NOTION Music Forum

Can anyone explain the various functions of the following bit of code:

<trill pitches="1" time="0.1" delay="0.08" />

This code "plays" a trill rather than triggering a trill keyswitch. It's very useful for GPO and other libraries; however, I'm not entirely sure what the whole string means. I can guess that "delay" is simply the time delay before the trill starts. Likewise, the "time" variable is the time between notes. However, I'm not sure what the "trill pitches" variable means. Does anyone know?

trill pitches = interval, by tones (0.5 = a semitone)

time = division rate, based on the value of the note to be "trilled" (trilled?!). I use odd values to make trills less mechanical.

delay = delay. Sometimes different values seem to sound the same, as usual in Notion, eg. when I lenght note values to achieve legato...

Hope it helps.

Ps. Don't forget to drop your first name to DpDan.

fabiolcati wrote:trill pitches = interval, by tones (0.5 = a semitone)

I was thinking something similar, but I made a few changes (just to test), and the rules file doesn't seem to be responding to changes in the trill pitches value.

Ps. Don't forget to drop your first name to DpDan.

Done

pcartwright wrote:

fabiolcati wrote:trill pitches = interval, by tones (0.5 = a semitone)

I was thinking something similar, but I made a few changes (just to test), and the rules file doesn't seem to be responding to changes in the trill pitches value.

I guess this relies in the nature of GPO trills, as long as they are actually sampled, not midi generated ones.
Try triggering them via the appropriate tr˜ symbol to switch to half- or full- step.
As far as I remember, the original recipe of Notion rules for trills works fine with Notion instruments (except for what *doesn't seem to be responding to changes* )

True; the playable trills work wonderfully. However, I'm trying to do something unique.

As we know, an unmeasured tremolo marking won't generate a tremolo effect for libraries such as GPO, etc (unless the tremolo can be triggered instead of played). Since GPO's timpani have alternate hits sampled two octaves above the original, I was trying to write a rule in which a trill mark (for the timpani only) would play full octave trills simulating unmeasured tremolo for the GPO timpani.

Like you, I thought the trill pitches related to the interval, but it doesn't appear to be the case. Perhaps a Notion admin could give us a hand on this one?

Hello, I'm very new to Notion and I'm experimenting with the custom rules.

I tried the code posted by the OP:

<trill pitches="1" time="0.1" delay="0.08" />

But it didn't work at all. As I understand, it should make the current pitch of the current played note oscilate by 1 tone, is that right? I need the trills to be "played", becaue I'm trying to take advantage of VSL performance trill patches, as opposed to using the baked half and whole tone trill samples. Here is the rule I made:

<rule name="half-trill">
<if technique="trhf" />
<if flag="main"/>
<unset-flag name="main"/>
<cc type="note-on-prefix" controller="20" value="91" /> (CC to select the performance trill patch)
<cc type="note-on-prefix" controller="21" value="01" /> (CC to select the performance trill patch)
<trill pitches="1" time="0.1" delay="0.08" /> (Code to make the notes play in sucession)
</rule>

The patch is selected correctly, but the trill doesn't play. Can anyone help me?

Tralen wrote:The patch is selected correctly, but the trill doesn't play. Can anyone help me?

OK, I'll admit, the trill rule (as evident by my OP) alludes me a bit, but I'll explain what I've seen in other rules files supplied by Notion.

I think the problem (and again, I don't understand how this rule functions as well as others) with your rule is that you're including the trill definition (<trill pitches="1" time="0.1" delay="0.08" />) with your "if" statement.

The default GPO rule which utilizes the trill definition functions as follows:



<rule>
<if not-flag="strs" /> (strings have triggered trills in GPO; other rules have identified which instrument IDs are strings and therefore don't need a playable trill)
<trill pitches="1" time="0.1" delay="0.08" />
</rule>


That's it. As noted above, the 'trill pitches = "1"' syntax doesn't seem to relate to the actual interval of the trill; Notion seems to generate that information on its own.

I think the tricky part with your rule is that you're trying to set the playable trill definition and change two controllers at the same time. I suggest breaking the rule down into chunks and see what happens.

Add this rule first to verify that Notion is properly reading the trill definition:

<rule name="playable trill">
<if flag="main"/>
<trill pitches="1" time="0.1" delay="0.08" />
</rule>

If that works, try adding the following as a separate rule:

<rule name="half-trill">
<if technique="trhf" />
<if flag="main"/>
<cc type="note-on-prefix" controller="20" value="91" />
<cc type="note-on-prefix" controller="21" value="01" />
</rule>

Try adding the unset flag once you get this rule working (I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to this kind of coding, so I don't know if un-setting the flag right away is detrimental to your rule). If the second rule with the CC code works as intended. Once you get these rules working, do something similar for whole step trills. For example:

<rule name="whole-trill">
<if technique="trwh" />
<if flag="main"/> (change this value as needed)
<cc type="note-on-prefix" controller="20" value="91" /> (change this value as needed)
<cc type="note-on-prefix" controller="21" value="01" /> (change this value as needed)
</rule>

Note that I didn't repeat the trill definition, with the trwh rule. Again, it appears that the trill defition (<trill pitches="1" time="0.1" delay="0.08" />), only needs to be stated once for a given instrument/group of instruments.

I hope this helps. Please let us know if this is successful or if you still have issues.

Thanks for the help, pcartwright!

I couldn't make it work under any circumstance. I even tried making a rule set just for the trill rule, and it wouldn't play. I looked at GPO rule set, but I couldn't find the trill rule there, the trill rule used is just a keyswitch. Is this a legacy rule?

Also, I couldn't find any information about this rule, except for this thread. The documentation for custom rules does not contain any info on it, and I suspect there are probably many other rules that could be useful to me, but are unlisted in the documentation.

I started my custom rules based on the VSL rules that were provided, maybe there's something in there that's messing everything.

Again, thanks for the help!

Well, I found the trill rule for GPO, I was looking at the wrong file. I found interesting that a set of generic rules is set for all instruments, and then some exceptions are provided for the strings. I think I will start my rule set from scratch and see if the trill problem persists. I'm just having trouble understanding the unset-flag function.

Finally, success!

pcartwright, your suggestions worked perfectly when I rebuilt the rules from scratch. There was probably something inside the VSL native rules that was conflicting with the trill instruction, when I started over, both the patch selection and the trill "performance" worked flawlessly. BUT, I still need to understand how to make Notion select which instruments to use the performed trill or the pre-recorded sample. I couldn't find a way of assigning IDs for the instruments, so, for now, I'm trying using a hidden instruction in the score to indicate a "performed" trill.

Thanks again!