Rewire issues with Notion

[Surfwhammy]

Tell me this, have you tried to write tempo or time signatures changes in any of your songs/pieces? Try it and let us know if Notion behaves as expected.

Surfwhammy,

Have you tried to do this yet? What were your results with digital performer?

The experiment with tempo changes is on the list, and I am quite intrigued by it, since it is something that I already have been pondering for a while with respect to some of the DISCO and Pop songs I am planning to do, where one of the things that happens in a few of the hit songs done by my favorite DISCO and Pop ladies is a slower tempo interlude . . .

Intuitively, my guess is that it probably will not work when the tempo change is done only in the Notion 3 score, and I base this on needing specifically to set the tempo in Digital Performer to match the tempo specified in the Notion 3 music score . . .

The obvious "workaround" is to set the tempo dynamically in Digital Performer, but at present I do not know whether Digital Performer allows this, but it might . . .

The general strategy is to identify the actual way(s) tempo changes are triggered, as contrasted to the way(s) tempo changes are expected or hypothesized to be triggered, since my focus is on discovering how to make it work . . .

And if nothing appears to work, then there already is a known and verified solution, which is to treat each tempo change as a separate activity, which is not difficult to do in Notion 3 and Digital Performer 7.24, although it involves doing a bit of extra work, which is fine with me . . .

For example, the worst case scenario for a song that has verse, chorus, and bridge at 220 beats per minute (BPM) but has an interlude at 120 BPM is the treat this as two separate songs for purposes of the Notion 3 scores, where one score has the verse, chorus, and bridge but another Notion 3 score has the interlude . . .

The key is to have the bars or measures synchronized, where in the same example, if the interlude starts at measure 50 and continues for a total of 10 measures, then there need to be 54 empty measures at the start of the Notion 3 score for the interlude, and there need be 10 empty measures in verse, chorus, and bridge Notion 3 score for the section where the interlude appears . . .

There might be an easier way to do it, but I think it will be a useful technique, since it covers the scenario where after working on song for quite a while and having a virtual festival of instruments and so forth, I decide that there needs to be a new section doing something very different, where the general goal is for the "system" or "formula" to include techniques for making song structure changes as easily as possible after a lot of work already has been done . . .

My interest in this at present is for songs where the music is the central focus, but I think that it fits with the scenario for a motion picture soundtrack where the director decides to add a slow scene in the middle of an already scored fast scene, perhaps in a chase sequence where for 10 or so seconds it transitions to slow motion and the soundtrack needs to have a different tempo during the slow motion part . . .

COMMENTS

My focus at the moment is doing a few experiments to determine what is causing Diego's tempo problem, since I am intrigued by the problem, and I already have some good clues, because the Notion 3 score he provided ("Shell.notion") was done with the predefined Notion 3 "Full Orchestra" template, which he then modified, and this is not a good thing to do, since it definitely causes problems, at least on the Mac . . .

The best strategy is to start with a blank score and then to add each IK Multimedia virtual instrument specifically as a "VST Instrument", where the actual instrument is assigned via the IK Multimedia virtual instrument standalone user interface, which maps to the minimal amount of stuff . . .

[NOTE: It takes an hour to two to do a new score this way, but once you have done it a few times and have defined it mathematically as a useful set, it can be made into a user-defined template, which from that point forward makes it very easy to use. This is the way I do specific types of projects in Digital Performer, and it maps to taking perhaps a minute to create a new, already configured Digital Performer project, since it is just a matter of opening a predefined Digital Performer project and then doing a "Save As" . . . ]

One of the experiments I am doing tonight involves starting with a blank score and then doing the instruments using the rules I discovered over perhaps 1,500 hours of learning how to control Notion 3 ruthlessly to make it do what I need to do . . .

From my perspective, multivoice stuff is a "bell and whistle", and while I can see some handy aspects, for me it makes inputting and modifying notes a rather immense hassle, because it requires remembering which note belongs to which voice. There is a way to have chromacoded notes, which makes it easier, but I prefer to have each voice as a separate instrument with its own staff . . .

And while I understand that having each voice on a separate staff might be a bit beyond annoying for folks who have been composing with music notation for decades, so what . . .

So what!

Doing it one voice per staff works for me, and it is productive, which is my primary focus . . .

I can do what I need to do with music notation and IK Multimedia virtual instruments in Notion 3, and for me this maps to Notion 3 being the foundation for my new "system" or "formula", which in turn maps to the focus on making Notion 3 "happy" even when it requires me to do a lot of what philosophically might be "extra work" . . .

If it takes 10 hours to "sparkle" a harpsichord part, then this is fine with me, since doing it any other way either (a) is impossible for me to do or (b) takes even more time and more work . . .

In other words, Notion 3 is so vitally important for what I need to do that I adjust my work habits and techniques to Notion 3 and its capabilities and eccentric behaviors rather than expecting Notion 3 to adjust to me and what I might imagine it should do, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous!

P. S. Doing a lot of what some folks might consider to be "extra work" is very important, and it is one of the key strategies that made it possible for me to teach myself how to play lead guitar . . .

For example, there is a standard Jimmy Page lead guitar line that is played on the three high-pitch strings and involves doing two upward bends, where the sequence is 3-1-1-4-1-4, with the upward bends being done on the first "3" and the last "4" . . .

The "3" is on the high-pitch "G" strin,g and the "1-1-4-1-4" being on the high-pitch "b" string, which among other things is the first lead phrase in "I Can't Quit You Baby" (Led Zeppelin), which has the most stellar echo in the known universe for lead guitar, as well as being a standard Blues song composed by Willie Dixon, for sure . . .

[NOTE: This is one of the first lead guitar songs I learned, and it took me about three months of working on it 10 hours a day and a lot of gnarly fingertip blisters, which was fine with me, since one of the more fascinating aspects of being able to play this song on lead guitar is that regardless of your age, if you play this in a nightclub it is virtually guaranteed to map to "getting lucky" . . . ]

"I Can't Quit You Baby" (Led Zeppelin) -- YouTube music video



[NOTE: These are real instruments, and I composed and recorded it here in the sound isolation studio when all the "bailout" nonsense started several years ago, which was before I discovered Notion 3 and IK Multimedia virtual instruments, as well as being before I realized the vast importance of doing loudspeaker mixing with calibrated loudspeaker monitors, hence it is a headphone mix, but so what . . . ]

"M-O-N-E-Y" (The Surf Whammys) -- MP3

For sure!

It is a standard Blues riff, and it is not difficult to do once you know how to do it and have developed the required finger and guitar picking skills, but the reality for me is that I probably did that riff 10,000 or more times starting slow and then gradually increasing the speed, often so many times over and over continuously that I had bloody fingertips, but after a while it became second nature, which is the way it works with lead guitar, which is a very aggressive and violent activity with respect to physics and so forth, because it literally and physically maps to doing very rapid and forceful motions with thin metal strings at high tension . . .

And it is not so much a matter of any of it being particularly difficult to do when one has good motor skills, sufficient upper body strength, and an excellent memory for elaborate geometric patterns and numerical sequences as it is a matter of having the fortitude to get through the physical and mental conditioning phases, at least for some folks, including me, since yet another reality here in the sound isolation studio is that the "90 percent hard work and 10 percent talent" rule applies, for sure . . .

For sure!

[pcartwright]

You're over analyzing this problem. Rewire either functions correctly or it doesn't. If it doesn't function correctly, the Notion needs to release a fix (especially considering this is an advertised feature).

Also, please keep your responses concise and on subject; the valid things you have to see are muddled by the tangents you go on in your responses making your posts difficult and frustrating to read. Very little of your last point is really on subject.

[Surfwhammy]

Tell me exactly what to do with rewire in protools to get this working because I can synch perfectly Protools and any other thing I have, but Notion loses time.

QUESTION: Are the timing and tempo correct for either of these MP3 versions?

[NOTE: These are headphone mixes, and I did not do a lot of tweaking . . . ]

"Shell" -- Surfwhammy Rules 1 -- August 9, 2011 -- MP3 (4.6MB, 269-kbps [VBR], approximately 2 minutes and 23 seconds)

"Shell" -- Surfwhammy Rules 3 -- August 9, 2011 -- MP3 (4.7MB, 272-kbps [VBR], approximately 2 minutes and 23 seconds)

Lots of FUN!

P. S. You might have discovered an auditory illusion . . .

P. P. S. For reference, I separated the multivoice string section in the first version, but there were a few places in the Solo Violin, Harp, and Contrabass that had short multivoice phrases (two voices, except for the Harp which had a four voices) . . .

The second version has all the multiple voicing removed, but I did not input all the notes from scratch, so I have a few doubts about what actually was in the original "Shell.notion" score that you posted, which is consistent with another test that was a bit puzzling . . .

There is a command that highlights or selects all the notes for a part, but when I did the command on the multivoice Contrabass line in the original "Shell.notion" file, it highlighted the staff above the Contrabass, which is odd . . .

I have had a few garbled Notion 3 scores, but this happened when I first started using NOTION, and it appeared to be the consequence of starting with a Notion SLE for Miroslav Philharmonik score but then later opening it in Notion 3 (full version) . . .

Another thing that definitely is a potential problem is the complexity of the score, and while there only are nine instruments, if I add 3 more instruments this pushes the overall complexity beyond what Notion 3 can handle, and there are playback problems, which very quickly causes Notion 3 to lock-up, where the first indication is that the quality of the audio deteriorates . . .

And even though there are no many instruments, it depends on the specific sound samples, because some sound samples have a specific sample for each note but other sound samples have fewer sampled notes, and for the latter types of sound samples, the "in-between" notes actually are computed in real-time by extrapolating, which maps to doing a bit of floating point arithmetic, which might be done in the vector processor or whatever . . .

One of the consequence of the "in-between" stuff is that if you apply an articulation like vibrato to a sound sample of an instrument that was not actually played using vibrato, then the extrapolating algorithm arbitrarily applies vibrato to the extrapolated "in-between" note, and what happens is that since the pitch of the "in-between" note is computed rather than simply played, the vibrato will be either (a) faster if the extrapolated note is higher than the reference sample or (b) slower if the extrapolated note is lower than the reference sample, which among other things is the reason that, for example, Miroslav Philharmonik has more than 150 very specific French Horn articulations and so forth . . .

So, yet another possibility is that the particular set of instruments has a lot of instruments that require extrapolating for one reason or another, which in turn requires more extensive processing, hence the timing issues . . .

When I "sparkle" an instrument, I do it in a separate Notion 3 score, and I limit the number of instruments when I do the ReWire transfer typically to no more than eight instruments, which is the practical upper limit for a "sparkle" since additional panning locations are not easily discerned . . .

It might appear that having 9 to 12 "heavy" virtual instruments in a Notion 3 score should not be a problem, but "Shell.notion" has some instruments playing complex phrases that have different cadences, which for each instrument taken separately is not a problem, but together maps to rapid sequences of notes . . .

To put this into perspective, if I fully "sparkle" 20 instruments, this maps to 160 staves, since a full "sparkle" spreads the notes of a single-voice instrument over 8 staves, each of which is set to a specific panning location on the "rainbow panning arc", and this in turn requires from 10 to 20 separate but synchronized Notion 3 scores . . .

It took me approximately three months to discover how to do the "sparkling" stuff, and I continue to work on it, because the rules for panning locations are logarithmic in some instances but geometric in other instances . . .

I really like this piece, and I like the counterpoint and so forth, so I plan to do a few more experiments, where one set of experiments will involve cloning the non-multivoiced version and having only one or two instruments in each score, which might provide enough processing headroom . . .

Cloning Notion 3 scores is easy to do, and it is the strategy I use for constructing elaborate layers of instruments that have a lot of motion . . .

At this point, I have been working on this for perhaps 50 hour, and the more I study the song, the more I like it!

To put everything into context using an analogy, metaphor, or simile, I consider Notion 3 to be like a professional quality four-track tape machine . . .

Some folks look at it, and understand that they can record four things at once, but this annoys them, because they want to record more things, which overall maps to not doing much of anything other than complaining . . .

In contrast, when George Martin learned about four-track tape machines, he and the audio engineers at Abbey Road Studios devised a way to use perhaps as many as four of them at various times, with the result being "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (Beatles) . . .

No doubt, it probably was a bit of a hassle in some respects to discover how to do all the "ping-ponging" and how to synchronize the transport motors, which as I recall they did with at least one pair of four-track tape machines, but so what . . .

So what!

When I was in college I worked during the day in a grocery warehouse where I put individual price tags on tubes of Crest toothpaste, and a conservative estimate is that I put a price tag on approximately 60 million tubes of Crest toothpaste, so what for some folks is a lot of extraordinarily boring repetitive work for me is not a big deal if it accomplishes something useful, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous!

[Surfwhammy]

I had a bit more FUN with the "Shell.notion" song using the project for the first of the two previous experimental versions, and I did a bit more instrumentation, where I enhanced the Solo Viola with an Electric Sitar and Electric Guitar from SampleTank (IK Multimedia) and then added a Trumpet and Trombone section to augment the Oboe in the latter part of the song . . .

I also added a Harpsichord and Grand Piano to the Harp, as well as doubling these three instruments by doing the ReWire transfer three more times but to a new set of tracks, since I like to have a "L" and "R" pair of stereo tracks for an instrument in Digital Performer 7.24 to have more flexibility to workaround the "panning" controls for stereo tracks actually being balance controls rather than true panning controls . . .

This version is more Pop than Classical or whatever, which is fabulous . . .

[NOTE: This is headphone mix, and for reference the "Rules" bit refers to using the rules that I discovered for doing ReWire and layering on the Mac . . . ]

"Shell" (Diego) -- Surfwhammy Rules 5 -- August 10, 2011 -- MP3 (4.8MB, 270-kbps [VBR], approximately 2 minutes and 27 seconds)

Fabulous!

P. S. One of the more useful things I discovered about DIgital Performer 7.24, Notion 3, ReWire, and the various IK Multimedia virtual instruments is that so long as the Notion 3 score has sufficient workspace (which maps to not overloading it with "heavy" VSTi instruments and generally avoiding using any VST effects), then once Notion 3 is running as the ReWire slave, I can change the IK Multimedia virtual instrument for a particular staff without needing actually to clone or duplicate the staff, which is a handy way to do a bit of instrumentation on the fly, which is the way I did the Electric Guitar, Electric Sitar, Grand Piano, and Harpsichord instrumentation, although for the Trumpets and Trombones I created a new staff in Notion 3, since I wanted the Trumpets and Trombones to start at "Part 5" of the piece . . .

The only timing issue I notice at this point is a pulsating thing the strings do in two short sections, but I think it is a matter of the way the music notation is done and the specific string articulations and styles being used . . .

There are several ways to smooth it, where one way is to revise the notes, and another way is to add a drumkit and some Latin percussion, while yet another way is to keep the music notation like it is but to have an Electric Rhythm Guitar strumming during the pulsating bits (a) to provide a bit of crispness and (b) to control the phasing illusion . . .

On a related note, the instrumentation stuff is something that I learned from one of the YouTube video tutorials that IK Multimedia did for Notion SLE for Miroslav Philharmonik, where for practical purposes you only need four or five actual parts for a song to be able to do instrumentation or orchestration, depending on what you want to call it, which basically is mapping the parts played by a five piece musical group to all the instruments in a symphonic orchestra, and it mostly is a matter of copying and pasting, as well as knowing which instruments to use and when to transpose the parts to the correct register and so forth . . .

For reference, the IK Multimedia folks have gone bananas this week, and there is 30 percent discount on products that qualify for the ongoing 15 Year Anniversary Group Buy, which currently is a 2X1 (buy one, get another same or lower price product free), but I think will go to 3X1, which makes this stellar time to get stuff if you have been pondering the idea of having a virtual festival of VSTi instruments, mixing and mastering software, and a system for calibrating the loudspeaker monitors in your studio . . .

15 Year Anniversary Group Buy (IK Multimedia)

Lots of FUN!

[Surfwhammy]

After pondering a few ideas from my previous post, I decide to have even more FUN with Diego's outstanding composition, so I cloned the Notion 3 score with the multivoiced stuff converted to single voice and added a few more instruments using the cloned scores, which is the way I handle layering here in the sound isolation studio . . .

[NOTE: This is a headphone mix, but I plan to do a loudspeaker mix, sooner or later. For reference, there currently are 27 tracks in the Digital Performer 7.24 project, since I like to have a pair of stereo tracks for each instrument and in some instances two pairs of stereo tracks, which makes it possible to provide more precise control of the spatial location of instruments like bass and drums . . . ]

"Shell" (Diego) -- Surfwhammy Rules 6 -- August 10, 2011 -- MP3 (4.8MB, 271-kbps [VBR] approximately 2 minutes and 27 seconds)

The general strategy is to preserve a few of the original instruments, which are common to all the cloned Notion 3 scores and serve as reference points for the various sections (bass, chords, and melody), which then frees the other staves for use with new instruments, which I then record as soundbites in Digital Performer 7.24 via ReWire . . .

So, starting with the original "Shell.notion" score, it is very easy to add hundreds of additional instruments, which basically is matter of cloning the Notion 3 scores or project files and then doing the additional instrumentation in small sets, using a newly cloned score for each small set . . .

I keep the original score and the cloned scores in a file folder on the Mac, and I have a naming convention to keep track of the cloned scores, as well as the various iterations of the Digital Performer 7.24 projects, which makes it possible to recreate everything from the original score, one step at a time, where for example I decide that there needs to be an additional verse or perhaps an interlude, then I can start with the original score; add the new sections; get it into Digital Performer as soundbites via ReWire; and then do the same procedure for each of the stepwise cloned scores, which includes being able to create even more cloned scores for adding additional instruments, so it is very flexible "system" or "formula" for arranging, orchestrating, and producing a song, where the foundation of the system is Notion 3 and its stellar ReWire capabilities when interacting with Digital Performer 7.24 on the Mac, for sure . . .

For sure!

And as I listen to a song over and over, I start hearing more of what is happening in great detail, which in turn suggests new ideas, and this continues until I decide that the song has all the instruments it needs, which can be as many as 500 to 1,000 instruments if I decide to do a virtual festival of "sparkled" instruments . . .

[NOTE: Yet another reality is that neither Notion 3 nor Digital Performer 7.24 can handle 500 to 1,000 tracks in a single score or project, but this is where layering techniques come into play, which includes doing a lot of "bounce to disk" stuff to consolidate a set tracks in Digital Performer 7.24, which then makes it possible to replace the set of tracks with a single stereo soundbite, which in turn frees the consolidated tracks for use in recording more instruments and voices, where the key strategy is to have a plan, either (a) designed in advance or (b) created on the fly as the song progresses toward completion, which basically is the way one arranges, orchestrates, and produces a song in layers . . . ]

For reference, at this point if there are any timing or tempo issues, then I simply do not care, because I like the way the song feels, and my general experience is that no matter how a song is composed, played, and recorded there always will be subtle timing and tempo variations, since otherwise it sounds artificial, hence from my perspective, especially when the instruments primarily are virtual instruments controlled by music notation, having a few subtle imperfections makes the song more human and realistic, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous!

[Surfwhammy]

I did a bit of research on Reason 6 (Propellerhead Software), since (a) I have Reason 5 and (b) I got an email about the upgrade path, and in reading the FAQ section for Reason 6 at the Propellerhead Software website I found this vastly important bit of information regarding ReWire:

Is ReWire going to be 64-bit too?

Just as Reason 6 and Reason Essentials, ReWire will be 64-bit too. Note that 64-bit ReWire needs to be implemented in both the slave application (Reason 6, Reason Essentials) and your host. Please contact the manufacturer of your ReWire host of choice for compatibility information.

[SOURCE: Reason 6 FAQ (Propellerhead Software) ]

In the grand scheme of everything, there are several perspectives on the timeline for everything becoming 64-bit natively, and one perspective suggests that ReWire is one of the bellwethers and harbingers, which makes the upcoming appearance of 64-bit ReWire very important, for sure . . .

For sure!

[pcartwright]

Kyle, Brian, and Notion team in general. It's time to get this fixed. The rewire issue has been documented several times on this forum (most recently viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1981), through bug submissions, and direct email. Rewire is an advertised feature and one of the main reasons I bought Notion. We, the customers, need a solution.

I love Notion; the sound quality of included and expansion instruments (on the whole) is excellent, the program is intuitive, and I enjoy the ability to mix EWQLSO and GPO with Notion sounds. I've been a supporter on this forum as well as the Reaper and Garritan forums, but I find myself turning to other products to get pro jobs done.

Most respectfully, pcartwright.

[Admin]

Kyle, Brian, and Notion team in general. It's time to get this fixed. The rewire issue has been documented several times on this forum (most recently viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1981), through bug submissions, and direct email. Rewire is an advertised feature and one of the main reasons I bought Notion. We, the customers, need a solution.

I love Notion; the sound quality of included and expansion instruments (on the whole) is excellent, the program is intuitive, and I enjoy the ability to mix EWQLSO and GPO with Notion sounds. I've been a supporter on this forum as well as the Reaper and Garritan forums, but I find myself turning to other products to get pro jobs done.

Most respectfully, pcartwright.

I've said it before....we are working on this. We are expecting an update to NOTION this summer and you WILL be pleased.

[thorrild]

... and you WILL be pleased.

- Or else ...?

Best,
Thorrild

[pcartwright]

[...] and you WILL be pleased.

Ok, that's pretty funny (especially given Thorrid's response). Thanks for the update and sorry for being so impatient.