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Bug report

A Forum to Discuss NOTION

Bug report

Postby trumpeter » Sun Mar 27, 2011 3:48 pm

Hello

I've been using Notion as a teaching tool (scoring and, to some extent, sequencing). It's been pretty good so I thought I'd give it a bit of a workout and do a full arrangement with it. The output is fairly good but there are enough problems for it to be pretty much unusable for professional work. Errors include:

* A few invisible barlines (these are repeat marks but no barline at all is visible) in some parts only. Alto Sax 1, 8th of E.
* First page of score is moved partially off the page by the title and cannot be moved back up.
* First time bar/second time bar in Baritone part is a mess!
* First trumpet part sample doesn't include the highest note. I can play it... why can't Notion? I should add that the jazz sounds aren't working here for some reason, so I've had to select the basic orchestral ones.

File attached. I hope this helps you fix some bugs.



Best wishes, Neil
Last edited by trumpeter on Mon Apr 11, 2011 6:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Bug report

Postby Surfwhammy » Sun Mar 27, 2011 5:41 pm

I downloaded the Notion 3 score and ran it on a 2.8-GHz 8-core Mac Pro (OS X 10.6.7), and the song played, which is good . . .

I then tried to print the file by saving it as a PDF file, but it stalled on the 28th page, so I had to "Force Quit" Notion 3, since the PDF save was not responding, which in turn caused Notion 3 to stop responding . . .

I restarted Notion 3 and did a bit of examining, which began by changing the view to continuous, where I noticed that there were a few sections where stuff was extending below the apparent printable bottom of the page, so I did a bit of checking and discovered that the page size was set to "A4" . . .

The next thing I did was to experiment with different page sizes, and the one that works is "US Legal", which is what I used, and this resolved the PDF file saving problem . . .

This is the PDF file that was created with the page size set to "US Legal":

http://www.surfwhammys.com/GonnaFlyNow-N3.pdf

I did not print the PDF file on an actual printer. Instead, I saved the PDF formatted score as a file, but PDF files print nicely so long as the page size is correct and the printer is correctly configured . . .

If you are printing to a physical printer (as contrasted to saving to a PDF file), then the problem might be caused by the particular printer driver, page size, and so forth . . .

So, you might try saving the output as a PDF file and then printing the PDF file rather than printing directly from Notion 3 to the physical printer . . .

This is easy to do on the Mac, but it probably requires getting Adobe Acrobat or a "free" PDF print utility in the Windows universe . . .

There are some "free" PDF print utilities for Windows, but one of the most popular utilities will install a potentially gnarly "add-on" tool bar to your browser, so it is best to get as much information about "free" non-Adobe software as possible, as well as to do a bit of Google searchng to determine if "free" software has adware, malware, viruses, and so forth . . .

If you must print on "A4" paper, then I think the solution is to read page 3.6 in the Notion 3 User Manual, where you will discover that you can change the size of the staves and so forth to fit everything into the printable area of the page . . .

It appears that you already did some alterations as explained on page 3.6 of the Notion 3 User Manual, since you selected the "Jazz" style, so I think the solution is to change the "Notation Size" multiplier to a smaller number, which probably needs to be only 1 lower than the one you were using . . .

And for reference, I have no idea how this works on WIndows machines, but it probably is similar, really . . .

Really!

Summarizing, I am not convinced that this is a "bug", although it was not a lot of FUN to have Notion 3 essentially lock-up on the Mac when I tried to save the original version in PDF format, but so what . . .

So what!

All software has quirky behaviors, but the important thing from my perspective is that I can devise some way to do what I need to do, which certainly has been the case with Notion 3 every time I have encountered one of its quirky behaviors, so far . . .

[NOTE: In fairness and to put everything into perspective, I am using Digital Performer 7 (MOTU), Notion 3, Reason 5 (Propellerhead Software), and a virtual festival of VSTi instruments from IK Multimedia, as well as a lot of VST effects from several companies (Celemony, IK Multimedia, Wave Arts) primarily to do silly DISCO and Pop songs about ladies underpants for the upcoming Surf Whammys album "Electric Underpants™", where most of the songs are "inspired by" hit songs done by Christina Aguilera, Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, and Britney Spears, which is the direct consequence of Lady Gaga really annoying me by not having any lead guitar in "Bad Romance", which violates one of the two most important rules of the universe, which is that "Every song needs to have a lead guitar solo!", where the other rule is that "Everything's better with Blue Bonnet on it!" . . . ]

And after listening to "Bad Romance" over and over for quite a while, I realized that the key to doing stellar DISCO and Pop songs is to have a lot of what I call "sparkles", which are apparently random bursts of typically short phrases of notes that move around within what I call the "Spherical Sonic Landscape™", which is not easy to do with Digital Performer 7 but it very easy to do with Notion 3 when you are able to clone an instrument perhaps eight times, where individual notes are spread over the clones by replacing notes with equal-valued rests and panning each clone to a specific location, which takes a few hours for one instrument in a typical length song (approximately 3 minutes and 30 seconds), but so what . . .

So what!

It works, and the more times I do it, the less time it takes . . .

For example, this is a Surf Whammys song ("Feel Me") that is "inspired by" the European Single of "Who Owns My Heart" (Miley Cyrus), and it will be one of the songs on the "Electric Underpants" album, mostly because Miley Cyrus stole my idea for the Venetian mask in her YouTube music video, hence she needs to be spanked metaphorically, for sure . . .

[NOTE: This is what I call the "basic rhythm section", and all the instruments are done with music notation and VSTi instruments in Notion 3. Once I finish doing all the "sparkles", I add vocals and the lead guitar solo. This MP3 is approximately 8.6MB and it runs for 3 minutes and 40 seconds . . . ]

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

For sure!

Having so many "heavy" VSTi instruments requires creating a set of Notion 3 project files, since there are limits on the amount of "heavy" VSTi instruments that Notion 3 can handle within its 32-bit workspace or whatever, which also is the case with Digital Performer 7 and everything else, but after a lot of experimenting I devised a strategy that makes it possible for me to have 500 to 1,000 "heavy" VSTi instruments in a set of Notion 3 files, as well as to get all that stuff into Digital Performer 7, where I use a modern variation of the techniques used by Phil Spector in his "Wall of Sound" and George Martin in doing essentially the same thing on Beatles songs, all of which traces directly to Les Paul and his use of multiple tape recorders to create elaborate layers of instruments and voices . . .

It takes a while to do everything, but so what . . .

So what!

No matter how it is done, it takes a while, and if it takes an orchestra with 100 musicians 1 hour to play all the stuff for a 3 minutes and 30 seconds song, then from my perspective this is pretty much the same as 1 person doing it in 100 hours, so what do I care if it takes 250 to 500 hours for a song that has a virtual festival of instruments, lots of "sparkles", and so forth and so on?

Not much, especially since I cannot afford to hire an orchestra and to tell everyone what to play!

Doing something like this with a real orchestra probably would cost a billion dollars or whatever, and it is only 45 seconds, really . . .

http://www.surfwhammys.com/Ode-To-A-Mode-Surfwhammy-12-31-2010-ST-N3.mp3

Really!

What I care about is being able to do it by myself in a ruthlessly accurate, precise, reliable, and repeatable way, and Notion 3 makes it both possible and practical for me to do this, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous! :)
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Re: Bug report

Postby trumpeter » Thu Mar 31, 2011 8:10 pm

Fair play, Surfwhammy, you had a workaround to print the score properly within two hours of my posting. Nice one :-)

My own workaround - far less professional than yours - was to use a screengrab and print that for page 1 (the rest of the score printed out fine).

The other problems (missing barlines, messed up first time bar) remain and are definitely bugs. Is anyone from Notion listening? How about that trumpet sample that won't play the highest note?

Thanks for your efforts, Surfwhammy.

Best wishes, Neil
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Re: Bug report

Postby trumpeter » Mon Apr 11, 2011 6:07 am

Two weeks and no acknowledgment of the problems from Notion. That's disappointing. I would like to see Notion develop into professional software. Printing all of the barlines and repeat marks is essential!

To those who downloaded my arrangement: if your intention was to look at or solve the problems then thanks for that; if you were planning to use it with a big band then you should know I've made an awful lot of corrections and done a bit of a rewrite since the upload. I've removed it from the forum but if you'd like an up to date copy then please PM me.

Best wishes, Neil
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Re: Bug report

Postby Surfwhammy » Mon Apr 11, 2011 10:36 am

trumpeter wrote:Two weeks and no acknowledgment of the problems from Notion. That's disappointing. I would like to see Notion develop into professional software. Printing all of the barlines and repeat marks is essential!


As does all computer software, Notion 3 has some eccentric behaviors, but the important thing from my perspective is being able to devise a "workaround", which in some instances takes a while, but so what . . .

So what!

For reference, my university training is in Computer Science and Mathematics, and the reason I underlined "all" is based on the work of Alonzo Church, Kurt Friedrich Gödel, and Alan Turing, where the short version is found in Alan Turing's "Halting Problem" . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem

Another way to understand the general principle is in terms of convergence, where for example most folks think that if one fairly tosses a coin enough times, then eventually there will be 50 percent heads and 50 percent tails, but this is not what happens, because the series never converges . . .

Regarding the printing problem you have encountered, there are several things that might provide a practical solution, although there is no much I can do to help at present, because I am not entirely certain about some of the music terminology or whether the PDF file I generated on the Mac had everything that is supposed to be present . . .

[NOTE: This is the PDF that I created from the Notion 3 example score that you posted earlier . . . ]

http://www.surfwhammys.com/GonnaFlyNow-N3.pdf

This is the information you provided in your original post:

* A few invisible barlines (these are repeat marks but no barline at all is visible) in some parts only. Alto Sax 1, 8th of E.


I do not see this in the PDF that I generated on the Mac with the page size set properly . . .

* First page of score is moved partially off the page by the title and cannot be moved back up.


I do not see this in the PDF that I generated on the Mac with the page size set properly . . .

* First time bar/second time bar in Baritone part is a mess!


I do not see this in the PDF that I generated on the Mac with the page size set properly . . .

* First trumpet part sample doesn't include the highest note. I can play it... why can't Notion? I should add that the jazz sounds aren't working here for some reason, so I've had to select the basic orchestral ones.


This is a different problem that has nothing to do with printing, and it is something that happens with VSTi sound libraries, so while in an Utopian world every VSTi sound library will have instrument samples that do everything, the realities are different . . .

[NOTE: If you are referring to the Notion 3 Jazz Expansion Sounds, then this is easily remedied by putting the various Jazz Expansion Sounds in the correct folder, which will be the folder for sounds that has the "N2" and "Bundled" subfolders, which will be specific to the operating system platform, but on the Mac will be under the "Sounds" folder. You might need to set the Sounds folder in Notion 3 Preferences, but probably only if you installed the various sounds to a different location. Depending on how frequently you install new software, on the Mac you might need to clear some caches or whatever, which causes applications to rescan for sounds, but this is not difficult to do most of the time, although occasionally there will be a DEMO version of something that is difficult to remove, which currently is the case with the DEMO version of Auto-Tune (Antares) that I uninstalled but Digital Performer 7 continues to think exists on the Mac Pro, but I will solve that minor annoyance, sooner or later . . . ]

I use the N2 and N3 orchestral instruments for a few things, but mostly I use Miroslav Philharmonik for orchestral instruments, since there are more readily available articulations, dynamics, and a virtual festival of solo and ensemble samples, where for example I like French Horns and mostly as a matter of curiosity tried to count all the flavors of French Horns in Miroslav Philharmonik, but after stepping through all the folders and subfolders for about an hour in the standalone user interface, I stopped counting at 150, which is a lot of French Horn samples, really . . .

Really!

SUGGESTIONS

Printing is highly dependent on the operating system platform (Mac or Windows), as well as the specific printing device, and it also is highly dependent on the various type families and fonts . . .

For example, two decades ago I did a lot of graphic design work for magazine advertisements, and I did it on a Windows machine using CorelDRAW!, but the magazines required four-color (CMYK) separations on film, so I had to go to Kinko's and use an Apple computer to get a disk copy of the separations in POSTSCRIPT with the target printer selected to Apple LaserWriter Plus, which was pretty strange, and then those disks went to a film lab that printed the separations for about $50 each, which took a day or two, so after doing this a few times one tends to strive diligently to discover how to get it done correctly the first time . . .

[NOTE: The Apple LaserWriter Plus printer was the industry standard for POSTSCRIPT, apparently because it generated data that all the various film machines were able to use correctly with accurate and reliable results . . . ]

Two decades later, everything is considerably easier in some respects, but the fact of the matter is that the quality of printer drivers and associated typesetting software is not always so stellar, so one of the first things I consider when there are problems with printing is the printer and the printer driver, since sometimes getting everything to work correctly involves configuring the printer or perhaps using a different printer driver . . .

In other words, the authoring application (Notion 3, Pages, Word, or whatever) might be doing everything correctly, but the printer is not configured properly or there is a problem with the specific printer driver . . .

QUESTION: Does everything in the score in the PDF file I provided look correct?

If everything is correctly formatted and so forth, then this virtually guarantees that any printing problems are caused by the printer and printer driver . . .

As noted, when I first generated a PDF, there were problems, but the problems were caused by the specific paper size, which was too small, so I selected a larger page size . . .

If the printable area for a specific size of paper allows printing 12 lines but you tell it to print 13 lines, then it is not going to print correctly, so it is very important to know the printable area, which will be specific to each printer, where in this usage "printer" refers to the physical hardware device . . .

At the dawn of the early-21st century, the reality is that most relatively inexpensive printers cost less than a set of ink cartridges, and in some instances this maps to not having the most stellar printer drives and so forth, so while something might not print correctly on one printer, it just as easily can print correctly on another printer or even on the same printer if you select a different printer driver, but this also depends on the operating system platform, since printer drivers tend to be operating system platform dependent . . .

[NOTE: From a not so futuristic perspective, the iPad is quite likely to replace paper for sheet music, although when this will occur is difficult to determine. However, there already are music stands designed specifically for using an iPad on stage, so it is not so far into the future, really . . . ]

QUESTION: Are you doing this on a Windows machine or on a Mac?

As noted, the operating system platform makes a difference, but you should be able to print on both platforms, really . . .

Really!

On the Mac, I get good results with Epson printers and their Mac OS X drivers, where I like the Epson Stylus Photo printers, since they also print on CD and DVD, as well as do photograph quality printing, but the photographic paper and ink cost so much that I tend to avoid printing whenever possible . . .

SUMMARY

(1) There is a procedure for submitting bug reports, and the instructions are provided in a topic in the top part of the list of topics for this FORUM, but I am not certain that submitting a bug report actually maps to getting a response . . .

http://forum.notionmusic.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=807

(2) Once I fully realized that Notion 3 is an amazing application for what I need to do, I switched my focus to discovering how to do what I need to do, which in a very real sense maps to being my own technical support, which for the most part I am able to do, since I have a lot of experience with computer software, which in some respects make it both possible and practical for me essentially to create simulacrums of the Notion 3 software engineers to a level of detail that allows me to understand the way they think when they are designing algorithms, which in turn makes it easier for me to determine with reasonably good accuracy why something might not work the way I think it should work, as well as to devise a way either (a) to make it work the way I think it should work or (b) to avoid the specific conditions in which an otherwise very elegant algorithm behaves inelegantly, which for the most part is a matter of the way the various Apple frameworks are designed, which basically traces back to the days when Apple fired Steve Jobs and he started a new company (NeXT), which 15 or so years later results in such wonders of modern technology as Core Data, which transforms something that is virtually trivial to do with low-level C/API and basic SQL statements into a virtually mind-boggling maze that simply cannot handle highly abstruse metadata, hence requires having hundreds of tables instead of just a few tables, as well as not being able to do what I consider to be simple joins and whatever, but so what . . .

So what!

(3) You might want to call Notion Music technical support, since they might be able to provide some help or suggestions . . .

This is all that comes to mind at present, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous! :)

P. S. Another thing that I discovered when I first was making sense of Notion 3 is that it tends to be best to avoid using the predefined score templates when you have very specific instrument requirements that do not map exactly to a predefined template . . .

Since nothing I do maps to any of the standard Notion 3 predefined score templates, I switched to creating specific instruments one at a time, which solved quite a few problems for me, since I was modifying the predefined templates, and recently there was a discussion about user-defined templates where fabiolcati explained how to create user-defined templates on the Mac so that they appear in the list of templates in Notion 3, which is stellar . . .

http://forum.notionmusic.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1439&p=6026#p6026

Stellar!

Another useful bit of information regarding my overall perspective is that one year ago I could read, write, and sight-sing Classical music so long as it was on the treble clef, but that was all I was aware I could do in any immediately conscious way, yet one year later after perhaps 1,500 to 2,000 hours of discovering how music notation and VSTi instruments work in Notion 3, I can do elaborate orchestration, which most recently includes making a bit of progress on discovering how to do post-Baroque ornamentation, for sure . . .

[NOTE: This is a flavor of the harpsichord from "The Prince of Denmark's March" (Jeremiah Clarke) that I used for a bit of FUN with post-Baroque ornamentation . . . ]

http://www.surfwhammys.com/Ornamented-H ... rmonik.mp3

For sure!

So, in the grand scheme of everything, being able to make sense of the way everything in Notion 3 works is mapping to significant progress here in the sound isolation studio, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous! :)
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Re: Bug report

Postby trumpeter » Mon Apr 11, 2011 4:36 pm

"page size set properly"

The thing is, surfwhammy, that I did have the page size set properly. I had it set to A4, which happens to be the size of paper that is in all of the printers that I employ. In fact, I print out at A3 (2 pages side by side), which saves sticking pages together.

Now if Notion is unable to deal with A4 then there is a bug that needs to be fixed. Or the option to print at A4 size needs to be removed. Otherwise the system looks amateurish when it fails to print out /essential/ elements of a score. I would have looked really dumb in rehearsal if I hadn't proofed the parts thoroughly and manually corrected them.

As far as the library missing concert E on the trumpet is concerned, I'm aware of the technical reasons for the missing sample. But it is, nevertheless, missing and should be included.

You're absolutely right that there's no reason I should expect a response from anyone on the Notion team, though. I accept that. On the other hand, until these bugs/shortcomings are fixed I can't risk using Notion - or recommending Notion - for professional work. It's a very, very good semi-professional teaching tool (with great potential) at the moment.

Best wishes, Neil
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Re: Bug report

Postby wcreed51 » Mon Apr 11, 2011 8:32 pm

Remember that you have to set the page size both in Notion and in your printer properties (from Notion's Print dialog). Not sure why it's that way, but Finale is the same.
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Re: Bug report

Postby Surfwhammy » Tue Apr 12, 2011 2:26 am

trumpeter wrote:The thing is, surfwhammy, that I did have the page size set properly. I had it set to A4, which happens to be the size of paper that is in all of the printers that I employ. In fact, I print out at A3 (2 pages side by side), which saves sticking pages together.

Now if Notion is unable to deal with A4 then there is a bug that needs to be fixed. Or the option to print at A4 size needs to be removed. Otherwise the system looks amateurish when it fails to print out /essential/ elements of a score. I would have looked really dumb in rehearsal if I hadn't proofed the parts thoroughly and manually corrected them.


If what I wrote came across as being argumentative, then I apologize, but there are a few basic rules for printing, and they are important rules . . .

The fact of the matter is that you cannot print 13 lines on a piece of paper that has room only for 12 lines, which is the thing that I was trying to explain regarding "printable area", which is one of the realities for printers . . .

As noted, I like Epson printers for use with Apple computers, and the Epson WorkForce 1100 Ink Jet Printer is nice if you do not need to print CDs and DVDs, but Epson Stylus Photo 1400 Ink Jet Printer is nice if you also need to print full-color CDs and DVDs . . .

Image
Epson WorkForce 1100 Ink Jet Printer

[NOTE: For some models, the Epson website has the best prices, but for other models Amazon.com has the best prices, so doing a bit of shopping for discounts is productive . . . ]

From my perspective, I think that there probably are two basic printing needs:

(1) Print the sheet music for a specific instrument . . .

(2) Print the score for the conductor . . .

And I think that the requirements are very different for these two basic printing needs, which is based mostly on my observations being in an orchestra for while in school and being in a liturgical boys choir . . .

The sheet music for string bass in the orchestra only had the bass stuff for the specific instrument, and the sheet music for the liturgical boys choir only had the treble clef stuff for the specific voice, which basically was soprano . . .

Yet, the orchestra conductor and choirmaster had sheet music that had all the parts . . .

Overall, I doubt that Notion 3 can correctly format a full score with 500 instruments, if only because the upper limit for what I call "heavy" VSTi instruments is around 50 on the Mac, so when I need 500 "heavy" VSTi instruments I spread them over 20 separate Notion 3 scores, where each individual score has approximately 5 common instruments that I use as reference points (which might be kick drum, piano chords, bass guitar, piano melody, and maracas or whatever) . . .

In some respects, it is a bit mind-boggling to do it this way, but I have a system where I keep all the scores in a folder and name them using a naming convention that makes it very easy to identify what each score does, where for example I have a score that is focused on the drumkit, which I might name "Song-Drumkit.notion", and I have a score that is focused on bass, which I might name "Song-Bass.notion" . . .

I do it this way for several reasons, but most importantly I do it, because the reality is that getting what I consider to be a good bass sound actually requires a virtual festival of different bass instruments, where I might have a pair of Hofner Bass guitars, a pair of keyboard synthesizer basses, two pairs of bowed contrabass sections, a pair of electric pianos playing bass notes, as well as a pair of Fender Jazz Bass guitars, and several more pairs of keyboard synthesizer basses . . .

When mixed, it appears to be just a stereo Hofner Bass guitar, but the reality is that behind the scenes it is a somewhat vast festival of bass . . .

I do the same thing with the percussion stuff, where i might have two separate scores for standard drumkit stuff, one or two separate scores for Indian drums, several scores for Latin percussion, and yet another set of scores for pitched percussion instruments . . .

And since I like to have a lot of what I call "sparkles", which typically spread the notes of a single instrument over as many as eight clones of the single instrument, this maps on average to two sets of "sparkles" per score, so if I have 100 "sparkled" instruments, this requires 50 separate scores that do two "sparkles" each . . .

It takes hundreds of hours to do all this stuff, but it works, and it is the only way I have discovered to do it that actually works accurately and reliably in a completely repeatable way, so the reality here in the sound isolation studio is that I am very happy to be able to do it, even though in some respects it requires a lot of work . . .

However, another reality is that if I did it with real musicians it would take more time, since regardless of how it is done I have to compose everything, and then there is the matter of having to deal with perhaps 100 to 500 musicians, which (a) costs too much and (b) probably is a vast undertaking in terms of managing, supervising, conducting, and so forth . . .

When you put everything into a practical perspective, one person working on a song for 250 to 500 hours is like a 100 person orchestra working on a song for 2.5 to 5 hours, but without the corresponding $25,000 to $50,000 bill and having to explain why you need to have everyone make silly kazoo noises in the 42nd measure . . .

And while in some respects it requires a lot of work, I can do this entirely on the Mac Pro here in the sound isolation studio, which from my perspective is simply amazing . . .

[NOTE: This is significant as a proof of concept exercise, since it is indisputable and verified proof that I can do all the orchestration for "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band" (Beatles) and "The Dark Side Of The Moon" (Pink Floyd) here in the sound isolation studio on the Mac Pro, which essentially maps to being able to do everything, since there is a lot more stuff that one can do with orchestration than was possible half a century ago, more or less . . . ]

http://surfwhammys.com/Ode-To-A-Mode-Surfwhammy-12-31-2010-ST-N3.mp3

Amazing!

So, instead of focusing on what does not work, I focus on discovering (a) what works and (b) how to do what I need to do by adapting, which consistently produces excellent outcomes, for sure . . .

For sure!

Explained another way, prior to discovering Notion 3 and VSTi instruments, I only had real electric guitars, electric basses, a quite elaborate drumkit with plenty of Latin percussion, and a KORG Triton Music Workstation (88-Keys) for doing keyboard-based orchestration using presets that required me to be able to play the various orchestral parts on the keyboard, which was not so easy to do, since my primary instruments are electric bass and electric guitar . . .

But now I have a virtual festival of orchestras that I can control intimately with music notation, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous! :)
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Re: Bug report

Postby trumpeter » Tue Apr 12, 2011 7:01 am

Hi Surfwhammy

How do you get time for all that stuff when you spend so long typing here?

That's just a joke. It's me that always comes across as being awkward and that's bound to be the case here. So please accept my apologies.

Here's a solution to your 500 voices problem: Save your Notion scores as MIDI files, Import them into Logic (you'll need probably three or four mac pros) and then use Logic Node to sync them up. You'll then be able to run the whole thing real time! Still mental, but saving the hundreds of hours of setup time.

Best wishes, Neil
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Re: Bug report

Postby Surfwhammy » Thu Apr 14, 2011 10:06 am

trumpeter wrote:How do you get time for all that stuff when you spend so long typing here?


It is a bit paradoxical, really . . . :D

Mostly, it is a matter of a way to slow everything, since I usually can look at something and recognize its overall pattern nearly instantly, which is a useful skill to have, but sometimes it comes at the expense of missing minutiae, so over the years I have learned that if I write everything in as much detail as possible, then I get all the minutiae, as well as the "big picture" . . .

From a similar perspective, it is a matter of what I call "speed reading" and "slow reading", where as best as I have been able to determine, I am one of the perhaps 10 percent of people on this planet who is a "hearing reader", which is the flavor of "slow reading" where you actually hear words "spoken" in your mind as you read . . .

For quite a while, I thought that this might not be such a common thing, and in an online discussion with a neurologist (Dr. Richard E. Cytowic) who had recently published a fascinating book about people who have a condition called "synesthesia" in which basic perceptions are routed in non-standard ways, I asked a question about whether everyone actually heard words in their minds when they read, and the response from the neurologist was that his best estimate was that only perhaps 10 percent of the people on this planet actually hear words when they read . . .

But the truly fascinating aspect of this particular discussion was the ways people replied, where the replies were divided into two clearly defined groups:

(1) all the people who hear words when they read immediately embarked on vast treatises featuring elaborate prose, perfect spelling, and immaculate grammar . . .

(2) all the people who do not hear the words spoken when they read replied generally with such gems of wisdom as "how wird" and "r u kidn me!"

The reality is that I had to teach myself how to "speed read", and it took several years, but eventually I discovered a way to do it, which basically involves fanning the pages of a book very rapidly from front-to-back and then from back-to-front while looking at everything without actually focusing on anything . . .

[NOTE: For example, I read "Programming Windows" (Charles Petzold) in approximately five minutes this way and then was able to start doing Windows programming, which was pretty cool, except that I tend to have to write a few lines at the start of a program and then switch to writing a few lines at the end of a program, which as best as I can determine is the consequence of reading the odd pages forward and then reading the even pages backward . . . ]

And I think this applies to music, as well, although hopefully at a higher percentage . . .

I have no difficulties hearing an orchestra in my mind, and I think that this probably is the way it works for most musicians, but perhaps not . . .

As best as I can determine, the folks who have difficulties playing instruments and singing probably do not hear music in their minds . . .

For me, the difficult part has been devising a way to do a one-to-one mapping of what I hear in my mind with what I am playing on lead guitar, electric bass, drums, or keyboards, but after working on it diligently for the past five or so years, I am making excellent progress, for sure . . .

[NOTE: Around this time, I discovered something I call "playing textures", which I first started doing on electric bass, since I have played bass the longest, and I got the idea from one of my friends from high school days who is a graphic designer and photographer, and who has been trying to explain "textures" to me for decades with little progress until several years ago, which was around the time I discovered how to do the one-to-one mapping of what I hear in my mind with what I play on bass guitar, which I now do in real-time on the fly without needing to give it much conscious thought, at all . . . ]

And for me, it mostly was a matter of discovering how to avoid thinking in any immediately conscious way, which primarily involves temporarily suspending judgment with respect to whether notes and phrases sound "good", "bad", or "indifferent", since my theory is that the unconscious mind knows considerably more than the conscious mind, so if you temporarily park the conscious mind somewhere else, then you can do amazing things . . .

As noted in a few posts every once in a while, I started working on this at least two decades ago when I had the idea that I could teach myself how to play grand piano simply by thinking about it, which is a bit off-the-wall, really . . .

Really!


So, I thought about playing grand piano for two decades, which included watching a lot of videos of Liberace and Chico Marx playing piano, during which time I typically would tinker on a grand piano for about 10 minutes perhaps three or so times a year as a type of "pop quiz" . . .

Then, approximately five years ago I got an Alesis ION Analog Modeling Synthesizer to make space noises for an old-time radio style science fiction series, and I discovered that all the white keys sounded "good" with the electric guitar stuff I already had played and recorded, which I thought was pretty strange but convenient, so I started adding keyboard stuff to the music, which quite curiously was very easy for me to do . . .

And after getting a drumkit and discovering how to play drums, I had the idea that since grand piano is a percussion instrument, as is rhythm guitar, perhaps I could play grand piano as if it were a drumkit, which led to a series of experiments that tended to coincide with consuming huge quantities of Massimo Zanetti Master Chef coffee made in the ratio of 1/2 cup ground coffee to 12 ounces of water at the ideal brewing temperature of 200 degrees Fahrenheit, with the result that so long as I am able not to think about what I am doing in any immediately conscious way, I can do this for hours at a time, which in some respects is an idiot savant type of activity:

[NOTE: The grand piano is played on a KORG Triton Music Workstation (88-Keys) using a preset that includes a bit of synthesized fog, and it was composed and played in real-time on the fly exactly one time, and while it might sound like a virtual festival of pianos, this is because I like stereo panning and heavily cascaded echo units, and the reality is that playing lead guitar and drums makes this mapping considerably easier, but so what. It took approximately 20 years and perhaps 20 hours of actual piano practice, but it worked, which is fine with me . . . ]

http://www.surfwhammys.com/music/11_Starlight_2.2_Grand_Piano.mp3

And even more recently, I realized that it is quite likely that I discovered a way essentially to rewire my mind to use the Frontal Eye Fields (FEF) region of my brain in conjunction with the auditory cortex, which is the only possible way to move my fingers so rapidly, which is fabulous . . .

[NOTE: The key bit of information about the Frontal Eye Fields region of the brain is that it maps to being able to do auditory stuff in as quickly as 24 milliseconds from the time the thought initially occurs, which maps to being able to do things at the rate of 50 notes per second, more or less, which I suggest is so rapid that there is no way actually to think about it in an immediately conscious way, hence the aspect of temporarily suspending judgment and conscious thinking, which maps to doing only the minimal amount of what in Freudian terminology is ego and superego mentation toward the goal of allowing the id to do nearly all the actual work . . . ]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontal_eye_fields

Fabulous! :)
The Surf Whammys

Sinkhorn's Dilemma: Every paradox has at least one non-trivial solution!
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