TOSCANINI wrote:Agree with you, for myself, all i want is this kind of VST control possibilities for Notion :
http://www.soundsetproject.com/This kind of stuff (even if i have to pay extra cost) + Notion who was the best notation program ever...
Interesting! It makes sense, and there certainly appears to be a market for it . . .
My solution at present is to keep everything as simple as possible, which in some respects is an understatement, where for example I have a separate staff for each drum and cymbal in a drumkit, even though I could do it with fewer staves by using voices and so forth, except that combining everything introduces a lot of complexity and makes the music notation look entirely too "busy". Also, when I play a real drumkit, I play notes intentionally, where "intentionally" maps to knowing exactly what I am doing, since I literally think about it in an immediately conscious way, especially with respect to where I hit the drumheads and cymbals, which among other things is the reason that I never break drumheads and cymbals. Another important reason is that I make my own custom drumsticks from 5/8" oak dowels, since I prefer 22" drumsticks and nobody makes them. When I first had the idea to make custom drumsticks, I tried various strategies, including splicing parts of two drumsticks to make a longer drumstick, but after a few experiments with splicing (none of which worked reliably) I had the idea of using 5/8" oak dowels, which is easy to do and does not take a lot of work other than some sanding and varnishing or painting, and one of the things I observed is that hitting the edges of cymbals chips the drumsticks, hence they do not last so long, and after thinking about it for a while I realized that hitting cymbals only with the tips of the drumsticks or hitting the smooth top area of a cymbal with the side of a drumstick is the least destructive way to play cymbals, which probably applies to drumsticks in general, and for drumheads the key is to hit them in the center, which is a bit easier when drumheads have a smaller reinforced black circle in the center, which some but not all drumheads have, plus hitting in the center maps to deep and rich tone . . .
Sometimes, I might have two drums or cymbals per staff, although only when I can do it with a single voice, but most of the time it is one staff per drum or cymbal, and for me this is easier . . .
And I use the same strategy for everything, where if I need a different articulation, I usually do it with a different staff, where instead of actually specifying the articulation in music notation I select the sound sample for the instrument in the specific articulation, since (a) this works better; (b) avoids the problems of arbitrarily computing or emulating notes which were not sampled in a specific articulation, which is a bit of a problem for articulations like tremolo and vibrato, where for tremolo I use a dry articulation and then run it through a tremolo pedal later, and (c) keeps the music notation very simple, which is important, because reading and applying articulations in music notation requires a bit of additional computing, hence is a bit more resource intensive . . .
This strategy is consistent by "play by ear", where the general idea is adjust the instrument so that it either (a) naturally sound correct without needing to specify articulations, dynamics, and so forth or (b) can be made to sound naturally correct by applying VST effects plug-ins after the fact in the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) application, which for reference is the optimal way to use VST effects plug-ins with respect to computer resources . . .
Yet another feature I would like to have is the ability to generate, store, and retrieve musical phrases using a various mathematical and geometric algorithms, music theory, and a SQLite database, since for the genres I prefer the facts of the matter are (a) that there are standard musical phrases and (b) that inputting them one note at a time or playing them in real-time on a MIDI device is not the optimal strategy . . .
After working diligently with music notation for a while, I discovered how to do it, which is great, but it takes a while, so at present I "park" musical phrases in small scores and use them to copy and paste, which works but (a) it is not so elegant and (b) it does not use algorithms. There is a roundabout way to use algorithms to generate musical phrases, but it is a bit cumbersome and at present it actually is easier to input the notes one at a time . . .
And in some respects I want something similar to what the Melodyne Editor (Celemony) and TC-Helicon VoiceWorks vocal processor do, where I can specify a specific scale (for example, Hungarian Minor) and the Melodyne Editor will constrain notes to it, or at least provide a visual cue when notes are out of bounds. And the TC-Helicon VoiceWorks vocal processor generates multipart harmony based on various parameters (key, scale, harmony style, and so forth), so I want that stuff as well, and it is a naturally intuitive thing for composition software to do using intelligent algorithms, plus there are few if any mysteries with respect to the underlying music theory, mathematics, and geometry, where getting it "ballpark" would be a big help, since once the notes are generated and inserted into the score I can fine-tune everything on a note-by-note basis, which is what I do anyway . . .
Stuff like this makes it easier to work at a higher level, where for example the way I conceptualize Lydian mode involves focusing on "Blue Jay Way" (Beatles), which is the easiest way for me to do it, since it does
not require me actually to remember what Lydian mode is, which is a "play by ear" type of thing, where the general idea is to avoid needing to remember a bunch of music theory and technical stuff, and I am not entirely certain that "Blue Jay Way" actually is strictly Lydian, but so what . . .
"Blue Jay Way" (Beatles) -- YouTube music videoSo what! On a related note, after working diligently for several months to make sense of the standard seven modes (Ionic, Dorian, Phyrigian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, and Locrian), I realized that it generally is a waste of time to mess with modes, because the real focus should be on scales, since there are more scales than modes, and it is easier to focus on scales, plus (a) most of the scales I like do
not map to any of the seven modes and (b) the types of songs I prefer typically span several scales, modes, and whatever, where from this perspective using different scales in a song is similar conceptually to having verses, choruses, bridges, interludes, and so forth, as well as changing the instrumentation or whatever in various sections for dramatic effect . . .
In other words, the general idea is not that the computer is doing all the work, just that the computer is making it easier by providing when desired some convenient guidelines, constraints, or whatever makes sense and is productive, which is fabulous . . .
Fabulous! P. S. Regarding modes and scales, consider the basic rhythm section for this song . . .
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NOTE: In some respects, I prefer not to know what I am doing in any immediately conscious way, since it is easier simply to make notes sound "good" by adjusting the notes, and when necessary making them flat or sharp, which for me is an iterative process that involves a lot of listening . . . ]
"I Want To Dance With You" (The Surf Whammys) -- Basic Rhythm Section -- MP3 (9.9MB, 286-kbps [VBR], approximately 4 minutes and 34 seconds)It has a minor or perhaps melancholy theme, but there are sustained fourths and some sevenths, and it goes major every once in a while. Some of the idea for the song derives from Christina Aguilera's updated version of Marlene Dietrich's song "Falling In Love Again (Can't Help Myself)", but until I decide on a melody for the vocals, in some respects the song can be just about anything, since in the same way that a bass line can change everything, so can a melody, which is the basic reason that I started focusing more on making sense of scales, really . . .
"Falling In Love Again (Can't Help Myself)" (Christina Aguilera) -- YouTube music videoReally!