO shows Choir, and for Miroslav it has has Mixed Choir. Male Choir and Female Choir. Nary an SATB in sight.

And if (for example), you choose Tenor under NOTION 3 Instruments, and then change the sample to a vocal sample from another library (like Miroslav), by default Notion will overwrite the stave instrument name with the new instrument, so there's no value in doing that...

These are really specific cases of a Basic Staff.

From my perspective, the key to using Notion 3 productively is to discover what I call "workarounds" for all the eccentric or unusual behaviors, which basically happens with all software in one way or another and is explained by Alan Turing's "Halting Problem", although in a somewhat abstruse way . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem

In this particular instance, there is a stellar "workaround", and it works both on Windows machines and Macs, although the specifics are different for each operating system, of course . . .

Of course!

At some point, which typically occurs after one does a few songs with Notion 3, a pattern or workflow emerges, and one of the things that is very useful is to be able to create a set of user-defined templates, so that instead of starting from a blank score and creating instruments one at a time, you can start from a user-defined template that has whatever standard set of instruments you desire . . .

So, for example, if you compose songs with a lot of voices that are provided by VSTi vocal instruments, then you can create a Notion 3 score with whatever voices you desire, which includes changing the staves using the various music notation tools from the palette; assigning the staves to particular VSTi vocal instruments; and defining the accompanying VSTi instruments and so forth and so on, where on the Mac it tends to be best when using IK Multimedia virtual instruments--which are "heavy" VSTi instruments on the Mac--to keep the total number of instruments in the range of 20 to 25 instruments, which if you also use a lot of "heavy" VST plug-ins in the Notion 3 Mixer needs to be more in the range of 15 to 20 "heavy" VSTi instruments . . .

On the Mac you can add the Notion 3 score to the Notion 3 application package in a specific way, and it will appear in the list of predefined templates thereafter, where the naming convention appears to begin with a sequential number (probably the index of where the template appears in the list) followed by a space and an unique name, which might be "22 Really Big Drumkit" or whatever . . .

Whatever!

It takes a while to create a set of user-defined templates, but once you have them defined, it saves a lot of time, since you can create a new score based on one of your user-defined templates very quickly, where the only slow aspect is the amount of time required to load the instances of the various VSTi instruments . . .

Getting user-defined templates into the Notion 3 list of predefined templates is explained in two of the posts in the following topic, where Francois2010 explains it for Windows users and fabiolcati explains it for Mac users . . .

http://forum.notionmusic.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1439

It might take an hour or so to create a nice template, but how many different types of DISCO and Pop songs are there?

Probably one, which presumes that DISCO and Pop actually is "music" . . .

And since there currently is no possible way to get 500 to 1,000 "heavy" VSTi instruments in a single Notion 3 score, who cares . . .

Not me!

My strategy is to focus on sections rather than genres, which here in the sound isolation studio maps to having a few templates for violin sections, viola sections, various drumkit sections, Latin percussion sections, Indian drum sections, horn sections, synthesizer sections, and so forth and so on . . .

Another key aspect of my "system" or "formula" is that I have perhaps five common instruments in each template, which serve as reference points for such things as the tempo (kick drum), bass (Hofner "Beatle" Bass), chords (guitar or piano), and melody (piano) . . .

I have a naming convention for the Notion 3 scores for individual songs, and I keep all the Notion 3 section scores for a specific song in the same folder, which is easy for me to do, since I do computer programming and have no problems working quickly with vast quantities of text and touch-typing at vast speeds with remarkably outstanding attention both to correct spelling and proper English grammar . . .

Who might have guessed that one?

In some respects, it is a bit like asking James Joyce what he was thinking, where for example depending on the edition and typesetting, "Ulysses" (James Joyce) runs from 500 to 1,000 pages and covers 18 sequential hours spanning parts of two days, where each hour is a chapter, which is a bit random even for me . . .

And while in some discussions it might be a bit odd to expect most folks to understand elaborate multidimensional thinking, in a music notation and composition FORUM, I think this pretty much is a normal aspect of what everyone does, since it is considerably easier to compose elaborate music when you actually hear an orchestra in your mind and can focus on specific instruments or ponder everything from a high level at will, which is the way it works here in the sound isolation studio, often to the point that the idea of having only a single isolated thought is a bit disturbing, especially if it involves oranges, extra creamy Reddi-wip®, Spandex® tights, and a kazoo, really . . .

Really!

Summarizing, the key is to create your own user-defined templates, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous!