Notion 3, Reason 5, and Digital Performer 7 . . .

[Surfwhammy]

My current series of Notion 3 experiments is focused on devising a way to use Reason 5 to make sounds, typically in the Dubstep and Trance style for use in silly DISCO songs, and I am making a tiny bit of progress in this regard, although not so much, really . . .

Really!

I have devised a very nice system for using Notion 3 with Digital Performer 7 via ReWIre, and the rules are both consistent and not so strange:

(1) The Notion 3 score must have four empty measures at the beginning . . .

(2) The actual music notation begins at the start of the fifth measure . . .

(3) It is best to avoid channels 1 through 10, inclusive, which overall maps to using channels 11 and higher . . .

(4) Digital Performer 7 always must start at the beginning of the fifth measure when it is the host controller via ReWire for Notion 3, since starting any earlier causes (a) Digital Performer 7 to crash and (b) Notion 3 to wander into La La Land where it "thinks" that it is being controlled but actually is not being controlled since Digital Performer 7 crashed . . .

(5) It is best to have a separate Notion 3 score for each section (percussion, bass, rhythm, melody, sparkles, and so forth) when there are a lot of "heavy" VSTi instruments, which typically is the case here in the sound isolation studio . . .

(6) It is good idea to have a few common VSTi instruments in each section, since this helps with respect to maintaining a consistent frame of reference . . .

However, I need to be able to have some typically strange sounds in silly DISCO songs, and Reason 5 (Propellerhead Software) certainly is stellar with respect to creating strange sounds, which is great but introduces a rather gnarly problem, because Reason 5 is not a VSTi instrument . . .

So, I am working to discover a system that will make it possible to use Reason 5 with Notion 3 and Digital Performer 7 in a way that is consistent and practical, especially with respect to being able to do a bit of fine-tuning of strange sounds as a song evolves . . .

These are the results of my experiments, so far:

(1) If I start Reason 5 and then start Notion 3, Notion 3 immediately crashes, from which I infer that Notion 3 cannot be controlled by Reason 5 via ReWire . . .

(2) I can start Notion 3 and then start Reason 5, at which time I can do the various configuring required to hear Notion 3 tracks, but (a) I cannot hear Reason 5 tracks and (b) I cannot record Notion 3 tracks in Reason 5 . . .

(3) I have not found a way to use Notion 3 to control Reason 5 via MIDI . . .

(4) Digital Performer 7 is able to control Reason 5 via ReWire, and it is able to control individual Reason 5 instruments via MIDI, which has great potential . . .

(5) I have not found a way to input MIDI notes to Digital Performer via the computer keyboard, but I can input notes manually with the mouse . . .

(6) I can input notes to Reason 5 with its on-screen mini-keyboard, both with the mouse and with the keyboard . . .

GENERAL CONCEPTS

The primary goal is to devise a system that is consistent and practical for using Reason 5 in conjunction with Notion 3 and Digital Performer 7, and for the most part it makes little difference to me how the system works so long as it is consistent and practical . . .

My best guess at present is that MIDI is the best strategy, and this is what I am testing, where the general plan is to determine whether I can export a Piano track as MIDI from Notion 3 and import it to Digital Performer 7, where I then can use the resulting Digital Performer 7 MIDI track to control an instrument in Reason 5 . . .

There are at least two other possibilities:

(1) Create a strange sound in Reason 5; record it as a WAVE file; and then sample it with Sample Tank 2.5 (IK Multimedia), where the sample can be saved as a preset and then used as the basis for a VSTi instrument that Notion 3 will be able to use, which might work for some types of strange sounds but not for all of them . . .

(2) Simply record strange sounds created in Reason 5 as WAVE files and then import the WAVE files to Digital Performer, which is easy to do but tends to be less than optimally precise with respect to timing and synchronizing, which ultimately maps to not being so consistent and practical, although for some types of strange sounds, this probably is the only way to do it, which curiously by definition makes it both consistent and practical . . .

Another key aspect of the strategy is repeatability, where the system needs to provide a way to reconstruct a song from the basic instrumental parts after there are changes, which for Notion 3 and Digital Performer 7 already is the case (see above), since I can make changes to the various Notion 3 sections and then get everything into Digital Performer 7 without needing to do a lot of work . . .

For example, consider the "basic rhythm section" for this silly DISCO song . . .

http://www.surfwhammys.com/Put-It-O-Me-1-18-2011-ST25-N3-DP7.mp3

In its current form, it does not have enough strange stuff to be Dubstep or Trance, so one of the revisions will involve changing some of the instrumentation at various times during the song, which from a framework perspective is not so difficult to do in Notion 3 with music notation . . .

I can create the required strange sounds in Reason 5, so the key aspect of the strategy is being able to get the strange sounds from Reason 5 into Digital Performer 7 in as automated a way as possible, with computer-generated MIDI being the most logical way to do this for certain types of strange sounds . . .

I have two keyboards that are MIDI enabled (Alesis ION Analog Modeling Synthesizer and KORG Triton Music Workstation [88-Keys]), and if it is more convenient I can get a smaller MIDI keyboard that is just a MIDI input device, hence another possibility is to "play" Reason 5 instruments with a real MIDI keyboard in real-time for purposes of recording the strange sounds in Digital Performer 7, but while this is not so difficult to do it has the disadvantage of requiring me to remember what I did when I played the instrumental part, which is entirely too much work insofar as I am concerned, because I have too much stuff to do without additionally being required to remember stuff that I already did, since in the grand scheme of everything if at some time in the future I actually need to perform Surf Whammys songs, then I will need to remember the lyrics, melodies, and lead guitar solos, which is plenty of stuff to remember, for sure . . .

For sure!

So, at present I am intrigued by the possibilities of devising a strategy using MIDI, although another strategy is to get the Reason 5 stuff in to Digital Performer 7 as WAVE files, with the latter strategy probably being the only way to get some types of strange sounds into Digital Performer 7 easily, because based on my current understanding of Reason 5 some of the things it does are so complex that they cannot be controlled easily by a MIDI device, really . . .

Really!

As I get more information on doing all this stuff, I will post updates to this topic, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous!

[Surfwhammy]

After getting a bit of sleep, during which time I worked through all the various combinations and permutations of the different possible strategies for using Reason 5 (Propellerhead Software) productively with Notion 3 and Digital Performer 7 (MOTU), I did a few more experiments with MIDI, and the results are excellent, for sure . . .

For sure!

(1) I created a Piano instrument in Notion 3 and put a series of quarter notes on its treble clef, followed by exporting the notes as MIDI, which creates "*.MID" file . . .

(2) Then I save everything in Notion 3 and exit Notion 3, which is necessary because when Notion 3 is functioning as the host controller for Reason 5 via ReWire I do not hear any of the Reason 5 instruments. Also if I start Reason 5 first and then start Notion 3, Notion 3 immediately crashes, hence the simple strategy is to use one program at a time, which works very nicely . . .

[NOTE: In an Utopian world it might be more convenient to have Digital Performer 7, Notion 3, and Reason 5 open simultaneously with Digital Performer 7 being the host controller for Notion 3, and Notion 3 being the subhost controller for Reason 5, but I think that the various technologies will need to advance quite a bit before this happens . . . ]

(3) The next thing is to start Reason 5 and to import the exported MIDI file from the first step into Reason 5, where it appears automagically as a Piano, which for some at present unknown reason does not make any audible sound, although the MIDI notes are present . . .

(4) Then I create a new instrument or whatever in Reason 5 and paste the MIDI notes from the Piano lane to the newly created instrument lane, and there is sound and the notes play correctly . . .

(5) At this point, I can loop the MIDI notes in Reason 5 and then begin tinkering with all the Reason 5 stuff to create whatever strange Dubstep and Trance sounds I need . . .

(6) When I am finished with the Reason 5 work, I close Reason 5 and start Digital Performer 7, followed by starting Reason 5 and opening the saved project created in steps (3) through (5) . . .

(7) In Digital Performer 7, I can configure a stereo audio track, which I link to the Reason 5 master output via a pair of ReWire channels, which then makes it possible to record the Reason 5 master output in Digital Performer as a stereo soundbite . . .

[NOTE: Since Digital Performer also supports MIDI and will control Reason 5 via MIDI, there is another way to do it, but it is easier to do the music composition in Notion 3 where the notes are exported from Notion 3 as MIDI instructions, which then are imported to Reason 5. This has the advantage of making it possible to work with music notation using the Notion 3 user interface, which is vastly superior to the MIDI notation interfaces of Digital Performer and Reason 5, and it is considerably simpler, as well . . . ]

OBSERVATIONS

As noted, one might suppose that there could be quite a few other ways to do all this stuff, but this is a very practical way to do it, and it works . . .

Doing it this way keeps the focus on Notion 3 as the foundation, where everything is done via music notation, hence Notion 3 is what one might call the "source document" or "anchor" for a song, where everything is built atop this foundation, and with the exception of real instruments and singing can be recreated and modified using a well-defined system . . .

And so long as none of the real instruments and singing that already are recorded in Digital Performer 7 need to change, it is easy to insert additional measures into the Notion 3 "basic rhythm section" and then to recreate all the required soundbites, which is the case because I already recorded real instrument and vocal tracks in Digital Performer 7 are soundbites and can be moved, relocated, and so forth . . .

For example, if I want to add 20 measures of a bridge or interlude, I can do this in the Notion 3 "basic rhythm section" project files and then get the updated instruments into Digital Performer 7 as new soundbites, which also is the case with whatever MIDI updates are required for the various Reason 5 sounds . . .

Once the updated Notion 3 "basic rhythm section" and Reason 5 sounds are recorded in Digital Performer 7 as new soundbites, I can move the various sections of already recorded real instruments and vocals to the correct locations in the timeline, and everything is in the correct location with accurate timing, tempo, and so forth and so on . . .

And most importantly, the bulk of the work is done in a repeatable series of procedures that mostly are very simple, although setting and clearing the various ReWire channels and so forth takes a while, as does modifying a set of Notion 3 project files, a set of Reason 5 sound files, and so forth and so on, but so what . . .

So what!

The reality is that while it might take a few hours, this is faster than doing everything with real instruments, and it costs a lot less, since there are no studio musicians to hire, supervise, and whatever . . .

Whatever!

Based on 20 or so "heavy" VSTi instruments being a practical number for a Notion 3 score, if a song requires 200 "heavy" VSTi instruments, then this maps to having 10 Notion 3 scores or project files, each of which has at least a few common instruments for reference purposes . . .

And if there are 50 Reason 5 sounds, then this maps to having 50 separate MIDI export files and 50 Reason 5 projects . . .

In some respects, this is a lot of stuff, but I put it in folders and have set of procedures for working with everything in an orderly sequence, so what do I care . . .

Not much!

It takes a while to do all the music notation, VSTi instrument selection, Reason 5 sound design, Digital Performer 7 soundbite recording work, but overall it takes less time than it would take if everything was done by real musicians, which here in the sound isolation studio maps to "by myself" . . .

For example, if if takes a total of 200 hours for 200 instruments, then this maps approximately to 1 hour per instrument, which is pretty fast, really . . .

Really!

And as my knowledge and expertise increases, I think that the time required to do everything will decrease . . .

For reference, this is one of the MIDI tests, which uses a simple Piano part done in Notion 3 and exported as a MIDI file to drive Reason 5, where the musical phrase is repeated three times . . .


Music Notation ~ Notion 3


Reason 5 Synthesizers Set to Play the MIDI Notes Imported from Notion 3 ~ Reason 5

[NOTE: Neither of these experimental songs are Dubstep or Trance, since the general idea at the time was to verify that the system is working correctly. I have some idea what Trance is, but Dubstep is a bit new, so the only clues I have are from "Hold It Against Me" (Britney Spears), where the basic strategy appears to be using a lot of what one might call "noise bursts" and some occasionally silly sound effects, along with a 142 beats per measure temp, with the overall strategy being more rhythmic than melodic, which actually makes a lot of sense when the goal is provide a pulsating background for singing without using too much of the available melodic space within what I call the Spherical Sonic Landscape™. And it certainly appears that Reason 5 is one of the keys to doing this type of music, which in some respects is more along the lines of rhythmic sound effects with only an occasional bit of something melodic or harmonic . . . ]

This is the MP3 created in iTunes from the AIFF file exported from Reason 5 . . .

http://www.surfwhammys.com/MIDI-Test-9-1-N3-R5.mp3

And this is the MP3 created in iTunes from the AIFF file exported from Reason 5 after I added two additional synthesizers playing a set of MIDI notes that are transposed downward by a minor third, which is fabulous . . .

http://www.surfwhammys.com/MIDI-Test-9-2-N3-R5.mp3

Fabulous!