NOTION Music Forum

Hello everybody,
You will observe that the HORN "does not do His job" to the measure 6 and measure 13: the sound stops before the end of the term of the note. I tried several solutions. Without success.
Your opinion?

Francois2010 wrote:Hello everybody,
You will observe that the HORN "does not do His job" to the measure 6 and measure 13: the sound stops before the end of the term of the note. I tried several solutions. Without success.
Your opinion?

HIGH-LEVEL SUMMARY VERSION

Try experimenting with some of the other articulations in Miroslav Philharmonik for "French Horn". There are a lot of them!

You can skip all the following stuff and go to the end of my second post, which has the solution in the "VOILA" section, where the curious aspect is that by adding one instance of the VST version of Miroslav Philharmonik and assigning a single "LOOPED" articulation of the "French Horn", the problem does not occur, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous!

DETAILS PART UN

[NOTE: For those folks who are intrigued by the technique of discovering solutions for problems by "scouting around", the detail sections of this post and the following post are a step-wise log of the experiments I performed toward the goal of discovering (a) what was happening and (b) how to correct it, where for reference I explained the historical background of the term "scouting around" in a different post in this FORUM, which basically is a vastly useful technique I learned when I was working on the NASA Shuttle Mission Simulator (SMS), where the key is that you need to know how to look for stuff and how to perform experiments when something is not so readily visible. In some respects when using this technique it is not necessary to know much of anything other than how to find stuff, because the great aspect of computers is that they do exactly what their human programmers tell them to do, hence you only need to discover what the human programmers did, since if something does not work as expected, it nearly always is due to human error, which in a sense makes it a form of virtual psychoanalysis, where "scouting around" involves observing the human programmers indirectly while smoking a cigar and looking for the goofy bits, and then there you are . . . ]

Electric Guitar, Bass, and Drums are my favorite instruments, but I also like French Horn, which I think is called "Horn" by classically trained composers, and I like French Horn because it has an unique tone similar at times to playing it through a wah-wah pedal or something. To get the best tone for Lead Guitar, you need at least a few effects pedals, and French Horn has a "virtual foot pedal" that changes its tone, which when specified makes it instantly obvious that you are hearing a French Horn, which is why I like French Horn. There is no actual "foot pedal", so I think it is done by the way the musician plays the French Horn, but it is great tone, and I like it . . .

Consequently, after learning that "Horn" refers to what I call "French Horn" (a personal favorite), I did some research on Miroslav Philharmonik and started counting all the ensemble and solo articulations for "French Horn", but after an hour or so, I stopped counting around 150 to 200 . . .

[NOTE: Conceptually, it is bit redundant for French composers to refer to a "Horn" as a "French Horn", which confused me for a while until someone explained that in this context "Horn" is what I call "French Horn", where "Coronet" is another name for what I call "French Horn", which also was something I did not know . . . ]

You can change the specific articulation via the Miroslav Philharmonik standalone user interface, which you activate in the NOTION Mixer by clicking on the name of the instrument at the top of the channel strip or "track" for the "Horn". When a VSTi virtual instrument has a standalone user interface, clicking one time on its name in the NOTION Mixer launches the standalone user interface, at which time you can change the specific instrument or its particular articulation, and for Miroslav Philharmonik you can specify up to 16 articulations, where the specific articulation used depends on the articulation you specify in the music notation . . .

[NOTE: This screen capture shows Instruments 1-8, but you can specify Instruments 9-16 as well for a custom "COMBI". Each specific instrument in the "COMBI" can have its own effects, parameters, and so forth, which apply only to the specifically selected instrument, where for example you can specify long reverb decay for one of the French Horn "instruments" or "articulation", and it only will apply to that specific "instrument" or "articulation", where this is referring to the "PART" at the selected "slot number" or "CHANNEL" in the "COMBI", which might be a way to create a type of "virtual sustain" if there is no French Horn articulation that has naturally long sustain . . . ]



Some of this probably involves predefined or custom rules, but as best as I can determine the way it works is that if you specify staccato in the music notation and there is a staccato articulation among the 16 articulations, then the staccato articulation is used, and you can watch the articulations change in the Miroslav Philharmonik standalone user interface, along with watching the notes being played on its "virtual keyboard" . . .

In Miroslav Philharmonik terms when there are multiple articulations or groups of instruments, this is called a "COMBI", and you can specify 16 voices, channels, articulations, instruments, or whatever, and they can be mixed, in the sense of having a French Horn, Violin, Viola, and Castanets in the same "COMBI", which is useful in 32-bit mode (currently the only mode supported by IK Multimedia VSTi virtual instruments), since it reduces the overall footprint (fewer instances of Miroslav Philharmonik), which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous!

~ ~ ~ Continued in the next post ~ ~ ~

~ ~ ~ Continued from the previous post ~ ~ ~

DETAILS PART DEUX

What I call "French Horn" also is called "Coronet", and after doing a quick experiment the problem was easy to find, and what happens is that during some of the sustained notes, the "Coronet" simply stops playing, which is bad . . .

I did some experiments and made a few changes to the music notation to provide a workaround that keeps the "Coronet" playing the notes . . .

[NOTE: The problem might be the "natural" in the music notation, where in the original version only the half note has the "natural", while the tied and sustained additional notes do not have this sign, but it also appears to be associated with the way some of the articulations were sampled and digitized . . . ]

One of the experiments involved using the VSTi virtual instrument version of Miroslav Philharmonik rather than the predefined Miroslav Philharmonik template, and this essentially removes the use of predefined NOTION 4 rules for Miroslav Philharmonik so that you work only with Miroslav Philharmonik, as shown in the following screen capture, where the new instrument shown highlighted and selected is a "French Horn" with only one articulation, and it plays the sustained notes correctly as indicated in the music notation and as heard in the WAVE audio file that follows, noting that I set all the volume sliders to 0 dB and adjusted the panning, since I do not have the VSL virtual stage or whatever it is, although I do have CSR Hall (IK Multimedia), which I set to the "Small Concert" preset . . .



Miroslav Philharmonik VSTi "French Horn" -- WAVE (6.1MB)

This is the way it looks in NOTION 4 Score Setup, where the new instrument labeled "Philharmonik" is the VSTi version of Miroslav Philharmonik with a single "French Horn" articulation selected, as shown in the screen capture of the Miroslav Philharmonik standalone user interface, where the key bit of information appears to be to select a "LOOPED (LP)' articulation to get the smooth and uninterrupted sustain. When you use the NOTION 4 predefined template and rules for Miroslav Philharmonik, you can watch the French Horn (a.k.a., "Coronet") switching frequently among parts, and the sustain stops after two measures. But when you use the non-predefined version, which is done via "VST Instrument" in NOTION 4 Score Setup, it does not happen when you select a "LOOPED (LP)" French Horn articulation, hence the solution . . .





When the original "Cornet" is replaced with the VSTi virtual instrument "French Horn", I think this provides a solution to the problem of the notes stopping. There is only one articulation "FRENCH HORNS 1 LP BC1" (as shown in the screen capture above), so if you need more articulations, you can add them and do an "instrument switch" in the music notation to switch to the desired articulation, which you will need to do manually, since for the NOTION 4 predefined Miroslav Philharmonik template this is done automatically via rules, but when you are not using the predefined instruments, you need to do the instrument switches manually in the music notation . . .

This is the revised NOTION 4 score and the WAVE audio when the VSTi virtual instrument "French Horn" is used . . .

[NOTE: When I refer to the "VSTi virtual instrument" in this context, I am referring to using the "VST" for Miroslav Philharmonik in NOTION 4 Score Setup rather than the predefined Miroslav Philharmonik template or whatever. If this is confusing, then I can explain it in a subsequent post if you ask, but the way it works is that you click on "VST" in NOTION 4 Score Setup and then select Miroslav Philharmonik, where you get a blank "COMBI" to which you add the "FRENCH HORNS 1 LP BC1" instrument. This bypasses the specific NOTION 4 rules for Miroslav Philharmonik so that you are using only the generic rules (if there are generic rules) . . . ]

Cuivrissime IV -- Surfwhammy version -- Coronet and VSTI French Horn -- NOTION 4 Score (*.notion)

Cuivrissime IV -- Surfwhammy version -- Coronet and VSTi French Horn -- WAVE (7MB)

VOILA

The last version of the score (see directly above) does not show the "Coronet", but it is there and it is heard in the audio, and the truly strange aspect is that when the standalone VSTi virtual instrument added, the NOTION 4 predefined template and rules for the "Coronet" work correctly and the note does not stop playing, but to complete the experiment I deleted the predefined "Coronet" and saved the NOTION 4 score with a different name and then created a WAVE output for it, which sounds good to me, noting that I primarily am a "play by ear" composer and musician, hence I notice stuff based on (a) the way it sounds as contrasted to (b) the way it is transcribed in music notation, which is the how it works when folks focus more on "play by ear" than on all the music notation and music theory stuff . . .

I am becoming somewhat proficient in music notation for most instruments, but for me music notation and all the digital music production stuff are tools like lead guitar effect pedals that I can use to devise ways to make music sound good, which among other things is the reason that I do everything on soprano treble staves in the key of C Major in 4/4 time, since it keeps the music notation and music theory stuff as simple as possible, where I use a soprano treble staff for bass by telling NOTION 4 to play the notes two octaves lower than notated or whatever, since here in the sound isolation studio there are 12 notes (or 24 notes with I am using the newly discovered half-tones) and 8 to 10 octaves, which maps to having to deal only with 12 notes most of the time, which can appear in any of 8 to 10 octaves depending on how low or high I want the specific notes to sound, which is fabulous . . .

[NOTE: I changed the panning and set all the volume sliders to 0 dB, so all the WAVE files will be a bit louder, although within what I think is a Classical range of listening levels, which I do so that I can hear everything accurately here in the sound isolation studio when played through the calibrated full-range studio monitor system, which is the only way one can do anything accurately, as explained in my ongoing topic on studio monitors in the IK Multimedia FORUM. You must be able to hear everything, and the only way to hear everything is to have a calibrated full-range studio monitor system, which at the dawn of the early-21st century only happens when you design, install, and calibrate a custom system, which can be done with commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components but not in the way most folks imagine, since the fact of the matter is that there are no calibrated full-range COTS studio monitor systems currently available anywhere on this planet, where specifically "calibrated full-range" as I use the term maps to a calibrated and verified studio monitor system with a flat equal loudness curve at 85 dB SPL running from 10-Hz to 20,000-Hz, where I like to add the subsonic frequencies even though such notes are felt more than actually heard . . . ]

Cuivrissime IV -- Surfwhammy version -- No Coronet, Replaced by VSTi French Horn -- NOTION 4 Score (*.notion)

Cuivrissime IV -- Surfwhammy version -- No Coronet, Replaced by VSTi French Horn -- WAVE (7MB)

[NOTE: The name of the actual WAVE file includes "No Coronet" but this refers to having removed the original Coronet and then replacing it with a Miroslav Philharmonik VSTi virtual instrument set to a single French Horn instrument, so there is a Cornet (a.k.a., "French Horn" or "Horn"), but it is done with the VST version of Miroslav Philharmonik rather than with the predefined NOTION 4 template for Miroslav Philharmonik, hence no predefined rules, no predefined articulations, and so forth . . . ]

The Fabulous Affordable Studio Monitor System (IK Multimedia FORUM)

Fabulous!

P. S. Whether this is an odd behavior of the predefined NOTION 4 template for Miroslav Philharmonik; the NOTION 4 predefined rules for Miroslav Philharmonik; or the IK Multimedia engine for Miroslav Philharmink is something I have not determined, but the solution presented in the "VOILA" section works . . .

My current hypothesis is that the samples for "French Horn" in Miroslav Philharmonik were done based on the idea that unless the "LOOPED (LP)" articulations are used, then the French Horn player(s) take a break after two measures of playing the same note and enjoy wine and cheese, while looking for apartments for lease next to bordellos--hence no long sustain--but if you use the "LOOPED (LP)" articulations for French Horn, then the digitized samples working in conjunction with the IK Multimedia engine provide long sustain, really . . .

Really!

My current hypothesis is that the samples for "French Horn" in Miroslav Philharmonik were done based on the idea that unless the "LOOPED (LP)" articulations are used, then the French Horn player(s) take a break after two measures of playing the same note and enjoy wine and cheese,

==> lol

Hello!
I heard that you have found a solution by listening to the wav file. I could not get any sound out of your Notion file.

Francois2010 wrote:

My current hypothesis is that the samples for "French Horn" in Miroslav Philharmonik were done based on the idea that unless the "LOOPED (LP)" articulations are used, then the French Horn player(s) take a break after two measures of playing the same note and enjoy wine and cheese,

==> lol

Hello!
I heard that you have found a solution by listening to the wav file. I could not get any sound out of your Notion file.

Glad you enjoyed the humor!

For reference, my middle name is French, and the way I like to explain the family tree is that quite a few of the Scottish and Welsh women in my family over the centuries tended to have a vigorous policy of saying "Oui" to every Frenchman they could find, which gives me a bit of poetic license in this respect, really . . .

Really!

The solution to the problem of not hearing any audio is to go to the NOTION 4 Mixer, where you will find that the Master stereo output is set to "Ch 9-10", which is the way I have to set it to hear the audio when I am using the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid external digital audio and MIDI interface, since it has the stereo "Main 1-2" following the monaural channels "Analog 1" through "Analog 8", hence "Ch 9-10" in NOTION 4 maps to "Main 1-2" for the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid, which was so confusing initially that I had to call MOTU Technical Support to discover how to get it working . . .

So, change the output for the Master stereo track from "Ch 9-10" to "Default" or whatever is the correct output channel pair for your system . . .

The solution to the Coronet problem is to use the "VST Instrument" version of Miroslav Philharmonik, where you will select one of the "LOOPED (LP)" French Horns. This causes NOTION 4 not to use its predefined rules and templates for Miroslav Philharmonik . . .

The way the French Horn (a.k.a., "Coronet" and "Horn") is sampled in Miroslav Philharmonik requires using the "LOOPED (LP)" samples when you need extended sustain . . .

The NOTION 4 predefined rules and template for Miroslav Philharmonik have some "LOOPED (LP)" articulations, but they are for muted French Horn, so they are not used in the section you posted . . .

Let me know if you need more help on this . . .

Lots of FUN!

P. S. I used the T-RackS CS Grand (IK Multimedia) version of CSR Hall, so you will need to change it, as well, and since I do not have the Virtual Sound Stage plug-in, I changed the panning; and I adjusted the volume sliders, since I like to have them set to 0 dB (which works nicely for doing ReWire 2 to Digital Performer 8 (MOTU), which is the DAW application I use for final mixing and mastering), but these are easy things to change . . .

I tend to do what one might call "Beatles" style George Martin mixes, where the focus is on being able to hear everything in lots of locations rather than on being accurate based on the way instruments and singers actually are placed on a concert stage, so I split the Trumpets to left and right; put the Trombone on the left and Tuba on the right (bass instruments, more or less); and put the Coronet in the middle for ambiance and texture . . .

So, change the output for the Master stereo track from "Ch 9-10" to "Default" or whatever is the correct output channel pair for your system . . .

No song with "Default" and i dont know wich is the correct output for my system.

Francois2010 wrote:

So, change the output for the Master stereo track from "Ch 9-10" to "Default" or whatever is the correct output channel pair for your system . . .

No song with "Default" and i dont know wich is the correct output for my system.

Oops. . .

I did a bit of checking and noticed that you are using NOTION 3 rather than the 32-bit version of NOTION 4 and while I opened your original NOTION 3 score, I then saved it in 32-bit NOTION 4 format, so this is the likely culprit, since the score I posted was done with the 32-bit version of NOTION 4 rather than with NOTION 3 . . .

[NOTE: NOTION 4 can open NOTION 3 scores, but the NOTION 4 score format is a bit different, so this is the problem, since I saved your original score with modifications in NOTION 4 format, and this was due to my missing or not noticing that you are running NOTION 3 . . . ]

The topic title clearly says "(Notion3 with Miroslav)", but I was focusing on the problem rather than the version of NOTION, where for reference NOTION 4 runs in 32-bit mode or 64-bit mode, but only one mode at a time, where on the Mac you need to switch modes manually by setting or clearing the "Open in 32-bit mode" option, while on a Windows computer you need to install both versions . . .

Fortunately, I am a pack rat, so I have NOTION 3 on the Mac Pro here in the isolation studio and actually can travel back in time to every version of Mac OS X and all the versions of Windows through Windows XP, but for the Windows versions it usually requires banging on a "beige box" a few times with a hammer to get the hard drives spinning . . .

This is the NOTION 3 version of your original score, and what I did is very simple:

(1) I created a new instrument starting by clicking on "VST Instrument" in Score Setup, followed by selecting the "Miroslav Philharmonik" VSTi virtual instrument from the list of VSTi virtual instruments that appears, as shown in the following screen capture . . .


NOTION 3 Score Setup ~ Lower Right Corner after clicking on "VST Instruments"

(2) When the Miroslav Philharmonik standalone user interface appears after you do the first step, select the Ensemble French Horn as shown in the following screen capture . . .


Miroslav Philharmonik ~ Standalone User Interface (NOTION 3 Score Setup)

(3) If you prefer, you can rename the title of the instrument staff from "Miroslav Philharmonik" to "MP French Horn" or "MP Coronet", but this is optional, and when finished you can exit NOTION 3 Score Setup, at which time you will have a new instrument which is an Ensemble French Horn with a "LOOPED (LP)" articulation . . .

(4) Copy the notes for the original Coronet and then past them to the newly created Ensemble French Horn with the "LOOPED (LP)" articulation . . .

(5) Now you can switch to NOTION 3 Score Setup and delete the original Coronet staff, since it is replaced by the new Ensemble French Horn that you created in the first three steps and to which you copied the Coronet notes in the fourth step . . .

[NOTE: I used the "FRENCH HORNS 1 LP BC1" articulation as shown in the screen capture from (2), and it plays correctly. And I set the Master stereo output to "Default" in the NOTION 3 score . . . ]

Cuivrissime IV MiroslavExtrait -- Surfwhammy revision for NOTION 3, Ens. French Horn replaces original Coronet -- NOTION 3 Score (*.notion)

Cuivrissime IV MiroslavExtrait -- Surfwhammy revision for NOTION 3, Ens. French Horn replaces original Coronet -- WAVE audio file (7.9MB)

This should work, but let me know if you need more help . . .

Lots of FUN!

I followed the procedure and everything worked well. Great!!! Thank you!

Francois2010 wrote:I followed the procedure and everything worked well. Great!!! Thank you!

Glad to help!

Miroslav Philharmonik is surprisingly deep and rich, and the current news from IK Multimedia is that they expect to have a 64-bit version sometime this year, which will be nice . . .

Lots of FUN!