Rewire between Notion 3 and Studio One 2

[Surfwhammy]

First of all. I don't want to record anything from Notion. I just want to hear the things I've written there in combination with things I've done in Studio One.
I watched your video and did exactly the same but in my case wether I press play in Notion or in Studio One, they don't interact with each other. I can only play and hear Notion or Presonus but not together in realtime.
I made a short video for demonstration (Sorry that Studio One takes a while to start but when I change between 64 and 32 bit versions the program always has to analyse the plugins anew...)
http://eftwyrd.de/Untitled%2027.avi

I watched your video, and there is a mistake . . .

In the video, you first started NOTION 3, which makes NOTION 3 the ReWire host controller. Then you started Studio One, which makes Studio One the ReWire slave. This is the wrong starting sequence . . .

CORRECT SEQUENCE

(1) Ensure that all applications are closed . . .

(2) Start Studio One first, which makes Studio One the ReWire host controller . . .

(3) After Studio One is fully loaded, open your Studio One song or create a new Studio One song . . .

(4) Then start NOTION 3, which makes NOTION 3 the ReWire slave . . .

WHAT YOU NEED TO DO IN NOTION 3 FOR REWIRE

(1) The "Enable ReWire" option in NOTION 3 Preferences needs to be checked. This might be "ermöglichen ReWire" in Deutsch . . .

(2) For instruments in your NOTION 3 score that you want to hear in Studio One, you need to assign ReWire channels, which you do in the NOTION 3 Mixer . . .

You can assign each track to a separate ReWire channel pair, but you also can assign the Master stereo track of the NOTION 3 Mixer to a ReWire channel pair, where if all the other tracks output to "Output", then you will hear them via the Master stereo track when its output is assigned to a ReWire channel pair, which typically will be Channels 1-2, as shown in the following screen capture of the Master stereo output track in the NOTION 3 Mixer . . .

[NOTE: The ReWire channel is set in the drop-down listbox at the bottom of each track in the NOTION 3 Mixer, and for a ReWire session only the tracks that have ReWire channels are active. However, if all the tracks are set to "Master", which displays as "Output", they are routed to the Master stereo output track, where if the Master stereo output track is set to a ReWire channel pair will cause everything to be heard on the ReWire channel pair of the Master stereo output track, which is a quick way to do it . . . ]


NOTION 3 Mixer ~ Master Stereo Output Track set to ReWire Channel Pair 1-2

This is the way an instrument track looks in the NOTION 3 Mixer when the instrument track has its output set to "Master", which displays as "Output" after it is set . . .


NOTION 3 Mixer ~ Instrument Track set to output to Master Stereo Output Track

(3) It tends to be best to leave the sample buffer size in NOTION 3 Preferences to the default, which will be 256 samples, at least on the Mac . . .

WINDOWS TIPS

(1) It is very important to run Studio One and NOTION 3 at the correct elevated level of privileges, which typically will be an account that has Administrator privileges . . .

(2) You might need to disable some of the security stuff . . .

(3) The directories where everything is installed also is important . . .

EXPERIMENT

One of the thing the MOTU Technical Support folks had me do when I first was making sense of ReWIre was to download the DEMO version of Reason (Propellerhead Software). The DEMO version of Reason is a large file (perhaps 500MB), but Propellerhead Software are the folks who created ReWire, so the Reason DEMO will have the latest ReWire software, which is important . . .

Reason 6.0.2 DEMO (Propellerhead Software)

The experiment is to get Studio One working with Reason 6.0.2, and for reference Reason only works as a ReWire slave (although this might have changed with the new version of Reason, but perhaps not) . . .

[NOTE: I use Reason 5 and have not yet upgraded to Reason 6, but I plan to upgrade to Reason 6 sooner or later, since it has some new components that are intriguing . . . ]

When Studio One is working correctly with Reason 6.0.2 in a ReWire session where Studio One is the ReWire host controller and Reason 6.0.2 is the ReWire slave, this verifies that everything is correctly installed and configured on your Windows computer. And once that happens, you should be able to use NOTION 3 as a ReWire slave when Studio One is the ReWire host controller (DEMO, Producer, and Professional versions only) . . .

Let me know what happens when you start Studio One first and then start NOTION 3 . . .

Lots of FUN!

P. S. Studio One is a bit limited in the way it does ReWire, so as part of your plan for the future you might want to consider switching to the new version of Digital Performer when it is released, since the new version is available both for the Mac and for Windows, where Windows support is new for Digital Performer, and there might be a competitive upgrade option, although this is only a guess . . .

Another possibility for your plan for the future is to consider switching to the Mac, because doing digital music production on the Mac is vastly easier, because (a) for the most part everything works without needing to mess with a lot of technical stuff and (b) all the audio stuff is high quality and has all the drivers properly configured and so forth, as well as being designed by Apple specifically to work correctly with Mac OS X Core Audio . . .

[NOTE: Because Apple designs the basic hardware and operating system, the hardware is designed specifically to work with the operating system, which is not the case in the Windows universe . . . ]

Digital Performer is very nice for doing ReWire!

However, it took me approximately three weeks to discover how to do ReWire, since (a) it was a new technology and (b) the user documentation from every vendor is minimal at best . . .

Once you understand what ReWire is doing, it only requires minimal documentation, but the problem is that every company presumes that everyone understands ReWire conceptually in terms what happens behind the scenes in the operating system and all the stuff that software engineers typically do, which of course is not the case, so what happens is that by the time the software engineers make sense of ReWire, they then start believing that it is simple, hence when it comes time to provide information for the folks who to the user manuals, they only provide very simple, high-level stuff . . .

Part of the problem is that there are a lot of parameters and other stuff that must be set and configured correctly, and the order in which applications are started is supremely important . . .

In fact, the only time that the Mac Pro here in the sound isolation studio crashed repeatedly was during the three or so weeks that I did experiments to make sense of ReWire, and this included having to reboot the MOTU 828mkII, which also crashed every once in a while, and all the crashes were due to incorrectly set parameters or starting ReWire applications in the wrong sequence . . .

Yet, if you do everything correctly, ReWIre works accurately and reliably on the Mac, and it is not difficult to do . . .

[Eftwyrd]

I tried it again exactly how you described but for God's sake it isn't working!
Notion is so frustrating at the moment...so many problems that aren't fixed in version 3 and still no news about a version 4 or an update....

Eftwyrd wrote: mh, I don't think there will be Notion-4 in 2012.
Answer: I wouldn't say that yet! It's still pretty early in the year!!
We are certainly committed to moving forward with all of our products and are definitely planning on giving you all something this year! Can't tell you exactly what is in store for the updates, but they WILL be significant.

-Kyle

(Tue Jan 17, 2012 4:39 pm) That was half a year ago!

[pcartwright]

Yeah... I hear you with the rewire issues (viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1648).

[Surfwhammy]

I tried it again exactly how you described but for God's sake it isn't working!
Notion is so frustrating at the moment...so many problems that aren't fixed in version 3 and still no news about a version 4 or an update....

Eftwyrd wrote: mh, I don't think there will be Notion-4 in 2012.
Answer: I wouldn't say that yet! It's still pretty early in the year!!
We are certainly committed to moving forward with all of our products and are definitely planning on giving you all something this year! Can't tell you exactly what is in store for the updates, but they WILL be significant.

-Kyle

(Tue Jan 17, 2012 4:39 pm) That was half a year ago!

It might be the way the various software is installed, but another possibility is the way your sound card is configured . . .

I found a technical article on configuring a Windows computer for Sound One, and it might provide some clues:

Optimizing Windows® Vista and Windows 7 for Music Production (Presonus)

As noted in my previous post, it is important to verify that Studio One will do ReWire with something on your Windows computer, and my suggestion is the Reason 6.0.2 DEMO, since it will install the correct ReWire support files . . .

There is another way to get the updated ReWire support files, but it takes more time to explain, and since I do not have a current Windows machine it is not so easy for me to give specific advice regarding where to install the ReWire support files and so forth . . .

This is one of the steps I did on the Mac when I was having trouble getting ReWire to work, and I did this based on advice from MOTU Technical Support, where they told me (a) to download the DEMO for Ableton Live and the DEMO for Reason; (b) to install these two DEMO applications; and (c) to use them to verify that Digital Performer (MOTU) worked nicely with ReWire, which was the case, and I also verified it by running GarageBand (Apple) . . .

Reason 6.02 DEMO (Propellerhead Software)

Ableton Suite 8 DEMO (Ableton)

The MOTU folks also were very clear in explaining that sometimes problems with ReWire are due to not having the current or correct versions of ReWire support files, which is another reason for installing these two DEMO applications, where you install Reason last, since it has the most current ReWire support files, because Propellerhead Software are the folks who created and license the ReWire technology, in a way somewhat similar to the Steinberg folks being the ones who created and license VST technology, although the Propellerhead Software folks are vastly more paranoid with respect to running developers through hoops to get a developer's license, while it is very easy to get a developer's license for VST technology from Steinberg . . .

Making it all the more surreal, Propellerhead Software and Steinberg were working cooperatively for a while but had a disagreement, which is why Reason does not support VST technology and runs in its own proprietary universe . . .

Also note that Propellerhead Software specifically lists Studio One (PreSonus) as an application which supports ReWIre, as is the case with listing NOTION 3, so I continue to think (a) that ReWire will work and (b) that it probably is a matter of configuring everything correctly, which on a Windows machine could be the permissions for a directory or individual file; where certain directories and files are installed; specific account privileges; and so forth and so on, including antivirus software interfering with real-time interapplication communication . . .

ADDITIONAL EXPERIMENT

Since Ableton Live supports ReWire, you should be able to do a ReWire test with Ableton Live and NOTION 3, and if everything works, as does the Reason 6.0.2 test, then it will point more to Studio One than to NOTION 3 . . .

SUMMARY

If Studio One does ReWire correctly with Reason 6.0.2, then this will verify that ReWire is correctly configured, which is an important thing to know . . .

[NOTE: I fully understand how frustrating this is, and during the three weeks that it took me to make sense of ReWire if someone from MOTU or Notion Music had appeared in the front yard I probably would have chased them with an axe. And I cannot express in words how "thrilled" I was to get the advice from the MOTU folks that "it works fine" and that I should "try it with Reason and Ableton Live", which basically was the total advice they provided, which did not make me happy, except (a) that I followed their advice, (b) Digital Performer worked nicely with Reason, and (c) this was the breakthrough moment in getting Digital Performer to do ReWire with NOTION 3, so it actually was stellar advice, just not what I initially was expecting to hear, hence the surprise aspect, and I already was in a bad mood, which made it worse . . . ]

Making sense of ReWire and getting everything correctly configured can be very frustrating, but once you get it working and have hardware and software that support ReWire, it is a very handy and useful technology . . .

Let me know what happens with Reason 6.0.2 or anything else that you use to verify ReWire is working correctly with Studio One . . .

Lots of FUN!

[pcartwright]

It might be the way the various software is installed, but another possibility is the way your sound card is configured . . .

Or it could be that rewire isn't implemented correctly in Notion.

[Brian]

Is NOTION showing up in Studio One as a ReWire device? If it is not, make sure that you are using a 32 bit version of the program. Right now the ReWire that is in NOTION3 is only compatible with 32 bit applications.

You also want to make sure that you are running both programs as an administrator. Just right-click and choose "Run as Administrator" when opening both programs.

If NOTION is showing up in Studio One but will not sync, please re-install the driver for your audio interface. If you would like to send an email to support@notionmusic.com, I'd be happy to help you out. You are also free to give me a call at 866-398-2994.

Best Regards,



Brian

[Eftwyrd]

Is NOTION showing up in Studio One as a ReWire device?

Yes

You also want to make sure that you are running both programs as an administrator. Just right-click and choose "Run as Administrator" when opening both programs.

Yes. I run Notion and Studio One as an admin.

If NOTION is showing up in Studio One but will not sync, please re-install the driver for your audio interface.

My soundcard and USB-Interface are well working but ok. I'll re-install the driver and will see if it works.

[Eftwyrd]

Nope. Still doesn't work. I have sent an e-mail to the support.

[Surfwhammy]

Nope. Still doesn't work. I have sent an e-mail to the support.

I know this is frustrating, but I encourage you to do the test with Studio One and the Reason 6.0.2 DEMO (Propellerhead Software), since it will be helpful to know whether Studio One will do ReWire successfully with Reason 6.0.2 DEMO, which as noted in my previous replies is what the MOTU folks told me to do when I was having trouble discovering how to do ReWire with Digital Performer 6 (MOTU) and NOTION 3 . . .

It was a somewhat roundabout and annoying way for the MOTU folks to tell me that their product (Digital Product 6 at the time) does ReWire, hence either (a) I was doing something incorrectly or by inference if I was not doing something wrong then Ib) NOTION 3 was doing something incorrectly . . .

After doing the test with the Reason 5 DEMO (the current version at the time), which worked very nicely, doing ReWire made a bit more sense and everything else started working, including NOTION 3 doing ReWire . . .

I also recall the MOTU folks being very clear in telling me that by downloading and installing the Reason 5 DEMO, this would ensure that I had the correct versions of the various ReWire support files and all that stuff, which on the Mac might be just one file, but so what . . .

So what!

And for reference, there is at least one video on YouTube which shows Studio One doing ReWire with Reason on a Windows computer, and there are several videos which are similar to the one I did to demonstrate Studio One doing ReWire on the Mac with NOTION 3, except most of the YouTube videos show it doing ReWire with Reason . . .

LOGIC

If Studio One 2 Professional is going to do ReWire successfully on your Windows computer, then it will do ReWire successfully with the Reason 6.0.2 DEMO, which makes this a smart experiment toward the goal of troubleshooting and correcting the problem, whatever it might be . . .

[NOTE: This is a rather large DEMO, since it actually is the complete product, and the Windows version is approximately 3.5GB, which even with a high-speed broadband connection takes a while to download, but if you can do it, then knowing what happens will be helpful . . . ]

Reason 6 DEMO (Propellerhead Software)

I also suggest that if Studio One 2 Professional successfully does ReWire with the Reason 6.0.2 DEMO, then it will do ReWire successfully with NOTION 3 . . .

Lots of FUN!