A particular MIDI/Instrument setup?

[jbm]

Hello All,

I'm an owner of Notion SLE for VSL, thinking about upgrading to the full version. I'm very interested in the Sequencer staff, but really hoping I'll be able to "step" enter material into it soon. Any progress on that? (It mentions that this is under development in the Sequencer staff video.)

More specifically, though, I have a special set-up that I want to make. I want to use the IRCAM Solo Instruments (UVI) library with my VSL stuff, in order to get some extended techniques in my composition set-up (why, oh why, hasn't VSL sampled these techniques yet?...). Ideally, I'd like to have the potential to access the VSL and IRCAM stuff from the same staff; is that possible in Notion 3? It can be done in Finale (using voices), but... well, Finale is crap. In fact, I bought the 2011 upgrade for this sole reason and... well... I can't actually assign an AU instrument on channels 1-16... laughable. Pathetic.

So, I'm kind of in a bind. If this is something I can manage, in some fashion, in Notion (can't do it in Sibelius), then I'll upgrade from SLE to the full version.

Also, are there templates/instruments for the VSL DVD collections? I don't have the Special Edition... (I know I can work around this, since that's what I have to do with Notion SLE, but it would be nice if full templates for the DVD stuff were available in the full version.)

Any thoughts appreciated.

J.

[wcreed51]

Yes you can. But be aware that you'll need to write your own custom rules to control the UVI stuff, and will be therefore limited to one instance if you run it as an AU (as opposed to standalone).

You might want to check out the tutorials that cover this, here: http://www.notionmusic.com/support/tutorials.html

Bill

[jbm]

Sorry, I'm not quite clear on this... I understand that I'll have to write a rules file - that looks pretty straightfoward (except maybe finding the plugin ID for UVI), but what's that about a single instance? You mean something like using Vienna Ensemble, where the one plugin hosts multiple instruments, within Notion?

thanks,

J.

[wcreed51]

To find the plugin ID, use VST Host.

The problem is, there's only one plugin ID, so no way to distiguish between instanses. The only work around is to use the 4 MIDI ports and a virtual MIDI calbe, like LoopBe.

My workaround is to keep using Finale, where I can sent any kind of MIDI message from anyplace I want to. Hope that changes.

[jbm]

huh? That doesn't make any sense. The video tutorial on writing rules files clearly shows that there's only one ID for VSL, as well, so why would that be a limitation on UVI in particular? Either way, I can use it over virtual MIDI easily enough - I could just use Vienna Ensemble Pro, and host the IRCAM instruments there. No big deal, I don't imagine. I guess I'd have to write my rules file for an external MIDI device, which is a bit weird, but not the end of the world.

J.

(Ah! Actually, turns out that MaxMSP's vst~ object can report the ID. Nice! Maybe I shouldn't publish it here, but if anyone wants/needs it, just pm me.)

[wcreed51]

Having one ID is the problem. A second or third instance would have the same ID, so there's no way to distinguish.

[jbm]

But then how does it distinguish different instances of Vienna Instruments, when the tutorial only shows a single ID for VSL? I'm assuming Notion internally differentiates the instances by staff number, no? I think maybe we're talking about different things now... I'm just talking about getting UVI set up to run in Notion. I can't see any way that Notion could have different MIDI channels on a single staff, except by using instrument changes - kind of like in Sibelius. For example, if I had a "Flute" instrument set up for VSL, and also an UVI flute (i.e., "Flute (UVI)"), then I could just put an instrument change in, and hide it in the score.

J.

[pcartwright]

But then how does it distinguish different instances of Vienna Instruments, when the tutorial only shows a single ID for VSL? I'm assuming Notion internally differentiates the instances by staff number, no?

VSTis used by Notion (VSL, GPO, EWQLSO, Miroslav) have instrument default files that respond to an instrument id (unique to each instrument and synth/sampler). So far, users can't create new instrument ids in order to write rules customized to a specific instrument. I think the MIDI port idea is to essentially assign a MIDI port to a particular instrument and assign specific instrument rules to each MIDI port.

[jbm]

hmm... so this is like an instance ID, in addition to the plugin ID. Too bad. Maybe someone from Notion could say whether access to the instrument ID will be offered in the relatively near future(?) Or, could someone say whether an IRCAM Solo Instruments rules file might be in the works?

J.