idiotSavant wrote:Success!!! Finally after three days in LA on business, I had a chance to play with Notion and Logic Rewire more. As usual, the most basic thing was stumping me: When Logic Pro installs, it installs as 32 bit (for some reason). As every source that ever discusses Rewire says is item #1 to check, all I had to do was set both Logic Pro and Notion to 64 bit and viola, perfection. Now I can play with the fine tuning and subtleties of a first-class DAW.
Excellent! It always is good to remember that with ReWire, all it takes is one thing being incorrect and then nothing works . . .
I forgot about suggesting to verify that Logic Pro 9 (Apple) and NOTION 4 both are running in 64-bit mode, and for reference the same applies if you decide to do 32-bit ReWire 2, where in that scenario both Logic Pro 9 and NOTION 4 need to be running in 32-bit mode . . .
Regarding modes, Logic Pro 9 has a "bridge" utility, which is very nice, because this makes it possible to use 32-bit virtual instruments and effects plug-ins when you are running Logic Pro 9 and NOTION 4 in 64-bit mode, and although I have not tested it, there is the possibility that when NOTION 4 is running in 64-bit mode, one of the NOTION 4 External MIDI staves might be able to play a 32-bit virtual instrument in Logic Pro 9 via the "bridge". I am not certain about this, since I have not tried it, but it makes for an interesting experiment . . .
In the two YouTube videos I did this week, there is only one NOTION 4 channel pair doing ReWire 2, but since then I have started developing a Logic Pro 9 template which at present has 10 NOTION 4 channel pairs doing ReWire 2, as seen in the following screen capture, and the plan is to expand it to perhaps 25 NOTION 4 channel pairs, which is the way I do it in Digital Performer 8, where the strategy is to start with the blank "template" which is preconfigured for 25 ReWIre 2 channel pairs and then to do a "Save As . . . " to create the actual Digital Performer 8 project for a new song, which with the Logic Pro 9 "template" will work the same way . . .
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NOTE: It takes from 15 to 30 minutes to do this, mostly because it requires creating separate labels for each Audio Track, which in turn requires switching from using the mouse to using the keyboard, but once it is done I can use it as a template and then do a "Save As . . . " to clone it as the starting template for a new song, which makes it somewhat a one-time activity, except that I usually change the text labels to match instrument names to avoid needing to remember which instrument was "N4-7-8" or whatever. It also can take a while to click on all the buttons, but in Digital Performer 8 the Input Monitoring, Mute, Record, and Solo buttons are arranged vertically and I can click on one and then drag the mouse over the others and all of them set or clear, as the case might be, which is very handy. Logic Pro 9 does this as well, but it is done by selecting a set of tracks (as shown in the following screen capture), at which point if I click on the "I" button for one track, all the other "I" buttons are clicked automagically, which saves time and is a very nice graphic user interface (GUI) capability . . . ]
THOUGHTS AND TIPSIf you start with only a NOTION 4 score, then all the individual instruments need to output to the Master stereo output track in the NOTION 4 Mixer, which is done by setting the output for each individual instrumet to "Output". Then when you decide to do the ReWire 2 step, you have change the output value for each instrument to a ReWire 2 channel pair if you want to send the instruments over individually with each instrument on a different ReWire 2 channel pair, which for 25 instruments takes a minute or two and a lot of mouse activity. And if you later want to work in NOTION by itself, you have change them back to "Output", which is what I usually do, but there is another way to do this now that everything is 64-bits and you have plenty of memory . . .
Specifically, you can start Logic Pro 9 to make it the ReWire 2 host controller and then you can start NOTION 4, thereby making it the ReWire 2 slave . . .
At this point, you set the instrument outputs in NOTION 4 to ReWire 2 channel pairs and then you can work on NOTION 4 but hear everything via Logic Pro 9, which avoids having to toggle the individual NOTION 4 instrument outputs from (a) ReWire 2 channel pairs to (b) "Output", or vice-versa . . .
Another way is to leave all the NOTION 4 instrument outputs as "Output" and to use the Master stereo output of the NOTION 4 Mixer as the ReWire 2 channel pair, which also works nicely . . .
The rule is that the ReWire 2 host controller is responsible for playing the audio, while the ReWire 2 slaves are responsible for generating their respective audio and then sending it to the ReWire 2 host controller to be played, recorded, or heard as the case might be . . .
When you have Logic Pro 9 or Digital Performer 8 running as the ReWire 2 host controller and NOTION 4, as well perhaps as Reason 7, running as a ReWire 2 slave, you can do everything, which includes creating new staves in NOTION 4; copying and pasting measures and notes; modifying existing notes; and so forth and so on . . .
The only difference is that the audio is heard via Logic Pro 9 or Digital Performer 8, but the NOTION 4 Mixer continues to work, and you can use effects plug-ins in both the DAW application and in the NOTION 4 Mixer, as well as adjust levels and panning in the NOTION 4 Mixer and in the DAW application mixing board, so it is a very flexible and powerful system, plus with Logic Pro 9 and Digital Performer 8 you can do film and video scoring, since they support this aspect of composing as well, and with Logic Pro 9 you can interface additionally with Final Cut Express or Final Cut Studio X . . .
I fully understand that it costs more to get professional quality digital music production hardware and software, and from a practical perspective if there was an official list of Notion Music FORUM member budgets, mine would be at the bottom of the list or at least way down there, but I manage my budget ruthlessly, which includes not going to restaurants, fast-food outlets, and so forth and so on, since every penny I save is another penny that goes into the coffee can toward the goal of getting something useful sometime in the not so distant future, and I also check frequently for sales and super discounts, which happen with nearly everything at one time or another . . .
Logic Pro 9 is an Apple application, and if Apple cannot do a DAW application for Mac OS X correctly, then nobody can, which has the consequence that everything works in Logic Pro 9, including ReWire 2, and for reference this also is the case with Digital Performer 8, which instead is a MOTU product . . .
In some respects, the initial cost of ownership is higher when you get a Mac and use professional quality Mac OS X applications like Logic Pro 9, Digital Performer 8, and Ableton Live 9 (one of the advanced, super-feature flavors), but the key bit of information is that everything works, so instead of having to mess with stuff, it just works, although some of the advanced capabilities by their nature require a bit of learning and so forth, but this is expected . . .
I have been using Logic Pro 9 for perhaps 100 or so hours over the past year or whenever I got Logic Pro 9, and I can go to town on ReWire, but overall I probably know only about 10 percent of what Logic Pro 9 can do, and while I have been using Digital Performer for five or so years, there continues to be a lot of stuff in Digital Performer that is a complete and total mystery, although as I learn more about MIDI I am starting to make sense of some of the MIDI capabilities of Digital Performer 8 . . .
I used NOTION for several years before noticing that there were External MIDI staves, which I noticed recently and have used in a few songs, where the point is that having the ability to do stuff present is very important, which is what happens when you do good research on digital music production hardware and software and then make smart selections . . .
Doing all this stuff is sufficiently complex when it all works without adding to it having to mess with stuff that does not work, and in the grand scheme of everything the time one wastes trying to do professional work with less than professional quality digital music production hardware and software becomes too great, at least for me here in the sound isolation studio . . .
If i need to do it, then I do the research and find the best way to do it that is affordable, which in some instances involves making a purchase that empties the coffee can for a lot longer than I would prefer, but so what . . .
So what! For me, getting the Mac Pro was a big purchase, but I am glad that I did it, and this was the case with the MOTU 828mk3 Hyrbrid external digital audio and MIDI interface, but again I am glad that I did it . . .
I can deal with stuff that works even though initially I have no idea how it works, and this is the strategy I use, which is fabulous . . .
Fabulous!