HUGE Thank You to notion for giving music back to a player
Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2014 11:52 pm
I want to thank the Motion developers and Presonus for the blessing this product has been to our family, and to the special needs of my father in law. I don't know if the way we use it is exactly what you had in mind, and so I also wanted to explain a couple of simple ways you might help even more people should you have the opportunity.
Briefly, playing trumpet is what this semi-retired professional level player gets up for, playing in an average of five bands at any one time. So losing most of his sight was like taking his life and friends away on top of the disease itself. We were determined to find away for him to play, but HAD to find a way for him to keep up with a rapidly changing repertoire.
Over the years I've used most of the major music composition software, and I'd purchased Notion for my IPad Air. But it wasn't until I dropped my IPad and decided to replace it with a Windows Tablet that I discovered that the Windows version of Notion was a whole other beast. It was one of the few times I've been grateful for an expensive accident. When I saw the Maestro playback control features could be mapped to a MIDI controller....
For anyone else facing similar challenges, first we zoomed up the screen until we proved there was eventually a size he could read. Then we bought him the biggest practical all-in-one computer/ touchscreen and mounted it on a heavy duty rolling stand meant for a small mixing board. Then we attached a small drum pad type controller so he could tap the conductors tempo to let it scroll as he played, jump to rehearsal marks, etc. The whole package with Notion is not much bigger that a normal concert stand, the all-in-one runs for a couple of hours on battery alone and it WORKS. I cannot tell you how much this means to the life of one man.
We are happy as is, but if you have the chance in future release I have some comments that might help others. First it would be helpful if continuous scrolling was a preference that could be saved, since menus with small fonts are problematical and usually require him to seek help, and continuous scrolling is a definite necessity at this zoom level. Second it would be helpful if the Maestro mode icon was more visibly obvious when it was engaged, instead of just changing to a slightly different gray color. File names we can deal with by creating big desktop icons for them, and I wouldn't expect everything to be easy for the visually limited player. But doing what you can to hide/simplify/DE clutter the screen in maestro mode would help him and others find just what they need for that mode of use.
Respectfully,
Greg
Briefly, playing trumpet is what this semi-retired professional level player gets up for, playing in an average of five bands at any one time. So losing most of his sight was like taking his life and friends away on top of the disease itself. We were determined to find away for him to play, but HAD to find a way for him to keep up with a rapidly changing repertoire.
Over the years I've used most of the major music composition software, and I'd purchased Notion for my IPad Air. But it wasn't until I dropped my IPad and decided to replace it with a Windows Tablet that I discovered that the Windows version of Notion was a whole other beast. It was one of the few times I've been grateful for an expensive accident. When I saw the Maestro playback control features could be mapped to a MIDI controller....
For anyone else facing similar challenges, first we zoomed up the screen until we proved there was eventually a size he could read. Then we bought him the biggest practical all-in-one computer/ touchscreen and mounted it on a heavy duty rolling stand meant for a small mixing board. Then we attached a small drum pad type controller so he could tap the conductors tempo to let it scroll as he played, jump to rehearsal marks, etc. The whole package with Notion is not much bigger that a normal concert stand, the all-in-one runs for a couple of hours on battery alone and it WORKS. I cannot tell you how much this means to the life of one man.
We are happy as is, but if you have the chance in future release I have some comments that might help others. First it would be helpful if continuous scrolling was a preference that could be saved, since menus with small fonts are problematical and usually require him to seek help, and continuous scrolling is a definite necessity at this zoom level. Second it would be helpful if the Maestro mode icon was more visibly obvious when it was engaged, instead of just changing to a slightly different gray color. File names we can deal with by creating big desktop icons for them, and I wouldn't expect everything to be easy for the visually limited player. But doing what you can to hide/simplify/DE clutter the screen in maestro mode would help him and others find just what they need for that mode of use.
Respectfully,
Greg