Correction: Brass quintet score.

[Francois2010]

Regarding the location of instruments in a brass quintet score, the horn should be located under the trumpets (see image attached).

N3> New From Template> 07 Brass Quintet has placed the horn on the first staff. This location is OK for Grand orchestra score but not for the brass quintet score.

[pcartwright]

You can move instruments around as you wish and save the file back in the templates section. Once saved in the template folder, you can access the file as a template from the File menu.

[Francois2010]

I know how to fix this Thanks. I wrote this so that the correction be made by N3 to accommodate new users or for people who do not know how to place the instruments.

[Surfwhammy]

You can move instruments around as you wish and save the file back in the templates section. Once saved in the template folder, you can access the file as a template from the File menu.

This is very interesting!

QUESTION: Where is the "template folder"?

If I can create my own templates this way, it will make my work a lot easier . . .

I will do some experiments and report back on it, for sure . . .

For sure!

[Surfwhammy]

I did a bit of checking, and on the Mac the standard Notion 3 templates are contained within the application package (Notion.app) rather than in a separate folder, so modifying the standard Notion 3 templates does not appear to be possible . . .

However, the templates are Notion 3 files (for example, "01 Full Orchestra.notion"), so the way I am doing it works just as well, which to be specific was to start with a new blank score and add the VSTi instruments I want, followed by saving the newly modified score in a separate folder but without adding an music notation . . .

I add "-template" to the file name but leave the extension the same (".notion") . . .

When I need a new score based on one of these custom "templates", I open the "xxx-template.notion" file and then immediately do a "Save As", which works nicely and only requires a few more user-interface actions than it would if it were added to the Notion 3 standard templates (which can be selected from the menu rather than doing a FIle Open followed by a File Save As) . . .

So, unless there is some other way to do this on the Mac, it requires designing your own custom templates and keeping them in a separate folder, which is not difficult to do, although for the types of custom templates I tend to use it takes a while, since I use very specific VSTi instruments, most of which come from IK Multimedia, but so what . . .

So what!

The reality here in the sound isolation studio is that I am creating a complete system for doing silly DISCO and Pop songs about ladies underpants, and it is unlikely that any music composition software has predefined templates for this particular genre . . .

The "complete system" is considerably more complex, because it includes applications (standalone VSTi instruments, VST components, Reason 5, Digital Performer 7, "sparkles", and a lot of other stuff), so defining everything explicitly and precisely is part of the Gestalt, and for example if it takes a few days of researching, pondering, and experimenting to decide precisely which percussion instruments I want to use for the "Percussion-template.notion" custom template, this is fine with me, since doing the actual pseudo-template takes perhaps 30 minutes once I have decided on the specific VSTi instruments and have identified the particular enhancements and changes I need to make . . .

And I am making excellent progress on defining and creating the "complete system", where for example it took me nearly three months and probably 500 hours of work to do the first truly silly ladies underpants song, which was "inspired by" Lady Gaga's hit song "Bad Romance" . . .

Doing the next silly ladies underpants song took approximately 125 hours, which was "inspired by" the European single of "Who Owns My Heart" (Miley Cyrus), although so far the third silly ladies underpants song, which was "inspired by" the new Britney Spears hit song "Hold It Against Me", already is taking over 500 hours of work, but mostly due to discovering Dubstep and needing to determine how to make weird electronic noises, but so what . . .

[NOTE: There is no Dubstep stuff in this version, but I know how to do it now and will add it pretty soon . . . ]

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

So what!

It only took a few hours to do the bulk of the instruments, since I already had pseudo-templates, so the vast majority of the 500 hours so far was devoted to making sense of Reason 5 (Propellerhead Software); getting the Alesis ION Analog Modeling Synthesizer connected to the MOTU 828mkII for MIDI; discovering how to export MIDI from Notion 3; discovering how to make weird noises with SampleTank 2.5 (IK Multimedia); and so forth and so on, during which time I also had a bit of FUN with elaborate post-Baroque ornamentation for Harpsichord, which led to devising some very rapid arpeggios that I added to the second silly ladies underpants song ("Feel Me"), which is a lot of work to do in only 500 hours, really . . .

[NOTE: This is the post-Baroque ornamented Harpsichord that is based on "The Prince of Denmark March" (Jeremiah Clarke), where the general idea was to pretend that Amadeus Mozart was playing Harpsichord in an especially silly mood in the first third and last third of the original piece, which is coming along nicely, since I discovered ornamentation about a year ago and have been working to make sense of it for a while, with the overall goal being to be able to do it "by ear" on lead guitar in real-time on the fly, which is considerably more complex than being able to do it with music notation one note at a time, which is one of the ways that Notion 3 is so helpful, since I can make sense of complex stuff with music notion and hear it, which is the first step to mapping it to lead guitar and being able to do it when improvising without needing to think about it in any immediately conscious way . . . ]

http://www.surfwhammys.com/Ornamented-Harpsichord2-Miroslav-Philharmonik.mp3

http://www.surfwhammys.com/Dual-Arpeggios-In-A.mp3

http://www.surfwhammys.com/Feel-Me-1-31-2011-Extended.mp3

Really!

Once I get the "complete system" fully defined, configured, and so forth, I should be able to do an "inspired by" silly ladies underpants song in a few hours, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous!

[Francois2010]

You can move instruments around as you wish and save the file back in the templates section. Once saved in the template folder, you can access the file as a template from the File menu.

This is very interesting!

QUESTION: Where is the "template folder"?

If I can create my own templates this way, it will make my work a lot easier . . .

I will do some experiments and report back on it, for sure . . .

For sure!

C>Program files>Notion 3>Support>Templates> open the file.
Go to Score settings.
Make the desired change.
Save as...
Go to C>Program files>Notion 3>Support>Templates
Click the file you want to change: for example : 05 String Quartet

In this post I suggested that N3 modifies this file for new users.

[Surfwhammy]

You can move instruments around as you wish and save the file back in the templates section. Once saved in the template folder, you can access the file as a template from the File menu.

This is very interesting!

QUESTION: Where is the "template folder"?

If I can create my own templates this way, it will make my work a lot easier . . .

I will do some experiments and report back on it, for sure . . .

For sure!

C>Program files>Notion 3>Support>Templates> open the file.
Go to Score settings.
Make the desired change.
Save as...
Go to C>Program files>Notion 3>Support>Templates
Click the file you want to change: for example : 05 String Quartet

In this post I suggested that N3 modifies this file for new users.

This is for Windows, but it is different on the Mac, since on the Mac the standard Notion 3 templates are embedded in the application bundle or "package" . . .

[NOTE: I do Mac OS X software development, and I was able to examine the Notion 3 application package using Xcode, which is where I found the template files, but they are part of the application bundle, hence probably cannot or should not be modified by users. I did not do any experimenting with a hexadecimal editor, but my general view is that modifying an application bundle probably causes its security checksum or whatever to change, hence is very likely to render it unusable, which overall maps to no added-value in exploring it any further . . . ]


So, the technique I described in my previous post is the way to do it on the Mac, and while it requires a few more user-interface actions, it is not cumbersome . . .

On the Mac, it requires creating a new score which then becomes a "pseudo-template". Once this is done (a one-time activity), the "pseudo-template" if accessed via File Open, at which time you can do a File Save As to clone the "pseudo-template" and make it a Notion 3 score . . .

The primary difference is that on a Windows machine you can do it via the Notion 3 menu where you select a predefined standard (or modified) template, which is a tiny bit faster, since it does not require doing the File Open step, but nevertheless you need to do a File Save, which is no more difficult than doing a File Save As, hence the user-interface difference in "File Open" versus Notion 3 standard (or modified) template selection, which is negligible . . .

However, one of the advantages of doing it the way I do it on the Mac is that by creating a "pseudo-template" starting with a blank score, you are able to tailor the "pseudo-template" very precisely without having any residue caused by modifying an existing Notion 3 standard template, and since you specify each instrument separately, you can use highly-customized VSTi instruments . . .

Overall, I have a handful of these "pseudo-template" files, and they are designed for very specific genres and purposes, which saves me a lot of time . . .

For reference, when I was doing experiments with the standard Notion 3 templates on the Mac, one of the things I discovered is that there was a bit of garbling that occurred when I made certain types of changes to the Full Orchestra standard template, where I replaced the existing VSTi instruments with Miroslav Philharmonik or SampleTank 2.5 (IK Multimedia) instruments, and rather than explore and identify what was garbled, I switched to defining and creating "pseudo-templates", which works very nicely when the VSTi instruments are what I call "heavy" with respect to computer resource usage, which tends to be the case with some of the SampleTank 2.5 VSTi instruments, which I use a lot . . .

And my current strategy, which is working very nicely, is to limit a "pseudo-template" to 20 instruments, which maps to having a separate score for percussion, rhythm, and melody, as well as several scores for what I call "sparkles" . . .

I keep them synchronized by following various procedures that I developed, and the system works very nicely for my needs, which overall maps to anywhere from 100 to 1,000 instruments, which is well beyond what Notion 3 can handle in a single score . . .

In other words, if I need 100 instruments for a song, then I have 5 separate but synchronized scores, and I "synchronize" them by having a few common instruments that I keep very simple (typically a basic kick drum, piano for chords, and piano for melody), so the actual "subscores" might have 23 to 25 instruments, but the instruments beyond 20 are for "synchronizing" purposes and to provide a reference to the beat, basic chords, and simple melody, hence are not recorded multiple times into DIgital Performer 7 or whatever . . .

It is a complex system, but it works, and I can do elaborate motion effects that would be very difficult to do otherwise, so the complexity and time required to do the work is not an issue for me, since previously there simply was no way to do it . . .

And even though it might take from 100 to 500 hours to do everything for a 3 minute and 30 seconds song, the reality is that DISCO and Pop songs require at least that much work when everything is done by musicians, studio personnel, music and vocal producers, audio engineers, and so forth and so on with respect to what colloquially is called "man hours" . ..

If 15 people work 10 hours a day on a song for three days, then this maps to 450 "man hours", and I doubt that any hit song is done in less than three days by fewer than 15 people when you consider everything that has to be done, so if I can do a song that at least is "ballpark" in terms of complexity and overall sound quality in 500 hours with my system (Digital Performer, IK Multimedia VSTI instruments, Notion 3, and Reason 5), then this is fantastic from my perspective, for sure . . .

For sure!

[fabiolcati]

On Mac templates are located into Notion' package.

1. ctrl-click on Notion program icon in *Applications* folder

2. Choose *Show Package Contents*

3. Open *Contents* folder

4. Open *Resources* folder

5. Locate *Templates* folder

Follow the path to save your own templates.

Hope it helps.

[Surfwhammy]

On Mac templates are located into Notion' package.

1. ctrl-click on Notion program icon in *Applications* folder

2. Choose *Show Package Contents*

3. Open *Contents* folder

4. Open *Resources* folder

5. Locate *Templates* folder

Follow the path to save your own templates.

Hope it helps.

Fantastic!

This works, and it is easy to do . . .

Thanks!