Notion 4 and Reaper

[lockettpots]

I have successfully used rewire to connect Notion 4 to the Reaper DAW. Taking one of the demo scores I have recorded all instruments as separate tracks in Reaper. You can listen to the render from Reaper here:-

https://soundcloud.com/monakmoreproduct ... a-notation

[Surfwhammy]

I have successfully used rewire to connect Notion 4 to the Reaper DAW. Taking one of the demo scores I have recorded all instruments as separate tracks in Reaper.

Excellent! Getting ReWire 2 to work is a major accomplishment, and it is a very powerful technology!

NOTION 4 does ReWire 2 very nicely . . .

As you probably noticed, the NOTION 4 demo song "Awakening Notions" has layers upon layers of reverberation and uses buses and intricate panning, which is interesting, but it tends to make the instruments sound like a 1960s Farfisa Combo Organ, even though the instruments are professionally recorded at Abbey Road Studios and played by the London Symphony Orchestra . . .

So, having nothing better to do this morning, I worked on the piece for several hours and removed all the reverberation; set the panning to full-range for nearly all the instruments; pegged the volume sliders in the NOTION 4 Mixer to 0dB; and then used a handful of signal processors (VST effects plug-ins) from T-RackS CS Grand to fine-tune the levels, which includes decreasing the dynamic range in the music notation by using gentler dynamic range values, basically reserving forte for the last section, and even then it has what for me is too much dynamic range . . .

"Awakening Notions" (Notion Music) -- Surfwhammy Remix ~ YouTube music video

[NOTE: IK Multimedia is having one of their discount extravaganzas, and Total Studio 3 is discounted 75 percent today (Monday December 2, 2013), which makes it $99.99 (US), and it includes T-RackS 3 Deluxe, which you can load into T-Rack CS FREE, as I recall, but regardless it is a good buy, and all the virtual instruments will work with the new 64-bit version of SampleTank that is scheduled for release in the next few months, and it is being shown at NAMM in January 2014 . . . ]

T-RackS (IK Multimedia)

The NOTION 4 native instruments are very good, but you need a calibrated full-range studio monitor system with a flat equal loudness curve running from 10-Hz to 20,000-Hz at 85 dB SPL to reveal everything that is recorded and digitized, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous!

[Surfwhammy]

This is another version where the orchestra instruments are panned to what I think are the correct locations, and I added a bit of ambient reverberation to the Master stereo output using Timeless 2 (FabFilter Software Instruments), which is fabulous . . .

[NOTE: This is done with the NOTION 4 Mixer with no Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) application or ReWIre 2, and there is one T-RackS signal processor VST plug-in on each instrument track, as well as several VST effects plug-ins on the Master stereo output track, all of which is possible because it it done in 64-bit mode, hence more available usable memory. And for reference, there is even more that can be done with respect to producing if I record the NOTION 4 generated audio as soundbites in Digital Performer 8.05 (MOTU), Logic Pro X (Apple), or Studio One 2.6.1 Producer (PreSonus). There are 50 separate instrument staves in the NOTION 4 score, and while NOTION 4 running in 64-bit mode can handle more VST effects plug-ins when one uses the NOTION 4 native virtual instruments, there are limits, and 50 or so VST effects plug-ins are a lot when NOTION 4 also has to generate the audio from sampled sounds and so forth. Moving it to a DAW application makes it possible to have more VST effects plug-ins, because the primary audio already is generated and recorded as soundbites, hence after the ReWire 2 step(s), it becomes possible to disconnect NOTION 4 and to focus solely on the DAW application for producing and mixing. The information is present in the raw audio (a.k.a., "soundbites"), but it takes a bit of signal processing to reveal it, which in turn maps to using more signal processors (a.k.a., "VST effects plug-ins") . . . ]

"Awakening Notions" (Notion Music) ~ Surfwhammy Remix Orchestra Panning ~ YouTube music video

Fabulous!

[lockettpots]

Hi

The first example sounds MUCH better with all that reverb gone and the reduced dynamic range. Unfortunately I couldn't listen to the second example. YouTube says it is private

[Surfwhammy]

Hi

The first example sounds MUCH better with all that reverb gone and the reduced dynamic range. Unfortunately I couldn't listen to the second example. YouTube says it is private

OOPS!

I set it to private, but it should be "unlisted", so I updated it, and now you can listen to the second version . . .

THOUGHTS

The NOTION 4 native instruments were played by the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) and were professionally recorded at Abbey Road Studios, where as best as I can determine the recording, mixing, mastering, and later digitizing technique generally focused on providing ample "headroom" or "dynamic range", which is a correct and logical way to do this . . .

However, it creates a bit of a conundrum when folks are discovering the rules for acoustic physics with respect to producing, mixing, and mastering in a studio setting, especially when they are using commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) studio monitor systems, none of which are calibrated full-range studio monitor systems . . .

[NOTE: Some of this is explained in vast detail in one of my ongoing topics in the IK Multimedia FORUM, and while it is a lot of reading, there is very good information . . . ]

The Fabulous Affordable Studio Monitor System Project (IK Multimedia FORUM)

The succinct high-level overview is (a) that you cannot produce, mix, and master accurately unless you can hear everything accurately through your studio monitor system; (b) that this only happens with a calibrated full-range studio monitor system, which in turn only happens when you do a bit of custom work; because (c) there are no new COTS full-range studio monitor systems available from any manufacturer anywhere on this planet since sometime in the 1970s . . .

Typically, what happens when folks use COTS studio monitor systems, which nearly always are "bookshelf" size units, is that everything sounds wonderful on their particular COTS studio monitor systems but otherwise sounds terrible everywhere else, because instead of making the music sound good, instead the focus is on making the music sound "good" on a specific COTS studio monitor system, and it is easy to determine when this happens . . .

Yet another significant aspect involves (a) producing, mixing, and mastering when listening to music played through a calibrated full-range studio monitor system versus (b) producing, mixing, and mastering when listen to music played through studio quality headphones like the SONY 7506 (a personal favorite), where the absolute rules are (1) that one must do it first with (a); (2) that after doing (1) it is good to check it and do any required fine-tuning with (2), but that the final check needs to be made with (1), which is the case for several reasons but most importantly the fact that when listening with studio quality headphones each ear hears something completely and totally separate and independent from what the other ear hears, which is a huge problem and is the reason that (2) does not work by itself . . .

The curious aspect of this is that calibrated full-range studio monitor mixes sound better when you listen with studio quality headphones than mixes done solely with studio quality headphones. It makes sense once you understand the rules, but some of the rules are very subtle and not so easily found, hence the popularity of the ongoing topic IK Multimedia FORUM . . .

Regarding the recording and digitizing style of the NOTION 4 native instruments, from one perspective while it is good that the focus is on providing generous "headroom" or "dynamic range", this tends to be different from what typically is done with sampled sound libraries designed for use in what one might call a more "modern" setting, which is fine with me, where in this context the "modern" era began with George Martin started adding orchestra instruments to Beatles songs, where "Eleanor Rigby" is an excellent example and involved placing microphones so close to the string instruments that the musicians had to devise ways to play without hitting the microphones, which overall made it possible to move the strings to the front of the mix, which in a practical way eliminates dynamics, where everything is just "loud", which is outstanding in my view, because if it is so soft that you cannot hear it, then why take the time to have it . . .

In other words, if it is important, then let people hear it!

On the other hand, I fully understand the logic for having a wide dynamic range, but in the real-world this is the primary reason that a specific category of signal processors exist, and this category of signal processors exists so that radio and television broadcasters could satisfy the audio broadcasting rules set by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the US and corresponding broadcasting regulators in other countries, where the key is to devise ways to constrain music, singing, vocal work, and sounds in general without destroying the melodic content and sonic textures, with this category of signal processors typically being called "vintage" in the T-RackS (IK Multimedia) universe . . .

REWIRE STRATEGY

The strategy I use for ReWire 2 is (a) to peg all the volume sliders in the NOTION 4 Mixer to 0dB; (b) to set panning specifically only when I know exactly where I want a sound to be heard in what I call the "rainbow panning arc"; (c) not to use any reverb; and (d) not to use any VST effects plug-ins . . .

Once I have recorded the NOTION 4 generated audio as "soundbites" in the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) application, which usually is Digital Performer (MOTU), I exit NOTION 4 and switch to doing the producing and mixing in Digital Performer and then later do mastering with T-RackS, which I do for several reasons, primary of which is the fact that since Digital Performer does not need to generate the audio and to control a virtual festival of either NOTION 4 virtual instruments or third-party VSTi virtual instruments like MachFive 3 (MOTU), Kontakt 5 (Native Instruments), and so forth, there is ample memory and processing resources available, as well as the ability to do elaborate automation and other activities . . .

One of the most important aspects of doing ReWire 2 correctly is having the various audio quality and processing parameters properly configured, where the fact is that NOTION 4 generates audio at standard CD quality, which is 44,100-Hz at 16-bits, and this must be the way the DAW application is configured . . .

[NOTE: While it might appear that using a higher audio resolution is "good", it actually is significantly worse and might be just plain "bad", because since there is only 16-bits of information at a sample rate of 44,100-Hz, arbitrarily increasing it in the DAW application requires the DAW application to "create" stuff that is not there, and this causes significant problems with the quality of the sound and for all practical purposes destroys it . . . ]

This is the reason that I started my first post by noting that discovering how to do ReWire 2 is a major accomplishment!

The first time I did ReWire, it took me approximately one month working on it 18 hours a day--which is documented in posts to this FORUM and is part of the "historical record"--and it included quite a few technical support calls, mostly to the MOTU folks who after a while could not avoid reminding me that I might want to read the user manual before calling, but they are nice and they understand the way things work in the real world, plus at the time the user manual was not available in PDF format, and reading stuff printed on paper is not something I do unless there is no possible way to avoid it, which is not the case now because beginning with Digital Performer 8 the user manuals are in PDF format and I can read them quickly on the Mac Pro here in the sound isolation studio, which makes it a bit easier to make sense of complex stuff . . .

To put this into perspective, until the day when everything worked, if the folks from IK Multimedia, MOTU, and Notion Music had appeared outside the house, I probably would have chased them around the yard with an axe in each hand, since discovering how to get ReWire working was so strange and puzzling that it nearly made me crazy, but once everything clicked it became nearly trivial to do . . .

~ ~ ~ Continued in the next post ~ ~ ~

[Surfwhammy]

~ ~ ~ Continued from the previous post ~ ~ ~

SUGGESTION

The sound quality of the music you posted to SoundCloud is not good, and I think this primarily is the consequence of mismatches in the audio quality configuration for Reaper, but it also is caused by the way the NOTION 4 demo song ("Awakening Notions") is configured in the NOTION 4 Mixer, where as noted there are so many layers of reverberation that it is a bit mind-boggling . . .

The first thing I did was to set all the NOTION 4 Mixer volume levels to 0dB and to remove all the reverberation; and then I set all the panning to full-width; and cleared all the bus stuff and set the instruments to output directly to the Master stereo output channel, at which point there was nothing going to any of the bus channels and nothing directed to "Sends" . . .

Once that was done, I used a single T-RackS "vintage" signal processor on each instrument, usually the White 2A Leveling Amplifier in a gentle setting but for bass instruments I use the Vintage Tube Program Equalizer EQP-1A in the "FATT-1A" present, since it reveals subsonic and deep bass; and for other instruments I use either the Black 76 Limiting Amplifier or the Vintage Tube Compressor/Limiter Model 670 . . .


T-RackS ~ White 2A Leveling Amplifier


T-RackS ~ Black 76 Limiting Amplifier


T-RackS ~ Vintage Tube Program Equalizer EQP-1A


T-RackS ~ Vintage Tube Compressor/Limiter Model 670

And there is both a Vintage Tube Compressor/Limiter Model 670 and a Brickwall Limter on the Master stereo output channel, in that sequence, where the Brickwall Limiter is the final signal processor in the chain with a gentle setting primarily to catch transient spikes and to control them . . .


T-RackS ~ Brickwall Limiter

I also had to lower some of the dynamic marks in the music notation, because the overall dynamic range was too vast, although now that I am more familiar with the piece, I might make a few revisions to the dynamic marks in the music notation . . .

At present, the trombones are sounding pretty good, and there is a bit of texture for the trumpets being revealed, but I am not happy with the clarinets and oboes, and the English Horns make not sense to me, plus there are four of them. The violin sections are coming along, but they need some variation in dynamics, as well . . .

I think that revealing the trumpets, clarinets, and oboes will require a more elaborate set of signal processors, which moves the work into the DAW application, which is fine with me . . .

I like the first part of the piece, where the wood blocks remind one of a woodpecker early in the morning and so forth, which is very nice in terms of mood, and as it currently is produced, the first part reminds me of the early dawn piece from the "Peer Gynt Suite" (Edvard Grieg), while the last part where it gets really loud reminds me of the score for a dramatic moment in a John Wayne motion picture. It is thoughtful composition, but the instruments need be revealed and then conducted, which is not such an easy thing for me to do, mostly because I focus primarily on DISCO and Pop music where everything tends to be "pumped" or just plain "loud" and the conducting aspect requires intricate dynamic marks in the music notation, which I usually avoid since it makes no sense for DISCO and Pop songs . . .

Summarizing, you have ReWIre 2 working nicely--which is impressive--so you just need to focus on getting the audio quality where it needs to be, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous!