Thank you very much, Martial -- getting compliments like this from a highly competent composer like you is a great honour indeed! Thank YOU for your great postings at SoundCloud!
I am really glad that my YouTube channel with music written by help of Notion made you choose Notion yourself. It has been a great experience to work with the program, which really -- with its intuitive work space and great sample library -- shortcuts the way from musical ideas to real music. Let us hope that the user community will keep growing and the program keep developing at a steady pace.
I do not myself have any dedicated web sites yet, but I am working on it. For the time being, I share my time between a college job in philosopy and music making (and the usual, but mostly pleasant family stuff), but I definitely hope -- not in the least thanks to Notion -- to be able to use gradually more time in the music business, which once used to be my main biotope.
I enjoy working with the bundled Notion samples. They are extremely memory effecient and very responsive, with lots of working effects and techniques, and the sound quality is way beyond what the competitors offer, in my opinion. Still, if you want your compositions to have a more meaty sound right out of the computer, the VSL SE is the best choice, in my experience. I have also tried the EWQL SO libraries -- very good, indeed --, but IMHO the VSL SE libraries are superior both when it comes to sound quality, flexibilty, integration with Notion and software support. The VSL company even makes PRO versions of their budled sample- and ensemble-players (which both have been given a major upgrade a couple of weeks ago). You don't need any of these PRO players, but they extend the margins for how you can manipulate the samples even further. I have not found out whether the new versions are fully compatible with Notion yet, but I am sure that Notion Music will fix possible compatibility issues in an efficient way. A great thing with the PRO ensemble player is that it allows you to use all of your computer memory (i.e., allowing you to use more than the ordinary 4GB from witin a 32-bit application like Notion), and that it loads both native VSL samples and 3rd party samples (like EWQL libraries) -- and that you even can connect two computers and use the samples and resources of both computers simultaineously, within the same project. So, yes -- I can recommend the VSL SE if you are looking for impressive, internet- and demo-tailored sound. If your main focus is to use Notion as an efficient tool for making music that will be performed analogically, by real instruments and musicians, the purchase of the rather costly VSL SE libraries is probably less necessary. But they are fun to play with anyway...
Please note that my experience with the VSL SE is still rather limited compared to many other Notion users, and I am sure that you can find some useful information by searching/browsing both the Notion user forum and the user forum over at the VSL site.
Thanks again for your feedback and interest! If you like, you can send me a PM (or you can reach me directly at
otto.m.christensen@gmail.com). En français ou anglais.
Best Regards,
Otto