NOTION Music Forum

Hi,

I have a simple RULES file to set key switches for techniques. I'm having trouble getting techniques like forte-piano to work--the key switch is not sent and the KS that IS sent is the main sound.

So far, the technique sff DOES work. Placing the mark in the score results in the proper keyswitch being sent. I'm glad I found one that works, so at least I know I'm on the right track.

However, fp, ffp, fz, ffz, sf, sfz, sffz, sfp, and sffp DO NOT work. For testing, all I change in the rule is the indication for the technique.

For example, if the rule contains the condition: <if technique="sff" /> it works, but changing it to
<if technique="sf" /> (or any of the above listed) DOES NOT work.

Since the only thing that I change is the technique, shouldn't it work? Am I missing something or not understand the rules formatting? The only thing that I've thought of is that there might be a conflicting rule somewhere in the default files (I don't even know where those are!), or that there is some different wording I have to use.

Can someone kindly give me a hand?
Thanks

The way some techniques get triggered by custom rules can be very screwy. Although ExpressionList is where most techniques are defined, there are a lot that aren't defined there, or don't behave the way you'd expect.

I've also noticed that the two letter dynamic techniques like "fp" don't trigger using what should be their technique name. For example, an "fp" marking in the score triggers the technique named "fpno", but not "fp". Even though this technique is clearly defined as "fp" in ExpressionList.tpk. So somewhere behind the scenes, it is turned into fpno. I struggled with this for some time, until I happened to see "fpno" listed in the "Techniques for Notion Sounds" PDF file.

For sf and fz, I wonder if those markings might all trigger the technique "sfz"? I haven't worked with them in my rules so I don't know.

The three-letter marking, like sfz or ffp, seem to work using the technique name you'd expect.

I suspect the two-letter issue is a bug in Notion 4, because the old custom rules instructions for Notion 3 specifically included "fp", "sf", and "fz" as technique names, but they don't work anymore (and I'm not sure they did in Notion 3 or not).

One other thing you could be running into is that if you use a technique name (or condition name, or articulation name) that isn't recognized by Notion, the program ignores the entire ruleset (or perhaps the entire .prules file, I'm not sure about that). So if you have technique="fp" in your rules, the entire rules file will probably go out the window and it may seem like other technique rules aren't working, but it's just because of the one "error".

As for the question of potential conflicts with default rules, I don't think that happens as long as you have a working ruleset. It may revert to the default rules if your custom ruleset has an error that causes Notion to ignore it, though.

I believe the default ruleset for VST plugins that are not directly supported with Notion presets (like VSL, Miroslav Philharmonik, etc.) is Generic.prules, located in ...\Notion 4\Support\PluginData\Generic\Rules. I think this is completely overridden by any working ruleset. And Group ID rulesets completely override any Plugin ID-type rulesets that might otherwise have applied.

Unless that pluginID rule set is in the custom riles folder, as I found...

I sure thank you for your detailed responses and will be working on your suggestions this evening and will report back. I really think the key was in the first response, with the clue that I'll have to find the actual code for the technique, rather than what looks to be right.

Won't know for sure until I get to it, which I'm about to do. Thanks again.
JS

Hello,

Thanks again for all your help, which has me up and running. Here is what I found holding me up when trying to create rules for accents: I was doing everything right, except that in the case of these score marks, I must use the exact RULE NAME in addition the the code, or it won't work.

Elsewhere, I have used my own rule names for Notion articulations, but with these, I expect that how and where they are defined somehow requires the name already defined.

It took some searching through the various files, but once I found the names it wants, everything worked.

Thanks again,
John