NOTION Music Forum

Hi,

I was wondering if anybody tried doing custom rules for Vienna Ensemble Pro? At first, I thought that will be ideal since you could potentially be used as an abstraction layer in between any VSTi and Notion while still using the same rules, but this will require the ability to connect to a server, then select the midi port of VEP and then the midi channel or keyswitches. But looking back at the tutorial I notice that the plugin ID of VEP is explicitely state in the template which I guess means that it was already used by the Notion team... anyway I will appreciate knowing before hand if it's worth spending time trying to make this works.

Thanks.

So I guess I will answer my own post, so finally I got it working and can used any vsti from inside VEP when using the midi instrument patching from the staff and rules are working fine too.

However, I'm currently unable to use the instrument-id condition to determine to which staff rules are going to apply since it is likely that all instruments found inside the same VEP server aren't going to use the same key switches. So copying what Notion are doing with the provided rules for VSL, I tried to put that condition tied to the staff ref ID found on the change instrument window(starting at 10000), but that doesn't work, anybody have any idea why? should this work?

Thanks.

So the instrument-id do not seems to be so simple, the ID you are refering to internaly do not seems to be visible from inside Notion or I'm missing it? There not the same as the one seen in the Instrument Change list.
The midi-channel condition as state in another discussion works fine, but is more limited in it's usage, only 16 entries are possible.
Can the flag condition be set to identify a staff or it is only use inside the Rules?

Thanks.

Hi there,

You should use midi-channel checks for different rules for different instruments. Check the bundled VE rules for example, it does that.

Lubo Astinov
NOTION Music

Thanks Lubo for your reply, so following your answer means that instrument-id isn't something that is accessible, is it something you are planning on opening in the future? To me it will be the most flexible approach...

Since I'm planning to host all vsti inside VE Pro, is there anyway to do more than 16 condition or in other word to access the VE Pro midi port, so 8x16?

I will look at the VE rules...

Thanks.

Maybe I missing something, but all three VSL rules(VE, VE pro and VI) I see in the PluginData folder uses instrument-ID check... are there another somewhere else?

Thanks

I'm not sure I understand what you're asking, but I don't think there is support for using or creating and using your own instrument IDs (at least not yet). Kyle or Lubo, please correct me if I'm wrong.

Yes, that's what I was wondering, but following Lubo's answer you are probably right, it's not possible, however that will definitely be the way to go to be able to set unique identifier by staff or for a number of staff.

Maybe you can answer my second question, is the midi-channel condition limited to 16 condition by vsti ID or there is a way to go beyond this?
Since keyswitching is almost never the same by instrument library and that I want to host everything inside different Vienna Ensemble Pro server that all share the same vsti ID, I believe I going to miss out condition or have to spread all instruments sharing the same key switches among different server on the same midi channel....

Thanks.

So, after some reading and guessing around, I found my way around with VEP and Notion and I though of posting it so it could potentially help others eventually...

So there is 2 possibilities to use VEP inside of Notion with Rules, either you use it directly as a VSTi with it's ID or either you use the midi port condition(A,B,C,D) by using virtual midi cable(like maple midi). So the VSTi give you a total of 16 condition to be used and the midi gives you 4x16 usable conditions and both can be combined for a total of 5x16 condition which I believe is then enough for any score type and both way of interfacing with VEP can be used on the same VEP server or multiple VEP servers.

So what are the advantages of using VEP instead of hosting inside of Notion:
- Servers do not need to be shutdown when exiting/starting Notion so no samples loading time are required
- You don't need to worry about vsti ID when building rules since Notion is only interfacing with VEP
- You can send back to Notion VEP output stream so all mixing can be done inside of Notion or send back to host if using it in Rewire
- Using more RAM, Notion is still only 32bit

So here is how the setup goes(I will use Play for example):
1- Create a VEP server where all Play instances(each one having a KS Master instrument patch loaded up) are assigned to a single Maple midi channel(or VEP A midi channel depending what you are using) and to the vsti output of your liking
2- In Notion add a staff set to VEP Pro and connect it the right server(This staff is only going to act as entry point and won't be used to send any midi info out)
3- On the Notion mixer expose all VEP output you would like to see
4- Create a Basic Staff and then assigned it to either Midi output or VEP VSTi channel output
5- Now save your Score anywhere you like, create on that folder a Rules folder and copy the EWQL rules file provided with Notion
6- Change the Plugin ID number on the rules file to either VEP ID or Midi A, B, C or D depending on what you configured in the VEP server earlier on
7- Then track on that same rules file all instrument-id condition refering to individual instrument when doing the set-flag, so by example on the condition setting the flag to vln1 you will need to change the if instrument-id condition to a midi-channel condition corresponding to the channel set in the VEP server for that instrument.

At this point all should be working as if you were using Play directly inside Notion and the beauty of this is that if by example you change Play in the Server for let say Kontakt with an equivalent Kirk Hunter patch, you just need to change the keyswitch midi value inside the Rules file to the equivalent articulation or add the missing articulation, so you do not need to re-write everything...