NOTION Music Forum

There are a number of string techniques not included in the sounds bundled with Notion 3 — for instance, sul tasto, sul ponticello, col legno. So far, it seems that these are played with ordinary string sounds — very sensible, if there is no exact match to the sound.

However, solo string harmonics are not playing at all! I remember a time when Notion2 had no Contrabassoon, and substituted piano, and some instruments without a mute sample played unmuted, but I don't remember any example where notes were not played at all.

In many libraries (I'm thinking particularly of GPO3 but there are others) the range is such that most harmonics can't be played, but Notion has the notes available — it just doesn't play them. If I remove the harmonic sign the notes play.

Is this a strange quirk of program design (!?) or is it just a bug? Do users with non-Notion sample libraries have any problems with string harmonics?

When using EWQLSO Gold, Harmonics play back fine.
The even correctly play (i.e. one Octave higher). I think there are dedicated samples for Harmonics in the Library.

When I use the Notion 3 solo Violin, harmonics are played back in the "normal" pitch, i.e. as notated, not an octave higher. But they are played with the Violin sound.

Have you updated to Notion 3.0.3?

I recently asked similar questions about certain unusual string articulations that EWQL provides, which Notion had temorarily handled via 'x[##] as "custom instructions" rules. I got a quick email reply from the good folks at Notion explaining that they are in process of integrating those EWQL special instruction kinds of samples into the Notion program, so that very soon these will ALL work automatically per conventional music notation instructions. They said it would probably be in next future update (but not quite yet), so we have more magic to look forward to...

In my earlier post I wrote:solo string harmonics are not playing at all! . . . If I remove the harmonic sign the notes play.

I was less then precise. I should have said that only harmonics notated with a harmonics sign (circle) do not sound with Notion 3's sounds. Artificial harmonics specified with a main note and a lozenge shape do sound for me with Notion3 sounds. Also, since my original post I discovered that harmonics notated with a circle work OK with Aria.

harmonics notated with a circle work fine for me with the built-in sounds.

Novatlan wrote:harmonics notated with a circle work fine for me with the built-in sounds.

Thanks — that's useful to know (even though it doesn't solve my problem). I'll have to try to see what I'm doing wrong. They make no sound at all for me.

I've just discovered that solo string harmonics are not working for me as well. And if I revert to the Notion 2 sound for my solo viola, it no longer works with that, either. I press the letter 'o' and place it on my note on the staff and click, just like it says to do. The harmonic sign appears above the note, but it sounds just the same.

Furthermore, I've come to the conclusion that the N2 solo viola sound sounds much better than the N3 solo viola. It's smoother, and the pitch is correct. With the N3 sounds, some of the high notes go horribly sharp.