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 . . .
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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 SOLUTIONSThis is the relevant part of the graphic user interface design, and it generally is a static design, but you can work within its limitations:
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NOTE: There is a drumpad to the left, but it is not shown in the screen capture . . . ]
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 . . .
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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 . . . 
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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 . . .
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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 . . .
THOUGHTSThere 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 videoFabulous! 
Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 10:30 pm