colombod wrote:I am using rewire to redirect Notion instruments output to my Daw where I have other tracks, I want to mix them and record the rewire output in other tracks (so that I can take them out for mix master without the need of all the instruments libraries).
There are a few rules for getting Notion 3 generated audio recorded in a DAW application on the Mac via ReWire, but once you follow the rules, everything works very nicely . . . Over the past year, I have written a virtual festival of posts on doing this stuff, and most of it is contained in the "Notion 3, DISCO Songs, and Sparkles" topic in this FORUM, although there is additional information on ReWire in other topics:
Notion 3, DISCO Songs, and Sparkles (Notion Music FORUM)For reference, this is my current digital music system here in the sound isolation studio, which I augment with real guitars, drumkit, electric bass, keyboards and vocals, but mostly real lead electric guitar solos and vocals, since the IK Multimedia virtual instruments sound better, which is more of a microphone and studio recording thing than playing real instruments versus using music notation:
+ 2.8-GHz 8-core Mac Pro with 8GB (8x1GB) memory, 3TB RAID 0 drive, 2TB hard drive space
+ Mac OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard running in 64-bit kernel and extensions mode
+ MOTU 828mkII ~ FireWire audio interface
+ Digital Performer 7.24 (MOTU) ~ DAW application
+ Notion 3 (Notion Music) ~ music notation and virtual instrument controller
+ SampleTank, SampleMoog, Sonik Synth 2, Miroslav Philharmonik (IK Multimedia)
+ T-RackS 3 Deluxe (IK Multimedia) ~ mixing and mastering
+ CSR Classik Studio Reverb (IK Multimedia) ~ reverberation effects
+ TrackPlug 5, MultiDynamics 5, Panorama 5 (Wave Arts) ~ special effects, reverberation
+ Timeless 2 (FabFilter Software Instruments) ~ advanced echo effects
+ AmpliTube 3 (IK Multimedia) ~ guitar effects and virtual amplifier rigs
+ Melodyne Editor (Celemony) ~ pitch correction and custom echoes
+ ARC System (IK Multimedia) ~ loudspeaker monitor calibration system
+ Reason 5 (Propellerhead Software) ~ non-VST synthesizers
I have been using Digital Performer for a long time, but after discovering recently that it "panning" controls for stereo tracks actually are balance controls, I am contemplating the idea of switching to Logic Studio (Apple), since it has the ability to specify "direction" on its stereo "panning" controls, which also is the way Notion 3 does its stereo "panning" controls, except that Notion 3 does it visually in a truly elegant way, but at present I am using Digital Performer 7.24, and it continues to be a 32-bit DAW application . . .
Notion 3 also is a 32-bit application, as are all the IK Multimedia virtual instruments, so the 32-bit aspect is very important, since ReWire also is a 32-bit interapplication communication system and the last time I checked continues not to be available in a 64-bit version . . .
Intuitively, Logic (Apple) will not have problems, since it is developed by Apple and generally is current with everything Apple does in Mac OS X, so although I do not currently have Logic, I think that the rules I discovered for doing ReWire with Digital Performer as the host and Notion 3 as the slave will apply, although there might be a few DAW specific nuances based on Logic configuration specifics and terminology . . .
In some respects, all this stuff is vastly complex, but after doing a lot of experiments over a few thousand hours, the fact of the matter is that it works accurately, reliably, and repeatably, which is fabulous . . .
Fabulous! For reference, I am making an effort to summarize a
lot of information, which in some respects is like asking James Joyce or Leo Tolstoy for an overview of something, but so what . . .
So what! IMPORTANT STUFF FOR DOING REWIRE ON A MAC(1) The "Audio Buffer Size" in Notion 3 "Preferences" must be set to the default value, which is "256 Samples", because increasing it will cause audio skipping, erratic speed variations, and so forth. You also need to have the "Enable ReWire" option
checked . . .
[
NOTE: The reason you want to set the Notion 3 "Audio Buffer Size" to "256 Samples" is that setting it to a larger value causes the buffer to do too much look-ahead, which in turn causes delays in generating the audio. This also is the case with the DAW application, where at least for Digital Performer 7.24 you want to use the smallest buffer sizes possible, which on the Mac Pro here in the sound isolation studio maps to 1024 with a multiplier of 2 . . . ]
Preferences Audio Tab ~ Notion 3Configure Hardware Driver ~ Digital Performer 7.24 (2) It is best to avoid using the Notion 3 predefined templates if you are using synthesizers (IK Multimedia virtual instruments). So the best strategy is to start with a blank project and then to add each IK Multimedia virtual instruments separately. Once you do this, you then can create your own user-defined templates and add them to the Mac OS X application package for Notion 3, at which time they will appear in the predefined template list for Notion 3. There is a separate topic on how to do this, where
fabiolcati explained how to do it, so if you need help on the specifics, just ask about it.
(3) As a general rule, Notion 3 can handle approximately 25 "heavy" VSTi instruments in a single score or project, so the system I devised is based on having sets of Notion 3 scores for a single song, where I keep the related Notion 3 scores in a separate folder and use a file naming system with numerical suffices to keep track of which instruments are in each score. I make approximately 5 instruments common to every related Notion 3 score for a song, so that I have a common reference for the drumkit, bass, chords, and simple melody, mostly for purposes of identifying sections (intro, verse, chorus, bridge, interlude, and so forth) . . .
(4) It is very important to insert at least
four blank measures at the start of a Notion 3 score when you are going to use it via ReWire with a DAW. This is easy to do, and depending on the time signature, you can have more blank bars so that the actual starting of a song makes sense numerically, but for 4/4 I usually have the song starting at the first beat of the fifth measure . . .
(5) In the same way as (4), you want to ensure that the DAW application also has blank measures at its start, which in Digital Performer 7.24 is done simply by moving the transport to "5:1:000" (measure, beat, tick) . . .
(6) You must not start the DAW or Notion 3 at the first measure when ReWIre is activated, since it will crash the DAW, and Notion 3 will go into
La La Land . . .
[
NOTE: I have no idea whether this is a "bug" in Digital Performer, Notion 3, or ReWire, but it happens, so I devised a "workaround" for it, which is not to start at the beginning measure of songs. Mostly, I think it is due to the interapplication communication protocols, where everything needs a bit of time to initialize and to get the various ports or whatever primed and so forth. On a related note, I am focused on discovering how to do what I need to do, and I generally do not waste time attempting to assign faults. All this software is quite amazing, so my focus is on discovering how to make it work nicely, since the reality is that all software has "bugs" . . . ]
(7) Do
not use ReWire channels 1 through 10 in Notion 3. Instead, start with the "Channels 10-11" pair and move upward . . .
(8) You can use a few VST effects plug-ins while working in Notion 3, including the default Reverb on the Master stereo output track, but when you get ready to do the ReWire stuff, you will want to disable all effects in the Notion 3 Mixer, including the default Reverb . . .
(9) It is best to set the track volumes to 0db when doing the ReWire step . . .
(10) You can set panning in the Notion 3 Mixer as you desire, and when I am doing what I call "sparkles" I set the panning location for each "sparkled" instrument stereo track very specifically, which is one of the stellar features of Notion 3, where for reference this is a "sparkled" Psaltery Harp (IK Multimedia) where the notes are spread over a "rainbow panning arc" in different geometric patterns . . .
Music Notation for "Sparkles" -- PDF (94KB, 5 pages)"Sparkles" -- MP3 (4.2MB, 298-kbps [VBR], approximately 1 minute and 55 seconds)(11) It is fine to use the Notion 3 buses for ReWire, which I do for "sparkled" instruments, where I send the left-side stuff to one bus and the right-side stuff to another bus, but mostly I output each instrument track to a separate ReWire channel pair, starting of course with "Channels 11-21" and moving upward . . .
(12) Notion 3 generates audio at 44.1-kHz and 16-bits, which is standard CD audio resolution, so the DAW application needs to be set this way, as well. For reference, you can use different frame rates if your DAW supports it, but it actually degrades the audio quality if you increase the sampling rate and bit resolution, so it is best to set the DAW application to 44.1-kHz and 16-bits. Typically, I have the frame rate in Digital Performer 7.24 set to 30 fps . . .
(13) It is very important to start the DAW application first when doing ReWire, since this establishes the DAW application as the ReWire controller for the session. Once the DAW application is running, you can set its transport a few measures forward, for example to "5:1:000" (measure, beat, tick), and then you can start Notion 3 and open the Notion 3 score you want to record in the DAW application as soundbites via ReWire . . .
(14) You need to assign the various DAW application stereo tracks to the matching ReWire channels of the Notion 3 instrument stereo tracks you want to record, and for Digital Performer 7.24 you want the "Rec" and "Input" buttons enabled for the tracks you will be recording. The Digital Performer documentation suggests using auxiliary instrument tracks for ReWire, but I use stereo tracks rather than auxiliary tracks, and it works very nicely . . .
(15) Once you have the ReWire channel assignments the way you want them, you can set the DAW transport to "5:1:000" (measure, beat, tick) and then record approximately 10 seconds of Notion 3 generated audio, at which time you will stop recording and reposition the DAW transport at "5:1:000" (measure, beat, tick). As best as I can determine, this preloads the buffers and gets all the ReWire pipelines and so forth primed and ready to go, at which time you then can record the entire song . . .
[
NOTE: There is a lot of highly complex computer stuff happening in the background with Notion 3 is controlling virtual instruments and generating the audio, as is the case with ReWire, so I think it is quite reasonable that the priming step needs to occur. The reality is that there are at least four different third-party software companies and the primary operating system company involved in this stuff (Apple, IK Multimedia, MOTU, Notion Music, Propellerhead Software), and from my perspective it is amazing that it works so smoothly . . . ]
(16) Once the instrument tracks are recorded as soundbites in the DAW via ReWire, you can close Notion 3, and then you can start working with the soundbites . . .
[
TIP: Since it is vitally important never to start doing ReWire recording at the first measure, I set a "marker" in Digital Performer 7.24 at whatever timestamp maps to "5:1:000" (measure, beat, tick), and I always use the "marker" to reposition the transport to the actual start of the song in Notion 3, which will be at the first beat of the fifth measure for a 4/4 time signature . . . ]
ADDITIONAL INFORMATIONI only use the MOTU 828mkII when I am recording vocals and real instruments, so most of the time I using "Built-in" digital audio on the Mac Pro, which maps to using Core Audio for everything. ReWire works nicely in both scenarios, (a) when the MOTU 828mkII is handling most of the audio processing work and (b) when "Built-in" digital audio on the Mac Pro is doing everything . . .
I use the Melodyne Editor (Celemony) for vocal pitch correction and fine-tuning, and it only works with "Built-in" digital audio, so I tend to switch from using the MOTU 828mkII to using "Built-in" digital audio, back and forth, depending on which specific activity I am doing at the time . . .
It is very important to have the current version of all the software applications, with the exception of the operating system, which at present needs to be Mac OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard, since nearly no digital audio applications and plug-ins currently work in Mac OS X Lion, although Digital Performer 7.24 is the update that provides Mac OS X Lion compatibility and there are a few third-party applications and VST plug-ins that work with Mac OS X Lion. Nevertheless, the best strategy is to run Mac OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard, and for reference since you have a Mac Pro, you can get an internal drive and use SuperDuper! to clone your Snow Leopard primary drive, at which time after verifying that the cloned drive is bootable and working correctly, you can have a bit of FUN experimenting with Mac OS X Lion but still be able to boot to Snow Leopard using whichever of the drives you want to keep as your primary Snow Leopard drive, since SuperDuper! will make the drives identical in every respect, so you can install Mac OS X Lion on one of them, and then there you are. You also can do this with a FireWire external drive, like the LaCIe d2 Quadra drives, since FireWire drives also are bootable on the Mac . . .
COMMENTS I noticed that you mentioned having some problems with some type of advanced repeat notation, and it is very important to understand that I make a diligent effort to keep everything in the music notation arena as simple as possible, which is based on decades of doing software engineering and discovering through experience that software engineers at time simply cannot resist the temptation to tweak otherwise wonderfully working algorithms, which of course causes a lot of stuff to stop working, so the best strategy is to focus on the most simple set of everything possible, since over time it is the simple stuff that gets the most testing every time stuff stops working and has to be debugged and fixed . . .
It is like the thing with ReWire channels 1 through 10, which has eccentric behaviors, and while I have not examined the code, my best guess is that it has something to do with the nuances of dealing with single digit integers, since if you start with the "Channels 11-12" pair and move upward, there are no problems. And the actual "bug" could be anywhere (Mac OS X, Digital Performer, Notion 3, or ReWire), but so what . . .
So what! One of the most important things from my perspective is that every time I have encountered an eccentric behavior in Notion 3, I have been able to do a few experiments that consistently lead to discovering an excellent "workaround" . . .
The reality in the 32-bit universe is that the IK Multimedia virtual instruments are "heavy", which maps to using all the available Notion 3 application memory space very quickly, and this is the way it works when one is constrained to 32-bit application space . . .
I run the Mac OS X "Activity Monitor" every once in a while to get a sense of the utilization of the Mac Pro hardware, and yet another reality is that the total memory being used rarely exceeds 5GB, and for the most part only perhaps 15 to 20 percent of the 8 cores are used, and this is a combination of 32-bit applications and a general lack of specific multicore application programming techniques . . .
Logic (Apple) might have specific multicore application programming, which certainly will be nice, but for the most part everything at the dawn of the early-21st century essentially is linear, which for single applications tends to make the speed of the processor very important, since on average the actual utilization of the Mac Pro here in the sound isolation studio maps to 1 core, which in an odd way is good, since it indicates that the Mac Pro can do a lot more processing once all the digital music software gets into the 64-bit multicore universe, which I am hoping will happen sometime in this century . . .
And this is an example of what one can do with music notation and IK Multimedia virtual instruments in Notion 3, where the Notion 3 generated audio is recorded in Digital Performer 7.24 via ReWire, which took several ReWire sessions, since there are a lot of "sparkled" instruments and a few synchronized Notion 3 scores, which in the "system" or "formula" I devised over the past year or so maps to somewhere in the range of 75 stereo tracks, with a good bit of consolidation and so forth, which is fabulous . . .
"Feel Me" (The Surf Whammys) -- July 28, 2011 -- MP3 (8MB, 300-kbps [VBR], approximately 3 minutes and 38 seconds)Fabulous! P. S. I think that any problems you are having doing ReWire with Notion 3 and Logic will be a matter of getting everything properly configured. If I had Logic Studio, I could tell you exactly how to configure everything, but Logic is at least as good as Digital Performer, so it should work nicely . . .
When I first started making sense of ReWire, it was very frustrating, but after a month of doing often surreal experiments I discovered a simple set of rules that work very nicely, and while some of the rules are a bit strange, they are easy to follow and do not require a lot of extra work. Never starting earlier than the first beat of the fifth measure is a bit odd, but you can set a "marker", which makes it easier when you need to reposition the transport at the actual start of a song when doing ReWire, and the avoiding channels 1 through 10 is not a bit deal, although it also is on the strange side . . .
Having a Computer Science degree and several decades of experience in advanced software engineering makes it a bit easier for me to devise "workarounds" when I encounter eccentric behaviors in software, and as noted there are some eccentric behaviors, but with a bit of focused experimenting I have been able to identify scenarios in which the eccentric behaviors do not occur, which overall maps to a combination of (a) avoiding overloading the Notion 3 application workspace, which in turn maps to keeping the total number of "heavy" VSTi instruments in the range of 20 to 25, ideally with no VST effects plug-ins, since VST effects plug-ins also very quickly overload the Notion 3 application workspace and (b) getting everything configured correctly for optimal audio buffer look-ahead, latency, and so forth . . .
Additionally, it is important to understand that the IK Multimedia virtual instruments typically are recorded and digitized at standard CD quality, which is the resolution that Notion 3 provides, as well, so while it might appear to be intuitive to think that increasing the audio resolution in the DAW will make everything work and sound better, this is not the way it works, and in fact increasing the audio resolution in the DAW either makes everything stop working or sound terrible . . .
Unless you happen to be a fanatically passionate and well-financed audiophile and have a custom designed listening room with $50,000 to $100,000 of custom high-end audiophile-quality amplifiers, loudspeakers, and so forth and so on, then anything beyond standard CD quality pretty much is nonsense in any practical way . . .
There is a bit of logic to having a 500-watts power amplifier in certain scenarios, but one of the things I discovered over half a century ago is that 1-watt is a lot of power . . .
At the time, I had an Altec-Lansing A7 Voice of the Theater that I was using with a 30-watts power amplifier as an electric bass rig, and I did an experiment where I connected the output of a pocket-size transistor radio to the A7, and at full volume, which probably was less than 1-watt, it was painful in a room the size of a typical apartment bedroom . . .
Altec-Lansing A7 "Voice of the Theater" ~ Bass Reflex Projector SystemThe key bit of information in this instance is that the Altec-Lansing A7 "Voice of the Theater"--which was designed by James B. Lansing, who later left Altec-Lansing and started JBL--is approximately 30 percent efficient, which is about as efficient as a loudspeaker system can be . . .
And this was the epiphany that led me to focus on physics and facts rather than beliefs, which is one of the reasons that I am quite comfortable with standard CD quality, which actually is significantly better that most of the listening devices that people use, at least for listening to
Rock and Roll,
Rhythm and Blues,
Heavy Metal,
Flamenco,
DISCO, and
Pop songs . . .
For reference, the 500-watts power amplifier thing is for those folks who enjoy listening to primarily orchestral and symphonic music that has dynamics ranging from "pppp" to "ffff", and the strategy is to set the volume control to 0.5 or 1 so that there is enough headroom in the power amplifier to handle the "ffff" sections without clipping or overloading . . .
In a typical home listening room, a 100-watts power amplifier is a bit much, really . . .
Really!