bcarwell wrote: So, I take it the short answer is "Yes", Notion3 would handle Miroslav exactly like it would in Notion SLE for Miroslav (and MORE !), correct ?
Yes! You want to get the full version, which is NOTION 3 . . .bcarwell wrote:In other words all the score markings in the demo invoking the audible equivalents from the Miroslav library.
Yes!bcarwell wrote:And ditto if I used another VSTi like GPO or EWQL, right ?
Yes! With the corresponding NOTION SLE version, you can use only the specified virtual instrument (Miroslav Philharmonik, or whatever), but with the full version you can use all of them, where for example you might decide that the contrabass from Miroslav Philharmonik sounds better than the contrabass from GPO, so for contrabass you will use the one from Miroslav Philharmonik, but for the viola you decide that the viola from GPO sounds better, so you will use the viola from GPO, and then you might decide to add a Rock and Roll acoustic studio drumkit to your string quartet and that the drumkit from Addictive Drums is the one to use (noting that Addictive Drums has a FREE version with nice
basic drumkit and no restrictions, which is similar to what IK Multimedia does with SampleTank FREE) . . .
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NOTE: The FREE (a.k.a., "Demo") version of Addictive Drums has a kick drum, snare drum, hi-hat, and crash cymbal, which is a nice basic drumkit . . . ]
Addictive Drums FREE (XLN Audio)This is a bit of
Heavy Metal drumming with some
Polka or
Ska flavors that I did with the FREE version of Addictive Drums in NOTION 3, and the individual drums and cymbals are played via music notation, which is a lot easier than doing it on a real drumkit, even if you have a pair of Duallist Single-Foot Double Pedals and two kick drums, and as I recall I used a large room plate reverb unit from CSR Classik Studio Reverb (IK Multimedia) on it for a bit of spread. It is a headphone mix, so I have no idea how it works on loudspeakers, but so what . . .
"Addictive Heavy Metal" (The Surf Whammys) -- MP3 So what! 
bcarwell wrote:Also, unless I'm missing something, is it true that the most cost effective way to get Notion3 is NOT to buy it outright for $249 but rather to buy Notion SLE for Miroslav at $89 and then UPGRADE to Notion 3 for $99 thereby saving a whopping $60 (~25% !). If true, that sure seems silly but nice I suppose in letting you try out the lesser version with no penalty.
This is the way I did it, and it appears that this strategy is cost effective (starting with NOTION SLE and then upgrading to NOTION 3). However, it is useful to know that the full version (NOTION 3) is shipped rather than downloaded, since it has a large sound sample library on a separate DVD, so there is a shipping charge, and depending on the state where it is shipped in the US, you might need to pay state sales tax, but regardless of shipping and sales tax, it probably saves a few dollars . . .
So, with shipping and possible state sales tax, the saving might be more like $25 to $30, which works for me, since I like a discount, even if it only saves $1 . . .
On a related note, I checked the description for NOTION SLE for Miroslav Philharmonik at the IK Multimedia website, and the NOTION SLE versions do
not include the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) bundled instruments, so this is yet another reason to get the full version (NOTION 3), since the LSO instruments are very nice, and I use some of them, although generally I prefer the instruments in Miroslav Philharmonik . . .
And this is an example of a what one can do with music notation and IK Multimedia virtual instruments in NOTION 3 where the generated audio is recorded as soundbites in Digital Performer 7.24 via ReWire on the Mac and then enhanced with real vocals and various VST effects plug-ins and T-RackS 3 Deluxe (IK Multimedia) for mixing and mastering, along with the ARC System (IK Multimeda) for loudspeaker calibration and room correction . . .
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NOTE: This song is "inspired by" the stellar Beatles song "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" and Christina Aguilera's vastly naughty "Not Myself Tonight", and it features the Timeless 2 VST echo unit from FabFilter Software Instruments and the CSR Classik Studio Reverb VST reverb unit from IK Multimedia, as well as a bit of work in the Melodyne Editor (Celemony) to get the singing on pitch and to make the spoken word sections melodic, which is quite interesting and a bit of FUN. And instead of being about a surreal LSD experience, it is focused on absinthe, hence the painting by Viktor Oliva. It is easier to understand the mapping from the Beatles song if you add parentheses "(Lucy In The Sky With) Diamonds", which is the lyrical mapping or phrasing for the chorus . . . ]
"Absinthe Drinker" ~ Viktor Oliva"(Baby You Were Only) Dreaming" (The Surf Whammys) -- MP3 (9.2MB, 276-kbps [VBR], approximately 4 minutes and 26 seconds)If you listen to the song with studio quality headphones like the SONY MDR-7506
(a personal favorite), you will hear the notes of some of the instruments moving within what I call the "Spherical Sonic Landscape™", for which my avatar for this FORUM is one vector plane, and I call the technique of putting the notes of an instrument into motion "sparkling", which is very easy to do with music notation in NOTION 3, although it takes a while. The key bit of information about "sparkling" an instrument with music notation in NOTION 3 is that you have very precise control of the panning location, which for reference is a true panning control for stereo tracks rather than being a balance control, which is what makes "sparkling" so easy to do in NOTION 3. In other words, you have absolutely precise control of the panning locations, and the high-level strategy is to create perhaps as many as eight staves for a single instrument, where the each staff is panned to a very precise location, and then you put the notes for the instrument on which ever staff maps to the location where you want the note to be heard. It is easier to do than to explain, but it takes a while, since you need to provide leading rests (although not trailing rests), so you take the original instrument notes and copy them to each of the additional staves, and then you start replacing notes with equal-valued rests in whatever motion panning pattern on the "rainbow panning arc" suits your fancy, and even though it might take several hours to "sparkle" a single instrument for a three to five minute song, it is vastly easier to do it with music notation in NOTION 3 than to do it in a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) application, which is what makes it practical . . .
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NOTE: In the following "sparkled" section of a single instrument, the top staff is panned to far-left, while the bottom staff is panned to far-right, with the staves in the middle moving from mid-left to top-center to mid-right, so the left side of the "V" does a full "rainbow panning arc" from far-left to top-center to far-right and then the right side of the "V" does the full "rainbow panning arc" in reverse from far-right to top-center to far-left. It takes a while to replace the original instrument notes with equal-valued rests, but this mostly is a matter of doing a virtual festival of mouse clicks to replace the original eighth notes with eighth rests, since there is no other immediately obvious way to do the required editing. For a three to five minute song, it might take an hour or two of nearly constant mouse clicking to do the editing, but I like the way it sounds, and I can deal with the repetitive mouse clicking, in part because I had a job putting sticky price tags on tubes of Crest toothpaste when I was in college, and over three or so years I put sticky price tags on approximately 100 million tubes of Crest toothpaste--one at a time--so doing several thousand mouse clicks is not a big deal here in the sound isolation studio in terms of mindlessly boring work . . . ]
Section of a Sparkled Moog Synthesizer (Harpsichord Preset)[
NOTE: This is best enjoyed when listening with headphones, but instead of being a Moog Synthesizer playing a Harpsichord preset via SampleMoog (IK Multimedia), it is a Psaltery Harp from the IK Multimedia "World Instruments Collection" played via SampleTank 2.5XL . . . ]
"Sparkles" (The Surf Whammys) -- MP3 (4.2MB, 298-kbps [VBR], approximately 1 minute and 55 seconds)The rules for panning are not the least bit intuitive, but I have been doing experiments on panning, and I have reported the results in a separate topic in this FORUM, where the high-level version is that panning tends to be logarithmic rather than linear with respect to volume and perceived loudness, so notes at the far-left and far-right need to be louder, while notes toward top-center need to have a lower volume, which makes sense if you think about it for a while, since notes at the far edges are only heard from the loudspeakers or headphone for the particular side, while notes at top-center or in the middle are heard from both loudspeakers or headphones . . .
There is a lot of highly advanced stuff that you can do with music notation, virtual instruments, and NOTION 3, especially when you have a nice selection of VSTi synthesizers, which is fabulous . . .
Fabulous! 
Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 12:15 am