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Notion3 ReWire with Logic Pro

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Notion3 ReWire with Logic Pro

Postby oddball1989 » Tue Sep 04, 2012 11:59 am

Hello,

Can someone please clear up this problem once and for all!

I'm running Mac OS X version 10.7.4

I want to rewire Notion3 with Logic Pro so that I can write music in Notion3 to film in Logic Pro and also use Logic Pro's advanced mixing features etc..

I start up Notion3 after I start up Logic Pro. I create an aux channel strip in Logic and then try to make the input Notion3 ReWire or something or other... that option is not there. I have gone looking for 'Propellerheads ReWire' folder in my Library/Application Support... but it wasn't there. i then downloaded ReWire and installed it... but it still wasn't there. I really don't know what to do... I've gone trawling these forums but nobody seems to have the same problem.

This is driving me mad.

please help out...

please bare in mind I am quite a Noob.. so keep it simple! :D

Thanks in advance!

Neil

(probs submitted this in the wrong place, my bad)
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Re: Notion3 ReWire with Logic Pro

Postby Surfwhammy » Tue Sep 04, 2012 1:39 pm

oddball1989 wrote:I'm running Mac OS X version 10.7.4

I want to rewire Notion3 with Logic Pro so that I can write music in Notion3 to film in Logic Pro and also use Logic Pro's advanced mixing features etc..


I feel your pain, but it works, so be patient . . . :idea:

There are several things that need to happen, which is what makes it a bit frustrating until you discover the rules . . .

[NOTE: Regarding ensuring that the ReWIre software is on your Mac, the best way is to download the Reason 6.5.1 demo, which is huge (3.35GB or thereabouts), since it correctly installs the ReWire infrastructure software, which will be ReWire 2, which is the current version and supports both 32-bit and 64-bit modes. And NOTION 3 works with ReWire 2 but in 32-bit mode, which I verified about a week or so ago. If you have a high-speed broadband connection, it takes about an hour or two to download the Reason 6.5.1 demo, but it is a FUN program, and for reference I have the fully licensed version . . . ]

Reason 6.5.1 Demo (Propellerhead Software)

NOTION 3, Reason 6, ReWire, and MIDI (Notion Music FORUM)

(1) You need to enable ReWire for NOTION 3, and this is done via NOTION 3 Preferences, where there is a checkbox that needs to be checked, as shown in the following screen capture:

Image

Close all the applications and start NOTION 3, where you will check the "Enable ReWire" checkbox in Preferences; and then close NOTION 3 . . .

EXPECTED RESULT: The next time you start Logic Pro 9, you should see the NOTION 3 ReWire channel pairs . . .


However, if you do not see the NOTION 3 ReWire channel pairs, then you might need to toggle Logic Pro 9 from 64-bi mode to 32-bit mode, followed by toggling it back to 64-bit mode, which you do by closing all applications; right-clicking on the Logic Pro 9 application in your "Applications" folder, where you select "Get Info . . . " which will have a checkbox labeled "Open in 32-bit mode", which you will check, followed by running Logic Pro 9 and then closing Logic Pro 9. Then repeat the "Get Info . . . " step, but this time uncheck the "Open in 32-bit mode" checkbox, followed by running Logic Pro 9 and then closing it. This causes Logic Pro 9 to rescan audio units and whatever, and it might not do anything with respect to NOTION 3, but it is useful to know, since it does solve a problem with 32-bit plug-ins not being recognized . . .

(2) To send the generated audio for a track from NOTION 3 to Logic Pro 9, you need to set the output of the audio track in NOTION 3 to one of the 32 ReWire channel pairs, which is done in the NOTION 3 Mixer at the bottom of each track via a drop-down list, but another way to do it is to send a set of NOTION 3 tracks to one of the four NOTION 3 buses and then to use the bus to send the composite audio of its tracks via a ReWire channel pair, but regardless of how you do it, once you set the output of a track to a ReWire channel pair, you will not hear that track in NOTION 3, since it is being sent to the ReWire host controller, which in this scenario will be Logic Pro 9, so you hear it as a Logic Pro 9 track . . .

These are two tracks that are sent to ReWire channel pairs ("Ch 11-12" and "Ch 13-14", respectively):

Image

(3) The general information for doing ReWire with Logic Pro 9 is found starting at page 302 in the Logic Pro 9 User Manual where it continues for a few pages. And while Reason 6.5 (Propellerhead Software) is an "instrument" in Logic Pro 9 terminology, NOTION 3 is not an "instrument", so as you correctly discerned it needs an Auxiliary Track rather than an External MIDI track . . .

You might experiment with the "ReWire Behavior" options, but since NOTION 3 in this scenario is not an instrument, using the "Playback Mode (Less CPU Load)" probably is the best choice, but it depends, so if the playback is a bit jumpy, then switch it to "Live Mode (Higher CPU Load)" and see how that works . . .

THOUGHTS

These are the first things to try, and if they solve the problem, then great, but if not, then post a reply with information on what happened, but let me know either way . . .

Lots of FUN! :)

P. S. I do everything on a 2.8-GHz 8-core Mac Pro running Mac OS X 10.8.1 (Mountain Lion) here in the sound isolation studio, and I use Digital Performer 7.24 (MOTU) rather than Logic Pro 9 (Apple), but ReWire works in Logic Pro 9, so it is just a matter of getting everything configured correctly, and since I have been pondering the idea of getting Logic Pro 9 now that Apple lowered the price in the Mac App Store, if these suggestions do not solve the problem, I might get Logic Pro 9, so that I can tell you exactly all the other stuff that needs to be done, since there probably is some other stuff, which certainly is the case with Digital Performer 7.24, where you have to configure the bundles and other stuff correctly, which is great when it is done but otherwise is a bit mysterious . . .

And you might need to run Logic Pro 9 in 32-bit mode, but perhaps not . . .

NOTION 3 is a 32-bit application, and it only does 32-bit ReWire, so whether it works with Logic Pro 9 when Logic Pro 9 is running in 64-bit mode depends on how Apple decided to handle 32-bit compatibility, but as I recall Logic Pro 9 was released before Propellerhead Software released ReWire 2, so unless there has been a recent update to Logic Pro 9, it probably does 32-bit ReWire . . .

Let me know what happens . . . :ugeek:

P. P. S. Since the new version of NOTION 4 is 64-bits and should appear real soon, I decided to get Logic Pro 9, since MOTU has not released the new 64-bit version of Digital Performer yet, so I should be able to tell you exactly what needs to be done in a while if the aforementioned suggestions do not solve the problem, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous! :D
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Re: Notion3 ReWire with Logic Pro

Postby oddball1989 » Wed Sep 05, 2012 6:48 am

Firstly,

Thank you so very much for your help, it is marvellous!

Secondly,

Still no joy at the moment.

I followed what you said and have made sure that Logic Pro 9 is starting in 32bit mode. My problem is that when I open an aux track and try to select a 'Notion' input... there still is no 'Notion' input to select... I have Sibelius in there... but not notion. (don't really want to use sibelius). I went into the Library/Application Support/Proppellerheads/ReWire folder and noticed that I have ReWire.bundle, Sibelius ReWire Device.bundle, Waves Rewire Device.bundle... but no Notion ReWire Device.bundle.. (what I guess the file would be called)

I think this could be the root of my troubles...

could you tell me where I can find a Notion ReWire Device.bundle to put into the folder?.. I guess I'm asking.. what is my next step?

kind regards

Neil,
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Re: Notion3 ReWire with Logic Pro

Postby Surfwhammy » Wed Sep 05, 2012 9:49 am

Glad to help! :)

oddball1989 wrote: . . . could you tell me where I can find a Notion ReWire Device.bundle to put into the folder?


You need to enable ReWire for NOTION 3, and this is done via NOTION 3 Preferences, where there is a checkbox that needs to be checked, as shown in the following screen capture:

Image

Once you check the "Enable ReWire" checkbox and close NOTION 3, the system should recognize NOTION 3 as a ReWire application . . .

If this is not happening, then something might have modified the ReWire software incorrectly, in which case I recommend downloading the Reason 6.5.1 demo and running it, since this installs the new version of ReWire, which is version I am running, although the older version is there, as well . . .

This is the way my ReWire folder looks, and it includes the new version, which is Reason 2 . . .

Image

Regarding the "Notion Device.bundle", I think this is created by NOTION 3 when you check the "Enable ReWire" checkbox and you are using the 1.7 version of ReWire, which is the 32-bit only version of ReWire, but this is only a guess, since I have not done any experiments to verify it . . .

Downloading a 3.35GB application (Reason 6.5.1) just to ensure that Reason 2 is correctly installed is a bit of work, but you can experiment with Reason 6.5.1 for 30 days, and it is a very interesting application for digital music production . . .

I decided to purchase Logic Pro 9, and after doing some experiments I found a way to make it work . . .

I prefer Digital Performer 7.24 (MOTU), but it works with Logic Pro 9 (Apple), and some of the odd behaviors could be due to my not having used Logic Pro 9 before yesterday afternoon . . .

I did a video which explains how to use NOTION 3 with Logic Pro 9, and the foundation includes setting the "Enable ReWire" checkbox, as well as having Reason 6.5.1 installed, which is what installs ReWire 2. And in the video I am using Core Audio, which is the built-in audio system for Mac OS X . . .

[NOTE: This video was done when during the initial 48 or so hours after I purchased Logic Pro 9 and was working diligently to discover all the rules, and as I learned a few days after doing this video, the "Record Enable" or "Record Ready" button is used only to arm a track for recording, where after the track is armed you press the "Record" button to begin recording, as contrasted to pressing the "Play" button and then pressing the "Record" button. I did another video later, and it is better, but I am leaving the link to this video, since it provides a clue to the way at least a few folks slowly but surely make sense of digital music production applications, sometimes by just clicking on everything randomly until something works . . . ]

Logic Pro 9 and NOTION 3 (ReWire) -- Windows Media Video -- WMV (8.3MB, approximately 5 minutes and 58 seconds)

And it is important to understand that when ReWire is incorrectly configured, at some point you probably will need to reboot the operating system. However, once you discover the rules for doing ReWire with a specific set of applications, then everything works nicely . . .

The problem is that ReWire enables applications to communicate in real-time, and one of the consequences of what ReWire needs to do is that in some scenarios it can confuse the operating system or itself, at which point doing a reboot it is best strategy, but this should only happen when you are doing experiments to discover the rules . . .

It also is important to be running with Administrator privileges, and the ReWire folder needs be set so that NOTION 3 and ReWire can update it, but the folder privileges already should be set correctly by the operating system or whatever . . .

And for reference, I am running Mac OS X 10.8.1 (Mountain Lion), which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous! :)

P. S. One of the reasons for deciding to get Logic Pro 9 is that I can use it to determine how NOTION 4 works as a 64-bit application, since at present MOTU has not released the 64-bit version of Digital Performer . . .

I expect NOTION 4 to use ReWire 2 (Propellerhead Software) correctly with no problems, since ReWire 2 is one of the most important technologies, along with VST 3.5.1 (Steinberg) . . .

At present, I am not very happy about the way Logic Pro 9 is working, but perhaps Apple will do an update, and it is possible that the problem is caused by the way NOTION 3 implements ReWire, but this is difficult for me to determine at present, and another possibility is that there is some aspect of Logic Pro 9 that is so different from the way Digital Performer 7.24 works that it is not intuitive for me . . .

Nevertheless, the impression I have is that Logic Pro 9 terminates the ReWire conversation just a few milliseconds after playback or recording stops, which appears in some respects not to be what NOTION 3 expects to happen, hence the need to toggle the "Record Ready" button in Logic Pro 9 after pressing the "Play" button. Regardless, I think it is a timing problem, where what should be an ongoing "conversation" is interrupted or restarted too quickly, but it also could be a matter of a variable being defined incorrectly; used out of scope; or something similar, and both of these types of problems can be difficult to resolve when the programming language and classes allow multiple inheritance, much of which is handled "automagically" by the operating system and programming API foundation . . .

If I were doing the programming, I would want to do it in low-level C/C++, since while it requires more lines of code, you can control everything ruthlessly with respect to timing and so forth, including adding some code to determine processor speed and all that stuff . . .

I did a few tests with Logic Pro 9 as the ReWire host controller and Reason 6.5.1 as the ReWire slave, and it worked better, which is encouraging, but I only did this test in 32-bit mode . . .

Another thing I tried was to have Logic Pro 9 as the ReWire host controller when both Reason 6.5.1 and NOTION 3 are ReWire slaves, but in this scenario there was no response from NOTION 3, which is a bit disturbing, because I was able to control both NOTION 3 and Reason 5 with Digital Performer 7.24 as the ReWire host controller, and it worked very smoothly with the only special rule being to start a song no earlier than the first beat of the fifth measure, which is easy to do by inserting four empty measures in the NOTION 3 score and setting a "marker" in Digital Performer 7.24 to use instead of the "full rewind" button . . .

Lots of FUN! :ugeek:
Last edited by Surfwhammy on Tue Sep 11, 2012 1:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Notion3 ReWire with Logic Pro

Postby oddball1989 » Wed Sep 05, 2012 3:21 pm

Hey,

Thanks again for your help, you've been... fabulous! :P

I've managed to get it working (I'm so happy right now!)

what I did was find the Notion Device.bundle doc in the contents folder of the Notion application and make a copy of it, I then put that file in the system/application support/propellerheads software/rewire folder.

Notion then appeared as an input option for my aux channel strip.

I didn't bus the channel strip like your video suggested. (your video was extremely useful BTW)

I then went into the Notion mixer and made the master output channel 1-2 like you said in your video.

pressed play in logic... BINGO!

over the moon!

Thanks again!

All the best (from the UK)

Neil

(I didn't need to press play and then record ready... that seemed odd to me.)
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Re: Notion3 ReWire with Logic Pro

Postby Surfwhammy » Wed Sep 05, 2012 7:51 pm

oddball1989 wrote:Hey,

Thanks again for your help, you've been... fabulous! :P

I've managed to get it working (I'm so happy right now!)

what I did was find the Notion Device.bundle doc in the contents folder of the Notion application and make a copy of it, I then put that file in the system/application support/propellerheads software/rewire folder.

Notion then appeared as an input option for my aux channel strip.

I didn't bus the channel strip like your video suggested. (your video was extremely useful BTW)

I then went into the Notion mixer and made the master output channel 1-2 like you said in your video.

pressed play in logic... BINGO!

over the moon!

Thanks again!

All the best (from the UK)

Neil

(I didn't need to press play and then record ready... that seemed odd to me.)


Excellent! :)

QUESTION: Can you provide more information on how you did the channel strip so that it plays and records without having to press the "Record Ready" button?

There must be an additional step or something that I did not think to do. The idea of using a bus was a "workaround" type of thing, since I was not able to get it working the other ways I tried it . . .

Lots of FUN! :D
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Re: Notion3 ReWire with Logic Pro

Postby oddball1989 » Sat Sep 08, 2012 1:11 pm

sorry I've taken so long to get back to you,

All i did was go to the mixer window and created a new aux channel, then selected input/notion/pair 1.

I then started notion, loaded a file I'd been working on. i then opened the mixer and set the master output to channel 1-2.

clicked play in notion and all was working OK.

since then, the timing issue you mentioned has got me... very very annoying. is there a fix for this?

Neil
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Re: Notion3 ReWire with Logic Pro

Postby Surfwhammy » Sun Sep 09, 2012 4:20 am

I did a few more experiments with Logic Pro 9 (LP9), which included an experiment with the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid as the audio interface, and I made some progress . . .

LP9 and MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid

When I switched from "Built-in Output" to using the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid, the LEDs in LP9 indicated there was output but I heard no audio, so I called MOTU Technical Support and we did a bit of what I call "scouting around", where what we discovered is that LP9 orders the channels for the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid beginning with the 8 analog channels, which LP9 numbers from 1 through 8 sequentially, and then LP9 has the Main Output 1-2 for the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid on channels 9 and 10, respectively, which is what Audio MIDI Setup reports, so the solution was to set the output for LP9 to "Output 9-10" rather than "Output 1-2", which is the default in LP9 . . .

It is easy to correct once you know about it, but if you do not know about it, then it is a maze where there are so many possibilities that it is a bit mind-boggling, which is the reason that I call MOTU Technical Support when there is a problem like this, and in particular this is one of the reasons I like MOTU, because you can call them and get help . . .

LP9, NOTION 3, ReWire, and Timing

It is important to understand that I have not used LP9 very long, so I am in what one might call "learning mode" with respect to configuring LP9, and at present LP9 is making more sense, but there are other things which continue to be a complete and total mystery . . .

The most recent experiment with ReWire was based on what you described, where instead of creating the Auxiliary Channel Strip after NOTION 3 was running, I created it before launching NOTION 3, when only LP9 was running, and this worked with respect to the LEDs showing audio activity, but I was not hearing any sound, so I did a bit of checking and discovered that the output for the Mac Pro was set to "Built-in Digital Output", which made no sense, so I changed it to "Built-in Output", which worked, since at present I am not running the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid, which makes "Built-in Output" the correct setting . . .

[NOTE: I use the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid audio interface primarily for three purposes, (a) to digitize analog microphones, electric guitar, electric bass, and keyboards, (b) to offload some of the otherwise intensive audio processing, and (c) to get a balanced stereo line output pair to send to the studio monitor system, but most of the time I use "Built-in Output" with headphones (SONY MDR-7506), hence it depends on what I need to do with respect to using the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid, although there is another use, which is for the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid to provide MIDI connectivity and so forth, since the Mac Pro does not have any MIDI ports onboard . . . ]

And since when I use "Built-in Output" I listen with headphones, I set the parameters to standard CD quality (44.1-kHz, 16-bits) in Audio MIDI Setup for the Audio, because NOTION 3 output audio at standard CD quality . . .

Image
Audio MIDI Setup (Mac OS X)

Then I did another important experiment, which was to save and close NOTION 3 and then to save and close LP9, followed by restarting them (LP9, then NOTION 3), and everything continued to work, which is important, because in some of the other experiments stuff would work for a few seconds but then stop working . . .

Prior to this time, I had been tinkering with the various configuration parameters in LP9 (Preferences, Settings, and so forth), so apparently I have found a configuration that works . . .

However, I did a few more things, which in combination with the Audio MIDI Setup configuration (see above) might solve your current problem with timing . . .

[NOTE: I discovered the cause of the "Record Ready" or "Record Enable" buttons disappearing, which was due to having the "Input Device" in LP9 Preferences set to "None". This was not intuitive, but it is the way LP9 works, and for reference the reason it is not intuitive is that I have no audio input devices connected to any of the physical input ports, including "Built-in Line Input", unless I am using the BLUE Snowball USB microphone or the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid with a microphone or electric instrument connected . . . ]

Image
Logic Pro 9 Preferences ~ Audio Devices

(1) The "Output Device" is set correctly . . .

(2) The "Input Device" is set correctly . . .

(3) I have the buffer size in NOTION 3 set to the default value, which is 256 samples, so following my advice in another topic of this FORUM where the rule is that" Everything matters!", I set the "I/O Buffer Size" for LP9 to 256 Samples . . .

(4) I unchecked the "24-bit Recording" option for LP9, since I know that NOTION 3 outputs at standard CD quality (44.1-KHz, 16-bits), and after doing a bit of reading, unchecking the "24-bit Recording" option in LP9 maps to LP9 doing recording at 16-bits. Also, when the input is 16-bits trying to record it at 24-bits actually degrades the audio quality, hence not only makes no sense but also literally makes it sound bad . . .

(5) And I set the "ReWire Behavior" to "Live Mode (Higher CPU Load)" . . .

THOUGHTS

In an Utopian world, there would be sets of detailed instructions for doing ReWire with everything, which if followed precisely would map to success, but with the possible exception of the instructions for controlling Reason 6.5.1 (IPropellerhead Software) via an external DAW application, there are no such instructions, hence you have to discover the rules by doing experiments or whatever, and it takes a while, but after three or four days of experiments I am beginning to be more comfortable with the idea that Logic Pro 9 actually is able to do ReWire successfully with NOTION 3, and I am making more progress earlier than I did when I embarked on the quest to discover how to do ReWire with Digital Performer (MOTU) as the ReWire host controller and NOTON 3 as the ReWire slave, which took approximately four weeks . . .

And the way it tends to work is that while it took me four weeks to discover how to do ReWire with Digital Performer and NOTION 3, now I can tell someone how to do it in less than five minutes, because it actually is very easy once you know (a) that you have to put four empty measures at the start of the NOTION 3 score and (b) that you always need to rewind the transport no earlier than the first beat of the fifth measure, although if you need a a tempo count or whatever, it is OK to start at the first beat of the fourth measure, but no earlier. Also, it is important when actually recording to start recording and let it run for a few seconds, followed by moving the transport back to the first beat of the fifth measure, since this preloads or primes the various buffers, hence avoids a "jumpy" or "erratic" first few measures, and what possibly could be more intuitive, really . . .

Really! :shock:

But it works, and the important thing here in the sound isolation studio is that stuff works . . .

On a related note, after having a bit of FUN with naval analogies, metaphors, or similes in another ReWire discussion in this FORUM, I realized that there is an even better way to explain ReWire, which is that it is analogous to what happens when you watch a streaming YouTube video via a broadband cable connection, where YouTube is like NOTION 3; the cable modem is like the ReWire infrastructure; and your computer and browser are like the DAW application, where if you turn-OFF the cable modem; wait 10 seconds; and then turn it ON, the ensuing sequence of events for getting all the lights blinking is called "hand-shaking" in Computer Science jargon, and it is an ongoing thing once it starts, where there are very specific rules with respect to timing and so forth, and even when nothing much is happening the cable modem, computer, and ISP continually are exchanging "I'm still here, how about you?" messages, tokens, semaphores, or whatever, which in the grand scheme of everything makes ReWire programming not so easy unless one has a solid understanding of highly time-sensitive real-time communication programming where everything must occur within strict constraints, where being too slow in some respects is just as bad as being too fast . . .

Lots of FUN! :ugeek:
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Re: Notion3 ReWire with Logic Pro

Postby Surfwhammy » Mon Sep 10, 2012 8:38 am

oddball1989 wrote:. . . the timing issue you mentioned has got me... very very annoying. is there a fix for this?


QUESTION: What model of Mac do you have?

The reason I ask is that depending on the model, there are options for upgrading the speed of the slower devices, which for multimedia work can be one of the most economical ways to get better performance, where from slowest to fastest the devices generally are external hard drives, internal hard drives, memory, and processors. The logic for determining which one to select for attention depends on the activity that is taking the most time, but the reality is that hard drives operate in milliseconds while memory and processors operate in nanoseconds, with the processors and their onboard memory being the fastest. When possible, getting more memory makes sense, especially with the 64-bit version of NOTION on the horizon, and another possibility if you have a Mac Pro is to get a PCI Express SSD (Solid State Drive), which helps considerably by doing some of the work currently done by the internal hard drive(s), where for example audio files typically are stored on an internal hard drive (or perhaps an external hard drive), hence need to be loaded into memory at hard drive speed, but by adding a PCI Express SSD card, the audio files can be stored on the solid state drive, which maps to faster reading and writing times, and you can use Time Machine or whatever to make backup copies of the audio files on the SSD to your internal or external hard drive(s) . . .

At present I am intrigued by the Other World Computing (OWC) 120GB Mercury Accelsior PCI Express SSD (see below), since OWC stuff always works flawlessly on the Mac, and their primary focus is on the Mac, but I like discounts, so if another company I trust has the exact same product for a lower cost, then I go with the discount provided I know for fact that the guarantee and return policies are the same, where for example I get Seagate internal hard drives from Amazon.com because they nearly always have lower prices, but while the OWC 120GB Mercury Accelsior PCI Express SSD probably costs more than something similar which is known to work correctly on a Windows machine, the reality is that if OWC says it works on the Mac, then it works, and while I like to save money, i also like stuff to work, for sure . . .

OWC 120GB Mercury Accelsior PCI Express SSD (Other World Computing)

For sure! :ugeek:

And as explained later in this post, this is where Activity Monitor becomes very useful, since for example it shows that on the Mac Pro here in the sound isolation studio there are plenty of processor resources available, so the "bottlenecks" or "slow points" in the system are elsewhere, which typically indicates hard drives or memory. In other words, if you run Activity Monitor and the CPU utilization is 90 to 95 percent when you are running Logic Pro 9 and doing ReWire with NOTION 3, then it is time to get a new computer which is at least four to six times faster, so that you do not need to get yet another computer in a six or so months, but if Activity Monitors shows the CPU utilization at perhaps 15 to 20 percent, then the computer has sufficient processor abilities, hence the slowness is a matter of memory and hard drives, regardless of whether you are running 32-bit or 64-bit applications. In terms of an analogy, metaphor, or simile, the CPU or processor is like a rocket while a hard drive is like a horse and carriage, with a solid state drive (SSD) being like a race car, and memory being like a jet airplane. And for graphic-intensive applications the slow component might be the graphic card, so it all depends on the type of multimedia work, and for a Mac Pro, there are four possibilities to increase overall throughput (internal hard drive, solid state drive, graphic card, and memory), with the best speed increases coming from the latter three (solid state drive, graphic card, and memory), ranked from slower to faster, respectively . . .

THOUGHTS ON SOLVING THE TIMING ISSUE

ReWire will be faster with the "Live Mode (Higher CPU Load)" option for "ReWire Behavior" in Logic Pro 9 (LP9) Preferences (Audio), and you can experiment with lower values for the NOTION 3 "Audio Buffer Size", which is set on the "Audio" tab of NOTION 3 Preferences, but the LP9 "I/O Buffer Size" value should match the NOTION 3 "Audio Buffer Size", although you can experiment with different values to determine whether it makes a difference . . .

The ideal buffer size values depend on the specific computer and its hardware, but if the buffers are too large, it takes too long to play audio, where the larger the buffer size, the greater the latency or delay in playing sounds, except that when the buffer sizes are too low the same problem happens . . .

If the timing issue happens when you are working with video, then there are settings for video in the LP9 Preferences, some of which might help, but I have not explored this aspect of LP9 yet . . .

Image
Logic Pro 9 Preferences ~ Video (default values)

If you are using VST effects plug-ins in NOTION 3, then I would disable them, because even though NOTION 3 has its own 32-bit application workspace, VST effects plug-ins use computer resources, in particular CPU time . . .

There are "Cache Resolution" and "Maximum Cache Size" items for the LP9 Video Preferences, and you can experiment with these, since they might do something, where higher values map to better quality video, which probably requires more processing, so you might try lower quality settings to determine if it has an affect on the timing issue . . .

Mac OS X 10.8.1 (Mountain Lion) does not have any processing performance options like earlier versions of Mac OS X did, where for example you could specify the overall behavior of the machine with respect to processing attention or performance, but there might be some options in Mac OS X 10.7.4 (Lion), in which case you want to set everything to maximum with respect to the fastest processing, which includes background tasks . . .

The only option for Mountain Lion is focused on putting the hard drive to "sleep", and I uncheck this option, since I do not want the operating system to spin-down the hard drives to "save energy", which is a bit silly, if not detrimental, really . . .

Really!

While the amount of memory does not make a lot of difference when you are running just one 32-bit application and the operating system, when you are running two 32-bit applications in a ReWire session, the amount of memory makes a difference, so another thing to consider is getting more memory, if this is possible, and with NOTION 4 being 64-bit, as is LP9, this makes sense . . .

And regarding video players, the QuickTime Player will do multicore processing, and so far is the only application I have found which actually uses all 8 cores and keeps them very busy when it is rendering audio . . .

This is what Activity Monitor reports for the activity of the 8-cores of the 2.8-GHz 8-core Mac Pro here in the sound isolation studio when I am running Firefox 15.0 and at the same time Logic Pro 9 is doing ReWire with NOTION 3 to play a song, which basically maps approximately to 15 percent utilization, which is encouraging, because when everything is 64-bits the Mac Pro has plenty of power to handle it, although I need to upgrade the memory which currently is 8GB (8 x 1GB, 800-MHz DDR2-FB-DIMM) and made sense several years ago, since it works best when all the memory slots are filled with matching pairs, but now maps to having to replace some or all of it with higher capacity matching pairs . . .

Image
Activity Monitor ~ Processor Cores Utilization ~ 2.8-GHz 8-core Mac Pro

Lots of FUN! :ugeek:
The Surf Whammys

Sinkhorn's Dilemma: Every paradox has at least one non-trivial solution!
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Re: Notion3 ReWire with Logic Pro

Postby Surfwhammy » Tue Sep 11, 2012 2:02 am

Now that Logic Pro 9 (Apple) is making sense here in the sound isolation studio, I did a new video which explains how to do ReWire (Propellerhead Software) where logic Pro 9 is the ReWire host controller and NOTION 3 is the ReWire slave, which is fabulous . . .

How to use ReWire to work with a NOTION 3 Score in Logic Pro 9 (Surfwhammy) -- Windows Media Video -- WMV (26.8MB, approximately 17 minutes and 2 seconds)

Fabulous! :D

And while initially I was not so happy with Logic Pro 9, this was due primarily (a) to knowing nearly nothing about the way Logic Pro 9 works and (b) to expecting Logic Pro 9 to work the same way as Digital Performer 7.24 (MOTU), but now that i have a bit more experience using Logic Pro 9 I am happy and everything is working very nicely . . .

Some of the activities are done in a different way, but it all makes sense once you understand the conceptual perspectives, and I was able to get it working nicely without needing to read the entire Logic Pro 9 User Manual, although I did read a few pages, which helped to make sense of the way the "Record Enable" button works . . .

Lots of FUN! :ugeek:
The Surf Whammys

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