Pitch Bend - MIDI Data in Notion 4 + Reason 6.5

[patrickjbrowne00]

I find that Notion 4 captures my pitch bend data when I use the Notion 4 guitar sound but does not capture the pitch bend data when when I use Reason 6.5 in slave mode or when I use the 'Play'' plugin. I also tried to notate the pitch bends in Notion and it did not work with Reason or Play as a sound source. Is there something that has to be enabled in order to have this work? Also is there a way to automate other midi data in Notion when using Reason as a sound source?

Regards,

Patrick

[Surfwhammy]

I find that Notion 4 captures my pitch bend data when I use the Notion 4 guitar sound but does not capture the pitch bend data when when I use Reason 6.5 in slave mode or when I use the 'Play'' plugin. I also tried to notate the pitch bends in Notion and it did not work with Reason or Play as a sound source. Is there something that has to be enabled in order to have this work? Also is there a way to automate other midi data in Notion when using Reason as a sound source?

Regards,

Patrick

QUESTION: Can you elaborate on this and provide more specific information on exactly how you are doing this, as well as which computer you are using and the operating system version?

THOUGHTS

The reason I ask for more specific information is that the NOTION 4 bundled Electric Guitar is not like (a) the other NOTION 4 bundled instruments that do not recognize the guitar tab stuff and is not like (b) any of the VSTi virtual instruments, with the primary difference being that it has a custom staff, where the top part shows music notation but the bottom part is a guitar tab staff which supports a deep and rich set of guitar fingering actions, as well as whammying, where for example it supports prebending a string and then allowing the string to return to its regular tension after the note is picked, and so forth and so on . . .

However, I am not certain how the NOTION 4 guitar tab feature works with MIDI or how one might input data to it in real-time on the fly . . .

It is not difficult to enter string bends and small-interval slides and so forth using the tool palette, and this works nicely for creating a virtual pedal steel guitar . . .

But I do not think this level of control happens with External MIDI staves, where an External MIDI staff is one of the easiest ways to use NOTION 4 to control a Reason 6.5 instrument . . .

I have not tried exporting a NOTION 4 guitar tab as MIDI data, and then importing to Reason 6.5 or even importing it to NOTION 4 specifically for a VSTi or External MIDI staff, which might be interesting experiments, so I might do those experiments in a while . . .

In some respects, my primary interest in this regard is the Lap Steel Guitar VSTI virtual instrument and sampled sounds library that Orange Tree Software provides for Kontakt 5 (Native Instruments), which includes the various "slides" and other types of samples required to get a true Lap Steel Guitar sound, which works nicely if you control it in standalone Kontakt 5 via a MIDI keyboard, since some of the playing styles are controlled by the various MIDI wheels (pitch bend or mod wheel), with the obvious problem being that for someone who is not a skilled pianist, playing lap steel guitar via a MIDI keyboard probably is considerably more difficult that teaching yourself how to play lap steel guitar (at least if you are a guitar player), but in this particular instance it does not matter, because using the NOTION 4 bundled Electric Guitar with the various guitar tab articulations solves the problem and is not so difficult to do after you experiment with it for a while, which curiously might lead to understanding enough about the harmony rules to be able to make sense of playing it on a real lap steel guitar, which has the potential to be truly fabulous, because when lap steel guitar makes sense, it it not such a huge leap to pedal steel guitar making sense . . .



Summarizing, having more information will be helpful, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous!

P. S. After reading in the NOTION 4 User Manual the perspective regarding different levels of expertise, where providing too much information might frustrate knowledgeable readers but confuse beginners, I think that the only practical way to determine what works in these types of scenarios is to do a series of experiments, since it involves doing a combination of MIDI, Reason 6.5, and ReWire 2 in addition to what NOTION 4 does, which by definition is frustrating and confusing to everyone until you discover (a) if it can be done and then (b) how to do it if it can be done, really . . .

To keep this guide useful, we assume all readers have a working knowledge of basic computer skills and assume all Notion features are new to the reader. But we do not exhaust every topic that leads beyond Notion operation: there are literally hundreds of excellent reference sources on the web, library, or or book store that can fill-in any gaps in your understanding of music theory/composition or pro-audio features.

[SOURCE: "NOTION 4 User Manual", page V ]

Really!

P. P. S. One might suggest that the worst case scenario on the advanced MIDI stuff is that you need to use a MIDI keyboard and to record the complete set of MIDI commands and instructions on the "piano roll" MIDI sequencer of a professional Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) application like DIgital Performer Pro 8 (MOTU) or Logic Pro 9 (Apple) on the Mac, because some of what would be nice to be able to do in NOTION 4 might be too intricate to do in anything other than a professional DAW application with advanced MIDI recording and editing capabilities, which is fine with me and makes a bit of sense from a logical and practical perspective, where something similar happens with the state-of-the-art VSTi virtual instrument stuff (VST 3.5.1 and VST Expression 3), where to the best of my knowledge the only VSTi virtual instrument which supports it is the Steinberg HALION Sonic VST Workstation, and the only DAW application which supports all its features and capabilities is Cubase 6.5, which is fabulous . . .

Cubase 6.5 and VST Expression 3 (Steinberg)

HALION Sonik VST Workstation (Steinberg)

Fabulous!