Can Notion 4 be used for instruments only?

[Rimshot]

I have just purchased and rewired Notion 4 with Studio 1 Pro 2.6.
Is there a way to use the sounds in Notion 4 like an instrument?
I want to play my midi keyboard through Studio 1 and have it trigger the violins in Notion 4. Is that possible or is there a good work around for this?

I will be using Notion 4 for scoring but to have access to the sounds would also be awesome.

Thanks.

Rimshot

[Surfwhammy]

I have just purchased and rewired Notion 4 with Studio 1 Pro 2.6.
Is there a way to use the sounds in Notion 4 like an instrument?
I want to play my midi keyboard through Studio 1 and have it trigger the violins in Notion 4. Is that possible or is there a good work around for this?

I will be using Notion 4 for scoring but to have access to the sounds would also be awesome.

Thanks.

Rimshot

If you are doing your digital music production on the Mac, then this is easy to do . . .

I think you can do it on a Windows machine, as well, but I do everything on the Mac, hence only can explain in detail how stuff works on the Mac . . .

[NOTE: NOTION 4 and Studio One 2.6.1 Producer and Professional do ReWire2 very nicely on the Mac, and they follow the ReWire 2 rules, which is very important. Studio One will be the ReWIre 2 host controller, and NOTION 4 will be the ReWIre 2 slave, of course . . . ]

Basically, you will run Studio One 2.6.1 Producer or Professional as the ReWire 2 host controller and NOTION 4 as the ReWire 2 slave, where it is best to do this in 64-bit mode . . .

You can specify your MIDI keyboard as the MIDI input device for NOTION 4 in a way similar to the way it is done for Studio One . . .

The key is that MIDI input goes to the currently selected staff in the NOTION 4 score, so if you want to use the NOTION 4 piano, then create a NOTION 4 staff and assign the NOTION 4 Piano to that staff . . .

Select the Piano staff by clicking on it one time with the mouse pointer, and then when you play notes on the MIDI keyboard, it will play the NOTION 4 Piano . . .

In NOTION 4, the MIDI input and output devices are set via NOTION 4 Preferences and the MIDI tab. If you need to use a "virtual MIDI cable", then on the Mac this is done in the MIDI window for the Mac OS X utility application "Audio MIDI Setup" . . .

[NOTE: NOTION 4 also has the ability to function as a virtual MIDI device, where music notation on a NOTION 4 External MIDI staff causes MIDI commands to be sent via the specified MIDI output device, so that by using a "virtual MIDI cable" the MIDI commands generated from the music notation can be "piped" to another application that accepts MIDI input, like Studio One 2.6.1 Producer or Professional, where the "virtual MIDI cable" is specified as the MIDI input device rather than a MIDI keyboard or whatever. Using this technique, you can compose music notation in NOTION 4 and have the music notation play Studio One virtual instruments. NOTION 4 does a lot of cool stuff, for sure . . . ]

You can record MIDI in both NOTION 4 and Studio One 2.1.6 Producer or Professional in a ReWIre 2 session, where the key aspect of the strategy is to insert 10 empty measures at the start of the NOTION 4 score to provide enough time to click on the required record buttons on the transports and so forth, as shown in the following YouTube video, which is fabulous . . .

[NOTE: In this YouTube video, the staff to which MIDI input is being recorded in NOTION 4 is assigned to the FabFilter Software Instruments "Twin 2" synthesizer, which is running as a VSTi virtual instrument in NOTION 4, but it just as easily could be a NOTION 4 native virtual instrument. MIDI input goes to whichever staff you select in NOTION 4 before you click on the MIDI record button that displays the MIDI recording panel . . . ]

S1 N4 R7 ReWire2 Real-time MIDI Record ~ YouTube video

Fabulous!

P. S. If you have a "virtual MIDI cable" utility like the IAC Driver that comes standard on the Mac, then you can use a NOTION 4 External MIDI staff to play Studio One 2.6.1 Producer or Professional virtual instruments, as well as Reason 7 (Propellerhead Software) synthesizers and other types of standalone virtual instruments . . .

If you are doing digital music production in the Windows universe, there are "virtual MIDI cable" utilities, but the nice thing about the Mac is that the IAC Driver is part of Mac OS X, so you have a correctly working "virtual MIDI cable" without needing to do anything, other than ensuring that everything is online and named correctly, really . . .

Really!

And one of the most important rules for ReWire 2 is that the host controller is responsible for making the audio heard, so if you see the meters moving in the NOTION 4 Mixer but you are not hearing anything, then you need to provide channels and tracks in Studio One to handle the audio . . .

Explained another way, ReWire 2 slaves generate audio, but the ReWire 2 host controller makes the audio audible . . .

P. P. S. After pondering it for a while, I remembered that I made a YouTube video that demonstrates doing what you want to do, and if you need help making sense of this, let me know . . .

[NOTE: There is no voice-over, but I think it makes sense if you watch and listen carefully to the music notation and music, as well as the mouse clicks. The only music notation is quarter notes for the kick drum, so the other notes are played in real-time on a Behringer UMA-25S mini-MIDI keyboard, and the staff selected by clicking on it with the mouse determines which NOTION 4 native instrument is heard being played by the Behringer mini-MIDI keyboard . . . ]

S1 N4 ReWire2 MIDI Playing N4 ~ YouTube video

Fabulous!

[Rimshot]

Thanks much. I will review your suggestions. HNY!

[Surfwhammy]

Thanks much. I will review your suggestions. HNY!

Glad to help!

This is a list of some of the things you can do with NOTION 4 relative to MIDI in a ReWire 2 session where Studio One 2.6.1 Producer/Professional or one of a few other Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) applications is the ReWire 2 host controller and NOTION 4 and perhaps Reason 7 are ReWire 2 slaves:

[NOTE: The first item in the list does not require a ReWire 2 session, but it works just as well in a ReWire 2 session . . . ]

(1) You can use your MIDI keyboard to play NOTION 4 native instruments and VSTi virtual instruments . . .

(2) You can record what you play in (1) as MIDI in both NOTION 4 and Studio One, or in either of them . . .

(3) You can record the NOTION 4 generated audio from (1) in real-time in Studio One . . .

(4) If the staff used in (1) is a NOTION 4 External MIDI staff, then by using a "virtual MIDI cable" as the MIDI output for NOTION 4, what you play on your MIDI keyboard can be used to play (a) Studio One instruments; (b) Reason 7 (Propellerhead Software) synthesizers, if Reason 7 is a ReWire 2 slave in the ReWire 2 session; and (c) any standalone virtual instrument that accepts MIDI input, although I think this is only for listening, but you can do (2) and capture the MIDI for purposes later of playing the specific virtual instrument when it is in NOTION 4 or Studio One as a VSTi, AU, or other type of embedded virtual instrument . . .

[NOTE: I have not verified every aspect of following fifth bit of musical madness, but I am confident that it works as I describe it, and it is on my list of FUN experiments to do sometime in the not so distant future. For all practical purposes, it is a combination of various aspects of (1) through (4), hence it mostly is a matter of getting everything correctly configured; and I have verified that music notation on a NOTION 4 External MIDI staff will create real-time MIDI commands that are routed to Reason 7 via a "virtual MIDI cable" to play a Reason 7 synthesizer, where the audio produced by the Reason 7 synthesizer is recorded as a soundbite in a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) application, specifically Digital Performer 8.05 (MOTU), Live 9 (Ableton), Logic Pro 9/X (Apple), and Studio One 2.6.1 (PreSonus) . . . ]

(5) Since both NOTION 4 and Reason 7 provide External MIDI functionality, they can output MIDI commands (notes and so forth) which via a "virtual MIDI cable" become MIDI input to other applications running on the same computer, where this is best done in ReWire 2 session, which from a practical perspective maps to NOTION 4 and Reason 7 being virtual MIDI devices; and since there are sophisticated Rack Extensions for Reason 7 that provide some fascinating computed music capabilities, these capabilities can be used to augment and to enhance what you play on your MIDI keyboard, where two examples of sophisticated Rack Extensions for Reason 7 are (a) AutoARP (Black & Orange) and (b) AutoTheory (Pitchblende) . . .

AutoARP (Black & Orange) ~ Rack Extension for Reason 7

AutoTheory (Pitchblende) ~ Rack Extension for Reason 7

THOUGHTS

Some of these capabilities obviously are very useful, but a few of them are a bit mind-boggling and somewhat surreal, which is fine with me . . .

In particular I am intrigued by the fifth possibility (5), where both AuroARP and AutoTheory can be programmed to play a set of notes in response to a single note played by a MIDI keyboard; and since NOTION 4 has the ability to be a virtual MIDI device, It can provide the single notes as described and defined in music notation; and I think the set of notes generated automagically by AutoARP and AutoTheory can be sent from Reason 7 to NOTION 4 via a "virtual MIDI cable" and thereby become MIDI input to one or more NOTION 4 staves, where the subsequently generated NOTION 4 audio can be recorded in the DAW application which is the ReWire 2 host controller for the ReWire 2 session; and it is not so much a matter of this actually being useful as it is a matter of my being curious to determine what the computer will do, since this involves more than a tiny bit of controlled recursion . . .

Lots of FUN!