NOTION Music Forum

Hello,

With Notion3, there is the possibility Attach Audio File but is it possible to view the waveform in order to be precise. This would be able to score music mixed with like a recorded tape. There there a solution?

deb76 wrote:Hello,

With Notion3, there is the possibility Attach Audio File but is it possible to view the waveform in order to be precise. This would be able to score music mixed with like a recorded tape. There there a solution?

Viewing the waveform in detail is something that you need to do with a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) application like Digital Performer or Logic Studio, but everything else is reasonably easy to do with NOTION 3 and a DAW application, where the primary use for NOTION 3 is to be the foundation and to do the music notation and virtual instrumentation work, while the actual recording and mixing is done in the DAW application . . .

It is easier if you start with what I call a "basic rhythm section" done in music notation with virtual instruments in NOTION 3 and then use the "basic rhythm section" as the "click" track and reference tuning pitches in a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) like Digital Performer or Logic Studio . . .

You record the "basic rhythm section" in the DAW as a set of soundbites via ReWire, and then you can use the DAW for recording real instruments and singing, which is the way I do it for DISCO and Pop songs, where the following is a recent example, which is fabulous . . .

[NOTE: I have not added the real lead guitar solos, but it is easy to hear where the lead guitar solos will go. This is mixed for listening with headphones, which is what I do when I am working on a song. For reference, all the instruments are done with music notation and IK Multimedia instruments in NOTION 3 . . . ]

"Feel Me" (The Surf Whammys) -- MP3 (8MB, 300-kbps [VBR], approximately 3 minutes and 38 seconds)

Fabulous!

You can do it the other way, which is to start with recorded instruments and singing, but you need to ensure that everything is tuned correctly and that the timing is very precise, since instead of synchronizing real instruments and singing to computer-generated music, you are synchronizing computer-generated music to real instruments and singing . . .

There are ways to adjust the tuning and timing of recorded real instruments and singing, but it requires more work, where one way to do the tuning is to use the Melodyne Editor (Celemony), and Digital Performer has a tool that examines recorded tracks to determine the timing and probably can make adjustments . . .

I think there probably are other strategies, and there definitely are advanced tools available for adjusting tempo, timing, and pitch, so it depends on what you need to do . . .

My focus is on creating DISCO and Pop songs, and the reality is that when recording real instruments and singing you need to have both a set of reference tuning tones and a "click" track, which basically is a metronome track, and it is just as easy to use a very simple NOTION 3 "basic rhythm section", which can be a piano playing some reference tuning pitches for several bars followed by a kick drum playing basic tempo with quarter notes . . .

The importance of using a NOTION 3 "basic rhythm section" as the foundation for a song is that when all the real instruments and singing are done to the NOTION 3 "basic rhythm section" everything is synchronized and tuned correctly, which makes it easy to switch from (a) working with real instruments and singing to (b) working with music notation and virtual instruments, and vice-versa, since the fundamental reference is the NOTION 3 "basic rhythm section" . . .

Doing it this way requires composing and structuring the song in advance, but there is some flexibility in it, although with a lot of instruments and singing, making changes to the structure of a song later can be more work than just starting over and doing everything with the new structure, except that it is relatively easy to add verses, choruses, and so forth if they start and stop on clear and well-defined boundaries . . .

Lots of FUN!

Hello,

Thank you for this long answer but it does not match what I desired
to do with Notion 3 and Notion 3 directly. I feel that you have not understood what I wanted to do with Notion 3. This allows for mixing of configurations with three instruments Concept VSTi and hardware synths. Add to this the ability to insert audio files. And these audio files I'm interested to add sequences written with Notion 3 as a mixed music device. That's why the waveform view would be convenient to write the precise sequences made ​​with VST instruments or Notion 3.
Personally I make electronic music (I trained at Ircam), with synthesis digital and hardware hybrid (Buchla 200e, Clavia G2 et Origin Arturia). Notion 3 allows me to optimize it.
But to make myself understood, I made a quick little video that shows how I want to work. This is only a test, juste un essai. But there are instruments Notion 3, vsti of physical modeling (Pianoteq and Brass Arturia 2) and the Bank IRCAM Solo Instruments. To which are added to the audio file is mesure 19 made ​​with the 200e and Buchla, and a wave corresponding to the recording of the measurement from 14 to 24 with delays and reverb, as a kind of mirror halo. It starts in the middle of measure 24.
Bests regards.

la vidéo est ici :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe5EzTV-ZEs

PS: I work on both Mac and PC, I use Ableton Live and Max for Live, Samplitude 11 Pro or Digital Performer and Reaper as the publisher NoteAbility Pro is very focused contemporary music but does not mixing vst(i) and hardware.

deb76 wrote:Hello,

Thank you for this long answer but it does not match what I desired
to do with Notion 3 and Notion 3 directly. I feel that you have not understood what I wanted to do with Notion 3. This allows for mixing of configurations with three instruments Concept VSTi and hardware synths. Add to this the ability to insert audio files. And these audio files I'm interested to add sequences written with Notion 3 as a mixed music device. That's why the waveform view would be convenient to write the precise sequences made ​​with VST instruments or Notion 3.
Personally I make electronic music (I trained at Ircam), with synthesis digital and hardware hybrid (Buchla 200e, Clavia G2 et Origin Arturia). Notion 3 allows me to optimize it.
But to make myself understood, I made a quick little video that shows how I want to work. This is only a test, juste un essai. But there are instruments Notion 3, vsti of physical modeling (Pianoteq and Brass Arturia 2) and the Bank IRCAM Solo Instruments. To which are added to the audio file is mesure 19 made ​​with the 200e and Buchla, and a wave corresponding to the recording of the measurement from 14 to 24 with delays and reverb, as a kind of mirror halo. It starts in the middle of measure 24.
Bests regards.

la vidéo est ici :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe5EzTV-ZEs

PS: I work on both Mac and PC, I use Ableton Live and Max for Live, Samplitude 11 Pro or Digital Performer and Reaper as the publisher NoteAbility Pro is very focused contemporary music but does not mixing vst(i) and hardware.

I am not so clear on what you want to do, but this information might be helpful . . .

(1) NOTION 3 does not record audio, per se, so for example you cannot use a microphone to record electric guitar or singing . . .

(2) However, NOTION 3 captures MIDI, so for example you can play a MIDI keyboard and NOTION 3 will capture the MIDI, where I use the word "capture" rather then "record", because NOTION 3 is not recording the audio but instead is capturing the MIDI output of the synthesizer . . .

(3) If you want to examine the waveform for an imported audio file, then you need to do this in a DAW application like Digital Performer or Logic Studio, although there probably are some VST plug-ins that might be able to provide visual information on a waveform, although more in terms of seeing it in real-time rather than the way waveforms are edited in a DAW application . . .

(4) I did a quick test with the Melodyne Editor (Celemony), which at least in theory might be a way to do waveform editing, but everything I tried resulted in both the Melodyne Editor and NOTION 3 crashing in Mac OS X 10.6.7 ("Snow Leopard"). However, there is a new version of the Melodyne Editor that should be released this month (November 2011), and when it is released I will do some experiments to see if it works with NOTION 3, but based on the experiments I did with the current version of the Melodyne Editor, it does not work with NOTION 3 . . .

(5) Depending on what you need to do, there might be another strategy where NOTION 3 feeds its generated audio to the DAW application (for example, Digital Performer) via ReWire. In this strategy, which definitely works on the Mac, the NOTION 3 score is played under control of Digital Performer, since Digital Performer is the ReWire host, while NOTION 3 is the ReWire slave, and in this strategy you can have one or more keyboard synthesizers on tracks in Digital Performer, which then makes it possible to use the keyboard synthesizers to "play" in real-time previously recorded audio, if the keyboard synthesizers have the ability to store and then play previously recorded audio . . .

OBSERVATION

In some respects, the best way to understand the current role of NOTION 3 is that it is used to compose music in advance via music notation and then to play the composed music via virtual instruments in real-time . . .

You can capture the output of a MIDI keyboard in NOTION 3, which then can be converted to music notation for editing and fine-tuning, but NOTION 3 is not a recording application . . .

NOTION 3 also has a "performance" mode, where you can adjust the tempo dynamically to synchronize it with real instruments, which is one of the ways Notion Music uses NOTION 3 when doing NOTION Live work for various types of theatrical presentations . . .

NOTION Live (Notion Music)

My best guess so far is that what you want to do fits better with the types of work done by the NOTION Live folks, but without more specific information, all I can do is guess . . .

On the other hand, if you are not so focused on the live performing aspect, but instead want to have more control over waveforms (which in Digital Performer are called "soundbites", as you know), then the ReWire strategy might work nicely, where instead of NOTION 3 being the controlling application, instead the DAW application is the controller . . .

Done this way, you can make changes to the NOTION 3 score, but the waveform editing is done in the DAW application, where of course there are powerful waveform editing tools, and you can move soundbites along the timeline, and so forth and so on . . .

Essentially, in the ReWire strategy, NOTION 3 becomes an extension of the DAW application, where so long as you follow a few rules regarding the total number of instruments in the NOTION 3 score, you can work within NOTION 3 for doing music notation but switch to the DAW application (which is the ReWire host) for working with soundbites, and you also can use keyboard synthesizers in real-time, simply by connecting them to tracks in the DAW application . . .

In the example video you provided, you can do everything including being able to edit the waveforms, but the work is done a bit differently, where using Digital Performer 7.24 as the DAW application, Digital Performer is the ReWIre host controller and NOTION 3 is the ReWire slave . . .

In this scenario, the music script is contained in the NOTION 3 score, but the waveform will be a soundbite in Digital Performer, so in the NOTION 3 score there will be empty measures on the instrument staff where the soundbite is played, although you can have music notation during these measures on other instrument staves, where the key difference is that Digital Performer is used to play and edit the soundbite rather than NOTION 3, since NOTION 3 does not provide waveform or soundbite editing other than being able to move it along a timeline . . .

So, in this scenario where there is a combination of (a) music notation and virtual instruments in NOTION 3 and (b) already recorded soundbites in Digital Performer, when you want to work with the music notation and virtual instruments, you will switch to NOTION 3, but when you want to work with the soundbite, you will do the soundbite editing in Digital Performer . . .

And both Digital Performer and NOTION 3 are running simultaneously, and their playback transports are synchronized, so if you press "Stop" on the Digital Performer transport, then Digital Performer and its ReWIre slave (NOTION 3) both stop, while if you press "Play" both Digital Performer and NOTION 3 synchronize and then start playing their respective audio . . .

You accomplish everything, but instead of the primary application being NOTION 3, the primary application is Digital Performer, and NOTION 3 by virtue of being the ReWire slave essentially is a "helper" application that handles some of the work for Digital Performer . . .

If this is what you need to do, then there is a way to do it on the Mac, but there are some caveats and rules, since currently both Digital Performer 7.24 and NOTION 3 are 32-bit applications, hence are limited by 32-bit application workspace restrictions, which basically maps (a) to being limited approximately to 20 "heavy" VSTi virtual instruments in a single NOTION 3 score and (b) to needing to do all the VST effect plug-in work in Digital Performer, since VST effects plug-ins also are "heavy" . . .

And for reference, all the IK Multimedia virtual instruments are "heavy" VSTi virtual instruments . . .

There are a few other rules for doing this on the Mac, one of which is patently surreal, and to be specific the "patently surreal" rule is (a) that the NOTION 3 score needs to have four empty measures at the start and (b) that you cannot position the transport any earlier than the first beat of the fifth measure, otherwise Digital Performer crashes and NOTION 3 becomes completely and totally confused, although NOTION 3 does not actually crash . . .

For reference, I have an ongoing topic on doing vastly strange and unusual--but highly advanced and productive--things with NOTION 3, Digital Performer, Reason 5, real instruments, and real singing in this FORUM, which is fabulous . . .

Notion 3, DISCO Songs, and Sparkles (Notion Music FORUM)

This is the best I can do at present without more specific information . . .

Lots of FUN!

P. S. Over the long run, if future versions of NOTION have increased levels of artificial intelligence and work interactively with a SQL database, which certainly can include an highly abstracted meta-meta-metadabase, along with full multicore 64-bit architecture, then at least in theory it should be possible to compose and perform a symphony in real-time on the fly, although it will require a lot of highly specialized user interface devices, which however might be done via an elaborate touch screen type of thing, in a way similar to the following bit of futuristic musical lunacy, which is fabulous . . .

Reaction Table -- YouTube music video

Fabulous!