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Shift-Y: what will it do?

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Shift-Y: what will it do?

Postby iamnemo » Sat Mar 02, 2013 11:29 pm

Please correct me if I'm wrong: as far as I can understand from the info I collected here and there about the "Shift-Y" functionality it will act as a virtual custom rules selector. Here's what I think I might be able to do with it:

On a given track I could, with Shift-Y, select a given set of custom rules (say VSL SE) but direct the MIDI output to any soft synth, or more usefully, even to one of the MIDI OUTs (1-4) to control an external synth or (via a virtual MIDI connection such as LoopMIDI) an instance of VSL SE but one loaded in my sequencer.

In this last case I would still have the benefits of the custom rules (key switches for articulations and expression mapping) but applied to a synth running as a plug-in in my sequencer (e.g. SONAR) so with the capability to edit controller data directly in the sequencer CC lanes.

Am I understanding this "Shift-Y" functionality correctly or am I completely off-track? Thanks for any input!
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Re: Shift-Y: what will it do?

Postby dgriffee » Sun Mar 03, 2013 10:49 pm

:geek: I am just another ordinary user out here, not a NotionMusic guy or anything, but from what has been explained to us thus far...

assuming you already followed previous thread about the "shift-Y" feature (which is still not actually working yet)...
http://forum.notionmusic.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3265

... the coolness that it will provide is that you could then easily assign custom rules to any instrument without having to use tests for "instrument ID" or "midi channel". That makes custom rules far more flexible and managable, so you can just simply apply them directly in the score. This is quite desirable instead of twiddling with obscure config file parameters to make a rule stick to the desired instrument as you would currently still have to do (for now, until they enable the new feature - ahem).

Up until now, it has been tricky to apply custom rules, because you had to determine the correct instrument for the rule to apply by having an "if midi-channel=xx" kind of test in the rule and make sure you kept the desired instrument on that midi channel, and this also meant jumping through hoops with external midi loopback ("loopBe" is typically used for this purpose).

So basically you would just put "rule-name-such&such" in your score on the line you want that rule to be applied to and it would just work on that instrument.

It would also make custom rules much safer to experiment with, since you don't have to mess with your configuration and if a custom rule doesn't work as desired you could just delete the "rule-name" from your score, and be back to normal no fuss no problem.

The clever programmers at NotionMusic seem to be trying best as possible to make the power-user capabilities of custom rules to be more accessible for more users to take greater advantage of, reportedly with a slick gui interface (at least that's the most recent info we have heard out here in user-land). So stand-by to wait and see what they come up with, I imagine it will probably be very cool indeed when they do finally get this feature fully cooked.
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Re: Shift-Y: what will it do?

Postby iamnemo » Mon Mar 04, 2013 12:42 pm

Thank you for the very detailed reply. One aspect still eludes me though: with Shift-Y will I be able to fool Notion so that it will use rules for, say, VSL SE and controlling this VST which will actually be loaded in my sequencer (and NOT in Notion), through one of Notion's MIDI OUT ports using LoopMIDI (or some equivalent) to make the connection?

In other words I want to be able to tell Notion to use a given set of rules and send out the keyswitches and other controls through one of its MIDI OUT ports and route that information to a track MIDI IN port on my sequencer via LoopMIDI. The VST targeted (say VSL SE) would be loaded in the sequencer on the same track and not in Notion.

I do it now but I loose access to rules because they are associated with instruments in Notion directly. So for now I do it without the rules which is much more limiting but still lets me draw CC info easier in my sequencer than in Notion.
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Re: Shift-Y: what will it do?

Postby pcartwright » Mon Mar 04, 2013 2:25 pm

I'm not sure how the rules will look, but it would be great to be able to apply VST rules to a midi output. I know that rule sets for the midi ports require different xml lines, but I don't know if that matters as far as shift y is concerned.
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Re: Shift-Y: what will it do?

Postby dgriffee » Fri Mar 08, 2013 1:17 pm

...should work just fine. When you assign a rule (or several rules) to a line in the score, it will apply to whatever that line is, be it a VSTi or an external midi out. All the rules instructions that can be executed are midi functions (note on/off, CC values, prog/channel changes, etc) so it really does not matter "where" the midi instrument actually resides, as long as it is connected to the staff line it's all the same. I use loopBe to run all my instruments in VEpro with rules assigned to midi channels and it works great. I've tried doing similar but sending the midi via loopBe to a sequencer and all my rules still worked exactly same.

So I think the answer to your question is "yes, you can".
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Re: Shift-Y: what will it do?

Postby iamnemo » Thu Apr 04, 2013 12:43 am

dgriffee wrote:...should work just fine. When you assign a rule (or several rules) to a line in the score, it will apply to whatever that line is, be it a VSTi or an external midi out. All the rules instructions that can be executed are midi functions (note on/off, CC values, prog/channel changes, etc) so it really does not matter "where" the midi instrument actually resides, as long as it is connected to the staff line it's all the same. I use loopBe to run all my instruments in VEpro with rules assigned to midi channels and it works great. I've tried doing similar but sending the midi via loopBe to a sequencer and all my rules still worked exactly same.
So I think the answer to your question is "yes, you can".

Sorry I missed your post. Are you beta-testing the Shift-Y function or you do all this with the current capabilities built in Notion 4? You wrote:
I use loopBe to run all my instruments in VEpro with rules assigned to midi channels and it works great.
. Would you be so kind and elaborate a bit on this as it is exactly what I'm trying to do. Did you simply slightly modified the rules to assign them to midi channels or you wrote entirely new rules for that purpose? I know XML but I'm not proficient in rule-writing so please excuse me if these are simplistic questions.

To clarify my questions: For each instrument I'm trying to redirect all the keyswitches, etc. that Notion generates according to rules to the MIDI out ports, route that info using loopMIDI or LoopBe to SONAR and load the synth there instead of within Notion. The advantage is that I can much more easily draw CC curves in SONAR than in Notion among other things.

On a separate note: are you aware of this very powerful utility: http://www.bewaryprods.com/software/products/TransMIDIfier/. Check the video!
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Re: Shift-Y: what will it do?

Postby iamnemo » Wed May 29, 2013 6:57 pm

I use loopBe to run all my instruments in VEpro with rules assigned to midi channels and it works great. I've tried doing similar but sending the midi via loopBe to a sequencer and all my rules still worked exactly same.

I'm still interested in doing exactly this last thing: sending all the key switches, CC's, program changes and whatnots to my sequencer so that I can draw more CC's to control expression, etc. as it is much more convenient there (in SONAR or Cubase) than from inside Notion. Keeping Notion "alive" (a bit like in ReWire for audio) lets you do modifications to the score easily without having to export midi files.

When you wrote
with rules assigned to midi channels
what did you mean exactly? Would you be so kind as to share an example of the code needed? Many thanks in advance!
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