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Third party MIDI

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Third party MIDI

Postby noelquinlan » Tue Jul 30, 2013 10:30 pm

Sometimes speed is of the essence and ready-to-eat patterns for the rhythm section would be useful. The drum pallet included is very slim and guitar/bass/piano are not included.
Is there any company/person where one can buy, beg or borrow generic MIDI files which are ready to play and print in Notion4?
None of my own wide variety of drum files seem to work in Notion. Who has time to re-map?

Thanks for your suggestions.

Cheers: Nolo
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Re: Third party MIDI

Postby Surfwhammy » Wed Jul 31, 2013 1:55 am

noelquinlan wrote:Sometimes speed is of the essence and ready-to-eat patterns for the rhythm section would be useful. The drum pallet included is very slim and guitar/bass/piano are not included.
Is there any company/person where one can buy, beg or borrow generic MIDI files which are ready to play and print in Notion4?
None of my own wide variety of drum files seem to work in Notion. Who has time to re-map?

Thanks for your suggestions.

Cheers: Nolo


I like Addictive Drums (XLN Audio), and they have a several MIDI drumming libraries, but my favorite is the Diabolic MIDI Pak, since it features my favorite drummer, Daniel Erlandsson (Arch Enemy) . . .

Diabolic MIDI Pak for Addictive Drums (XLN Audio)

The interesting aspect is that you can select a specific drumkit performance, and it somehow knows what to do automagically without requiring any actual music notation, where the following song features one of the many MIDI performances by what I like call "Pretend MIDI Daniel Erlandsson", where if you watch the YouTube music video in HD 720p, you can see that there is no music notation on the Addictive Drums staff, but "Pretend MIDI Daniel Erlandsson" knows what to play, and it works, which is fabulous . . .

"Abyss" (The Surf Whammys ft. Pretend MIDI Daniel Erlandsson) -- YouTube music video

Fabulous! :)

P. S. There probably is a way to get the actual MIDI notes and commands, but at present I have no idea how to do it . ..
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Re: Third party MIDI

Postby noelquinlan » Thu Aug 01, 2013 3:00 am

Thanks for your response, but I am wondering if Notion has an expanded drum pallet?
Cheers: Nolo
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Re: Third party MIDI

Postby Surfwhammy » Thu Aug 01, 2013 10:29 pm

noelquinlan wrote:Thanks for your response, but I am wondering if Notion has an expanded drum pallet?
Cheers: Nolo


I am not aware of any expanded drumkit pattern offerings, but there is a way to do it yourself, with a few caveats . . . :ugeek:

[NOTE: There is a Percussion Bundle of Expansion Sounds which is available in the NOTION Music Store, and it adds more percussion instruments to the palette, but I do not know whether it augments any of the drumkit patterns . . . ]

Expansion Sounds for NOTION (Notion Music)

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

This is the relevant part of the graphic user interface design, and it generally is a static design, but you can work within its limitations:

[NOTE: There is a drumpad to the left, but it is not shown in the screen capture . . . ]

Image

On the Mac, each of the four buttons {Funk, Jazz, Rock, World} are NOTION 4 scores which are stored in the Mac OS X application package in "Resources" in the "DrumLibrary" folder. Each of these has an upper limit of 28 items that appear in the light gray workspace to the right of the buttons . . .

[NOTE: Just because you can do something does not automatically imply that it is a good idea or that you actually should do it. The "Save As . . . " strategy where you create your own user-defined drumkit pattern templates and save them as NOTION 4 scores in a location that is not part of the Mac OS X application package for "Notion.app" is the preferred solution for several reasons. Tinkering with the Mac OS X application package generally is not a good idea, although it can be FUN, if you like to do experiments that could hose your computer . . . :o ]

Image

I call this a "fixed design", because it does not allow expansion, as would be the case if it were what I call a "variable design", where instead of having four buttons there would be a drop-down listbox and the area to the right would have scrollbars; a set of drop-down listboxes; or whatever made sense in terms of making it as flexible at runtime as possible . . .

Additionally, in a "variable design" a database (preferably a SQLite database) would be used instead of four NOTION 4 scores that essentially function as flat-file surrogates for a SQLite database, all of which is fine with me . . .

If you are sufficiently computer literate and have the time, as an example you could replace the {Funk, Jazz, Rock, World} drumkit patterns with your own custom four patterns, being careful to give them names with a maximum of five or perhaps six characters, and you then could create as many as 112 drumkit patterns, which after doing a few experiments can be longer than four measures each . . .

[NOTE: If you do it this way, you need to make copies of your user-defined custom NOTION 4 drumkit pattern scores, because installing an update to NOTION 4 will overwrite them with the originals that come with NOTION 4, hence this is not the best way to provide a solution, although technically you can do it this way on the Mac, and probably on a Windows computer, as well . . . ]

You also can use the drumpad in single-note mode with step-time record to enter drumkit notes with the drumpad . . .

Another strategy is to create a NOTION 4 score and then use it as a user-defined template for storing various drumkit patterns, where in this variation you will open the user-defined template as a second NOTION 4 score and then switch to it to copy a drumkit pattern, followed by switching to the song and doing a paste of the drumkit pattern where you want it to appear on a Drumkit staff, and this is the preferred strategy, since it does not require changing the existing Drum Library . . .

Regarding Addictive Drums (XLN Audio), there are two ways to use it, where one way is as a VSTi virtual instrument that plays the notes you input manually; via a MIDI keyboard; or via an electronic MIDI drumkit . . .

The other way requires a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) application like Digital Performer 8 (MOTU), since as best as I can determine NOTION 4 currently does not support drag-and-drop of MIDI clips, so in this strategy you add Addictive Drums to the Digital Performer 8 project as an AU or VSTi virtual instrument, which then makes it possible to drag-and-drop the MIDI samples from Additive Drums onto a MIDI track in the MIDI Editor. Once you have MIDI notes on the track, you can select them and do an export to a MIDI file (*.mid). This MIDI file then can be imported to NOTION 4, where it will appear on a sequencer staff or whatever it is called; and you can select the phrase; copy it to NOTION 4 clipboard; and then paste it onto a staff assigned to Addictive Drums, at which time the MIDI notes and commands will be converted to the correct music notation. This takes a bit longer, but I tested it; it works reliably; and this is the way to get the MIDI notes and commands for a MIDI loop in Addictive Drums into NOTION 4 as notes on a "VST Instruments" staff where Addictive Drums is the assigned VSTi virtual instrument with the result that the drumkit phrase is played correctly by Addictive Drums; and you can save everything, which makes it a way for example to convert all the Diabolic Pak for Addictive Drums to music notation for a staff in NOTION 4 that has Addictive Drums as its assigned VSTi virtual instrument . . .

As an estimate, I think that you could create your own user-defined "templates" for the Diabolic Pak for Addictive Drums this way, where to use it in a song you would open the user-defined "template" and use it as the source for the various phrases in music notation with the correct mapping for Addictive Drums . . .

I can do this, because I have properly licensed copies of Addictive Drums and the Diabolic Pak for Addictive Drums, which I might do, since it looks to be an interesting and useful experiment, but I could not sell it; give it away as a free gift; or whatever . . .

By the time you study NOTION 4 sufficiently to understand everything I have explained, I think it probably is easier to input the drumkit parts manually, since after making sense of all this stuff you should know enough about Addictive Drums; Daniel Erlandsson's drumming style; drumkit music notation; and so forth to do it off the top of your head nearly in real-time, or even better you could get a nice electronic MIDI drumkit and then play the parts while recording them as MIDI in NOTION 4 . . .

THOUGHTS

There is a lot of stuff like this that can be done with NOTION, but doing it is best done when there is a NOTION Software Developer Kit and a new section in the NOTION Music Store for selling third-party enhancements to NOTION, similar to the way Propellerhead Software does its Rack Extensions for Reason . . .

In this regard, one of my ongoing projects is to make sense of the MIDI specification, since if I can make sense of the format for MIDI files (*.mid), then I can create a program which will create MIDI files with the appropriate MIDI notes and commands for virtually any instrument, and depending on a few factors this could include doing a bit of artificial intelligence, which is intriguing because, using Mozart and piano as an example, at some point it becomes a bit stupid to enter virtually endless variations of scales, arpeggios, and the alternating low-note and high-note phrases that Mozart found so amusing. In other words, I should be able to have the computer automagically generate most of the required nonsense--albeit vastly elegant nonsense--noting that Mozart provided the "Rosetta Stone" for this in his stellar composition "Twelve Variations on 'Ah vous dirai-je maman'", which is absolutely hilarious, and if you listen to it enough times, sooner or later it makes sense and then you understand the patterns, which is entirely separate from being able to play it, with playing never being a requirement for composing, although it helps, which is fabulous . . .

"Twelve Variations on 'Ah vous dirai-je maman'" (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) -- Fazil Say -- YouTube music video

Fabulous! :)
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Re: Third party MIDI

Postby noelquinlan » Mon Aug 05, 2013 3:52 am

"I am not aware of any expanded drumkit pattern offerings, but there is a way to do it yourself, with a few caveats . . . :ugeek: "

Thanks for your response - I have no problem writing drum parts and have been programming my Fairlight CMI III and its successors since 1986. I'm just lazy and looking for a quick and easy paint-by-numbers to fill in generic parts for the live performance element of the production. Will write my own, but am having difficulty coping with the Notion drum MIDI map. The drum set itself is restrictive and other sets like Session Drummer do not seem to replace it easily.

All complaints aside - I found the learning curve for Notion4 almost vertical, mainly due to holes in the paperwork, but I have persevered and have to say that I am absolutely loving it! Particularly the approach to articulation, techniques and dynamics. Brilliant! I am orchestrating musicals right now and one must feel for the copyists, who are going to take a beating.

"In this regard, one of my ongoing projects is to make sense of the MIDI specification, since if I can make sense of the format for MIDI files (*.mid), then I can create a program which will create MIDI files with the appropriate MIDI notes and commands for virtually any instrument"

Can I make a suggestion?

What would be really cool is a "SIMILE" (Sim.) function which would repeat bars within parameters set by the leading bar. eg - the scale notes of chord symbol for that bar being reflected in an ostinato or bass pattern. I'm not talking about arpeggios - more like musicians performance of repeated patterns with subtle variations. I suspect part of the answer may lie in the velocity varying the stress points in the bar. We can but dream.

Last thing - my dynamic parts are not showing the same info as the full score - Title, type-face etc. What am I not doing???

I have a bunch of interested questions still pending as I come to terms with this great scoring tool.

Cheers and thanks: Nolo
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Re: Third party MIDI

Postby Surfwhammy » Tue Aug 06, 2013 11:04 am

noelquinlan wrote:Can I make a suggestion?

What would be really cool is a "SIMILE" (Sim.) function which would repeat bars within parameters set by the leading bar. eg - the scale notes of chord symbol for that bar being reflected in an ostinato or bass pattern. I'm not talking about arpeggios - more like musicians performance of repeated patterns with subtle variations. I suspect part of the answer may lie in the velocity varying the stress points in the bar. We can but dream.


You might be able to do this with Reason 7 (Propellerhead Software) and some of the advanced Rack Extension components, where in this strategy everything is done based on MIDI, which you can export and then import to NOTION 4 . . .

Reason 7 is sequencer and MIDI based, so it works differently in a conceptual way from NOTION 4 and music notation . . .

Reason 7 has drumpads and there are reasonably elaborate sequencers that "play" drumkit patterns you define initially via drumpads, which as I recall have 16 different percussion instruments, where one of them is called "Kong" . . .

This is an example of an automated rhythm section in Reason 7, and is uses synthesizers, drumpads, sequencers, and a few advanced Rack Extensions . . .

Reason 8 Rhythm Section -- YouTube music video

Once you have a rhythm pattern in Reason 7, you can use ReWire 2 to record it in a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) application where it will be synchronized with the NOTION 4 audio you recorded in the DAW application via ReWire 2, where the following song is the expanded rhythm section and has instruments from Reason 7 done with sequencers and instruments from NOTION 4 done with music notation, where everything is recorded in Digital Performer 8 (MOTU) and then mixed and mastered, which is fabulous . . .

[NOTE: This is mixed "hot" since the intended audience mostly are subhuman mutants (a.k.a., the so-called "Youth of Today") and this is music for their ongoing mating rituals, so lower the volume on your computer before playing it, and enjoy the Porpoises on LSD, Flatulent Whales, Sirens, and other aquatic entities . . . ]

"Whammy Twist" (The Surf Whammys) -- Enhanced Rhythm Section -- MP3

Fabulous! :P

noelquinlan wrote:Last thing - my dynamic parts are not showing the same info as the full score - Title, type-face etc. What am I not doing???


Everything should be present when you view the Full Score, no matter how you created it, but when you switch to viewing only one Dynamic Part, some of the information disappears, but if you switch views from "Across" or "Down" to "Continuous" and then switch back to "Across" or "Down", the Title and so forth should appear. Whether this is a bug or a "feature" is another matter . . .

Without more information, this is my best guess . . .

Lots of FUN!
:)
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Re: Third party MIDI

Postby Brian2 » Tue Aug 06, 2013 12:52 pm

noelquinlan wrote:Last thing - my dynamic parts are not showing the same info as the full score - Title, type-face etc. What am I not doing???
I have a bunch of interested questions still pending as I come to terms with this great scoring tool.

Cheers and thanks: Nolo



Dynamic parts may be a little different from your first understanding : the idea is more that you would like to print out a particular part for a musician, with particular formatting (and Title). For instance if your score views transposed instruments in concert pitch, and you view the dynamic part for a transposed instrument (Bb trumpet) using dynamic parts, it appears in its correct transposed key.

Hope it helps!
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Re: Third party MIDI

Postby noelquinlan » Wed Aug 07, 2013 9:23 pm

Goddit!

Thanks: Nolo
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