Using Notion 4 as a Midi Controler?

[JBC95]

Is it at all possible to send midi information from Notion in such a way that a DAW could use it as input for a midi device? It would be nice to be able to write the notes from Notion, and then have the DAW playback the music.

[Surfwhammy]

Is it at all possible to send midi information from Notion in such a way that a DAW could use it as input for a midi device? It would be nice to be able to write the notes from Notion, and then have the DAW playback the music.

If you are doing digital music production on the Mac, then this is easy to do, as seen in the following YouTube video that I made to explain how to do it with two NOTION 4 External MIDI staves to send MIDI notes to Logic Pro 9 (Apple), where various Logic Pro 9 virtual instruments play the MIDI notes sent from NOTION 4 . . .

[NOTE: You also can do this with Digital Performer 8 (MOTU) and Live 9 (Ableton) on the Mac . . . ]

Using NOTION 4 External MIDI to play Logic Pro 9 virtual instruments -- YouTube video

But this is not all you can do, because you also can use NOTION 4 External MIDI staves to send MIDI (a) to external MIDI devices like keyboard synthesizers; (b) to Reason 7 (Propellerhead Software); and (c) to standalone virtual instruments running as separate and independent applications in Mac OS X, where for reference I do this on a 2.8-GHz 8-core Mac Pro (early-2008) with 20GB of memory . . .

And since one of the new Reason 7 components is the External MIDI Instrument (EMI), you can have Reason 7 send MIDI messages (notes and commands) to NOTION 4 to play virtual instruments in the same way you can send MIDI messages from NOTION 4 External MIDI staves to play Reason 7 virtual instruments and the various Rack Extension virtual instruments, all of which is done in a ReWire 2 session where one scenario has NOTION 4 as the ReWIre 2 host controller but another scenario has a DAW application as the ReWire 2 host controller and both NOTION 4 and Reason 7 as ReWire 2 slaves . . .

The DAW applications I recommend for the Mac at present are Digital Performer 8 (MOTU), Live 9 (Ableton), and Logic Pro 9/10 (Apple), and this is because I have tested them and they work correctly when doing this highly advanced level of digital music production . . .

Doing MIDI among applications running on the same Mac requires a "virtual MIDI cable", and this is part of Mac OS X, where specifically it is functionality provided by the IAC Driver component and Audio MIDI Setup . . .

For reference, doing MIDI to an external MIDI instrument like the KORG Triton Music Workstation (88-Keys) requires an external digital audio and MIDI interface like the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid using standard MIDI cables . . .

Some of the newer external MIDI instruments have USB interfaces, which is another possibility, although I think that doing it "old school" with standard MIDI cables and an external digital audio and MIDI interface is the best way . . .

THOUGHTS

Moving this to an even higher level, I think it is possible to use one of the advanced Rack Extensions for Reason 7 that automagically generates chords and notes in the scenario where what one might call the "controlling notes" are provided in music notation on a NOTION 4 External MIDI staff and then are sent to Reason 7 where the "controlling notes" provide instructions to the advanced Reason 7 Rack Extensions like AutoARP and AutoTheory, where making all the more advanced, the notes generated automagically in Reason 7 can be recorded as MIDI in NOTION 4, with all this happening in a ReWire 2 session . . .

I am doing a set of experiments to verify this functionality, and based on what I know at present I think it is both possible and practical to do this on the Mac . . .

The way it works in the Apple universe is that you need an external digital audio and MIDI interface if you want to connect XLR microphones, electric guitars, and standard MIDI devices to a Mac, and I recommend the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid for this purpose . . .

Everything else is on the Mac as part of Mac OS X, where the "virtual MIDI cable" functionality is an example . . .

You need other software, but the hardware and its supporting software (a) are there and (b) are consistent across all Macs, which in a practical way maps for example to the instructions I provide working the same if you are using an Mac mini, iMac, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, or Mac Pro, and as a general rule the various companies who design and build digital music production hardware and software ensure that it works correctly on the Mac, which among other things is one of the advantages of one company (Apple) designing and building the computer and its operating system, which makes everything vastly consistent . . .

If you are doing digital music production in the Windows universe, then I think you should be able to do all this stuff, but I cannot tell you how to do it and what you need to be able to do it . . .

Nevertheless, there are Windows version of Digital Performer 8 and Live 9, and there are "virtual MIDI cable" utilities for Windows, so I think it is just a matter of discovering how to install, configure, and interconnect everything . . .

The basic principles are the same in the Apple and Windows universes, but the specifics are different, and since I do everything on the Mac, I can provide specific detailed information on how to do things, which is not the case if you are doing digital music production on a Windows machine . . .

Lots of FUN!

P. S. This video shows a ReWire 2 session where Logic Pro 9 is the ReWire 2 host controller and both NOTION 4 and Reason 7 are ReWire 2 slaves, where in particular NOTION 4 is playing two MachFIve 3 (MOTU) virtual instrument synthesizers and the audio generated by NOTION 4 and Reason 7 is sent to Logic Pro 9 where Logic Pro 9 handles it, since in a ReWIre 2 session the ReWire 2 host controller is responsible for handling the audio, which is fabulous . . .

[NOTE: This also works when Digital Performer 8 or Live 9 is the DAW application and ReWIre 2 host controller . . . ]

LP9 N4 R7 ReWire2 64 "Faster" (Techno Squirrels) ~ Surfwhammy Remix -- YouTube video

Fabulous!