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Help with Garageband and Notion 3 Rewire

A Forum to Discuss NOTION

Help with Garageband and Notion 3 Rewire

Postby JonnyLost » Sun Apr 10, 2011 7:56 am

Hello everyone,

I have had Notion for a while, but just got to the point where I would like to start using it. I, as many other here, would like to be able to compose to picture, so I was trying to utilize the Rewire option with Garageband 11. For the life of me, it is not working!! I've followed the tutorials on the Notion website, but to no avail.

I've also tried using it with Logic Express, but it isn't working either. I have Notion's Rewire functionality enabled. I can't seem to get either program to recognize Notion.

I admit, I'm a complete noob when it comes to Rewire. Does anyone have a step-by-step process of how to get Notion 3 and Garageband 11 to work correctly?

Thanks,
Jonny
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Re: Help with Garageband and Notion 3 Rewire

Postby Surfwhammy » Sun Apr 10, 2011 2:07 pm

JonnyLost wrote:Does anyone have a step-by-step process of how to get Notion 3 and Garageband 11 to work correctly?


I have GarageBand '08, which is v4.1.2 but it comes with iLife '08, so if one is being very precise, you have GarageBand '11, which is v9.0, although there might be some updates to it, in which it will be v9.n.n, where the "n.n" part will indicate the minor version numbers, but so what . . .

So what!

This is the Apple Support information on using GarageBand '11 (v9.0) with ReWire:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html ... 3914f.html

I did a few experiments, and the instructions for doing ReWire with Notion 3 are not going to be helpful and, in fact, will be wrong based on what I discovered in about 10 minutes of testing . . .

The reason is that GarageBand '08 does only a minimal level of ReWire, and it does it in the simplest possible way, which is something that Apple can do, because it has access to rocket scientists who understand Core Audio but have nearly no clues about ReWire . . .

So, in great contrast to the way ReWire actually is supposed to be done, which (a) involves using ReWire channels and (b) is the way the Notion 3 user manual explains how to do ReWire, Apple does the opposite, which is a bit confusing unless you understand the virtual festival of ways that computer programmers think, especially when they work primarily with C++ and the various frameworks rather than with low-level C/API . . .

Consequently, instead of assigning each Notion 3 individual instrument track and bus track (if you are using bus tracks) to output to a ReWire channel, you leave each Notion 3 individual instrument and bus track assigned to "Master", while the Master output track will have its output set to "Default" . . .

[NOTE: This is the reason that I emphasized the importance of noticing apparently insignificant things like apostrophes and product names versus application version numbers, because "Master" has an entirely different usage and meaning than Master, which I tried to make less confusing by not including the bit of information that "Master" is the default value for the Output of individual instrument and bus tracks in Notion 3, since I thought that having "Master" and Master was enough without also having "Default" and default . . . ]

And while I am not an expert on the inner workings of ReWire, I know enough about it to make it work very nicely in Mac OS X 10.6.7 with Digital Performer 7, which so far (a) has required avoiding using channels 1 through 10 and (b) has required adding four empty measures at the start of the Notion 3 score to allow sufficient time for Digital Performer 7 and Notion 3 to engage productively in hand-shaking or establishing some type of effectively and reliable communication that does not cause Digital Performer 7 to crash and Notion 3 to go into La-La Land, but so what . . .

So what!

It works, and it is completely and totally accurate and reliable, which basically is the gold standard for excellence here in the sound isolation studio, for sure . . .

For sure!

All computer software has eccentricities, bugs, and strange behaviors, and there is no way to avoid it, so the key is to focus on discovering what computer software does accurately, correctly, and reliably . . .

[NOTE: It is normal to be believe that computer software can be perfect, but Alonzo Church, Alan Turing, Kurt Friedrich Gödel, et al. pretty much put an end to that nonsense in the 1930s, and the bits that they missed were covered by Richard Feynman sometime later, although in some respects Albert Einstein and Werner Heisenberg covered everything a few years earlier, albeit in ways that nobody was able to understand for a while . . . ]

Basically, all you need to do is check the "Enable ReWire" option in Notion 3 Preferences, and there you are . . .

These are the steps:

(1) Start GarageBand and open a project . . .

(2) Start Notion 3 and open a score . . .

And quite automagically, GarageBand and Notion 3 work cooperatively with respect to their transports, which basically is pretty much the extent of what GarageBand supports for ReWire . . .

In other words, if you press the Play button on the GarageBand transport, then it will start playing and Notion 3 also will start playing at the same measure or location within the song . . .

If you want to change the volume level or panning of the Notion 3 material, then you have to do it in the Notion 3 Mixer, because GarageBand only receives the audio that is output by Notion 3 . . .

Additionally, you cannot record the Notion 3 generated audio directly in GarageBand . . .

So, the primary use in this scenario is to hear but not to record the Notion 3 generated audio in GarageBand, which I suppose can be helpful . . .

If you want to get the Notion 3 generated audio into GarageBand, you need to export the Notion 3 generated audio as a WAVE file, which you then can import to GarageBand, which will work nicely . . .

As noted, I use Digital Performer 7, which does ReWire with Notion 3 so that the audio generated by Notion 3 appears in individual tracks in Digital Performer 7 based on ReWire channel assignments, and I then record the Notion 3 generated audio as what in Digital Performer 7 are called "soundbites" . . .

In some respects, it is a complex activity, but once you do it a few times and develop a system it is very straightforward, and it is very powerful, for sure . . .

For sure!

In fact, Notion 3 is the foundation for every song I do, even if the song is not expected to have any orchestration or instrumentation done via music notation, in which case I start with a pair of kick drum tracks and some piano tracks for tuning reference tones in Notion 3 via music notation, which forms the foundation for the Digital Performer 7 project for the song . . .

The advantage of beginning with Notion 3 is that if at some later time I decide to add orchestration, everything is synchronized with Notion 3 (tempo and tuning), so I can switch to doing music notation in Notion 3 for the added orchestration and instrumentation, followed by gettng that new material into Digital Performer 7, where it will be synchronized with everything else that already is in Digital Performer 7 . . .

And if I need to insert new measures or sections into the middle of a song, there are editing tools in Digital Performer 7 that make it easy to work with already recorded soundbites of real instruments and singing, so it is a very complete system, but I also include Reason 5 (Propellerhead Software) in the system, although it interacts with Notion 3 in a different way (via MIDI), except that I devised a technique for keeping Notion 3 as the foundation and anchor, which is done by using a Piano or some other VSTi instrument in Notion 3 as a surrogate for what the various Reason 5 synthesizers will be playing, and I export the Notion 3 information for the Piano or whatever as a MIDI file, which I import to Reason 5 and assign to one or more of its synthesizer tracks, where after having a bit of FUN with Reason 5 I ReWire the Reason 5 generated audio to Digital Performer 7, which basically is sufficiently complex to cause a bit of head spinning, but so what . . .

So what!

It works, and when combined with all the virtual instruments from IK Multimedia, it maps to having an orchestra with perhaps 250,000 musicians playing nearly every instrument existing on this planet and a few planets in other galaxies, as well . . .

At present, it takes approximately 250 hours to do what I call a "basic rhythm section", which can appear to be a long time until you consider how long it takes 10 people to do essentially the same thing with real instruments, in which case if 10 people work on the "basic rhythm section" for a song for 25 hours, this maps to 250 hours, except that you have to 9 people who will work for free or you have to pay them, and even if they will work for free, you have supervise them, so I am fine with working on a "basic rhythm section" for 250 hours, since everything works like a finely tuned clock . . .

For reference, this is the "basic rhythm section" for a song I am doing in response to the being a bit annoyed by Miley Cyrus "borrowing" my idea for the Venetian mask in her music video for the European Single of "Who Owns My Heart", which is the way things happen here in the sound isolation studio, where pretty much everything I do is based on being annoyed by something, which is fabulous . . .

[NOTE: This is the official YouTube music video for the European Single of "Who Owns My Heart" (Miley Cyrus) . . . ]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVbQxC2c3-8

[NOTE: This is the "basic rhythm section" for "Feel Me" (The Surf Whammys), and it is approximately 50 instruments, so it needs another 100 or so instruments to do all the "sparkles", which are the motion bits, some of which are done, so if you listen with studio-quality headphones like the SONY MDR-7506 you will hear apparently random notes and phrases all over the place in motion, which is what I call "sparkles". And all the instruments are done with music notation and VSTi instruments in Notion 3, and so far this represents approximately 150 hours of work. The real lead guitar solos will take about 15 minutes, as will the singing, except that I will enhance the singing in the Melodyne Editor, which takes about 50 hours, and then I need to add more "sparkles" and a kazoo . . . ]

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

Fabulous! :)
The Surf Whammys

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Re: Help with Garageband and Notion 3 Rewire

Postby JonnyLost » Sun Apr 10, 2011 2:56 pm

Wow, thanks for the reply.

These are the steps:

(1) Start GarageBand and open a project . . .

(2) Start Notion 3 and open a score . . .

And quite automagically, GarageBand and Notion 3 work cooperatively with respect to their transports, which basically is pretty much the extent of what GarageBand supports for ReWire . . .



Unfortunately, that is exactly what I've been doing, but it is not working. It doesn't really matter to me if the audio tracks show up in Garageband. I'm soley looking to use the video hosting aspect of GB, while doing the bulk of the scoring in Notion. I must be doing something wrong, somewhere! :-)

A while ago, I came across a vst plug-in that played video files. I managed to find it again. Unfortunely, it is a .dll file, which doesn't play well in the Mac world.

Any other thoughts? Could Rewire be disabled on my macbook somehow? Is there an update Rewire driver that may be the problem?

Thanks again. Hopefully, we can get this thing working!

Jonny
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Re: Help with Garageband and Notion 3 Rewire

Postby Surfwhammy » Sun Apr 10, 2011 10:05 pm

JonnyLost wrote:Wow, thanks for the reply.

These are the steps:

(1) Start GarageBand and open a project . . .

(2) Start Notion 3 and open a score . . .

And quite automagically, GarageBand and Notion 3 work cooperatively with respect to their transports, which basically is pretty much the extent of what GarageBand supports for ReWire . . .



Unfortunately, that is exactly what I've been doing, but it is not working. It doesn't really matter to me if the audio tracks show up in Garageband. I'm soley looking to use the video hosting aspect of GB, while doing the bulk of the scoring in Notion. I must be doing something wrong, somewhere! :-)

Any other thoughts?


Glad you enjoyed it! :)

Over the years, I have discovered that if I write in great detail about something, then (a) I understand it better and (b) I have more ideas, which is the way it works here in the sound isolation studio . . .

[NOTE: The idea of using GarageBand for playing video is intriguing, and if it works, then it has quite a few possibilities for folks in the Mac universe. Digital Performer (MOTU) does this, but I have not tried it. Digital Performer 7 works nicely with Notion 3, where Digital Performer 7 is the ReWIre host controller, and you can record Notion 3 generated audio in Digital Performer 7 in a ReWire scenario as soundbites . . . ]

http://www.motu.com/products/software/dp/film-scoring/

It is very important to have the "Enable ReWire" option checked in the Audio pane of Notion 3 preferences, which you find by clicking on the Notion 3 menu item at the top of your Mac OS X screen and then clicking on the "Preferences . . . " menu item, which display a dialog box with several tabs, one of which is "Audio" . . .

[NOTE: Every once in a while, I start Notion 3 and uncheck the "Enable ReWire" option, followed by quitting Notion 3 and then restarting Notion 3 and checking the "Enable ReWire" option, followed by quitting Notion 3. Whether this does anything useful is another matter, but it appeared to be helpful with a few problems I encountered when I was discovering how to get Digital Performer 7 and Notion 3 to do ReWire, so it might do something, although I have no idea what it does, really . . . ]

Image

As noted the individual tracks and bus tracks in Notion 3 need have their Output set to "Master", which is done at the bottom of each track in the Notion 3 Mixer, but the Output of the Master output track (far right) needs to be set to "Default" . . .

The answers to a few questions will be helpful:

(1) QUESTION: Which version of Mac OS X 10 are you running?

[NOTE: Since you are running GarageBand '11, I am presuming that you are running Snow Leopard on a reasonably new Mac, where for example I run everything on a 2.8-GHz 8-core Mac Pro, which is reasonably new but not so new that only Warren Buffet can afford it. For reference, most of the time I get the most current version about a week or two before a new version becomes available, since (a) I like to do my part to help Jeff Bezos fulfill his dream of becoming an astronaut and (b) it tends to be discounted by as much as 8 to 10 percent if you check everything hourly and so forth . . . ]

I am running Mac OS X 10.6.7, which is very nice!

(2) QUESTION: When only Notion 3 is running and you play a song, do you hear the Notion 3 generated audio?

[NOTE: If you hear the audio, then this is great! Otherwise, it provides a clue to several possibilities, all of which have to do with getting the Audio output configured correctly, which can include setting the output correctly for Sound via Mac OS X System Preferences . . . ]

You can see the way I have Notion 3 configured for Audio in the Preferences screen capture (see above), and this is the way I have the audio output configured in the Sound pane for Mac OS X System Preferences, since at present I have a pair of headphones connected to the headphone output jack on the front panel of the Mac Pro . . .

Image

And this is the way I have GarageBand '08 configured for Audio and MIDI, which is done via the GarageBand Preferences dialog, which is found the same way as it is in Notion 3 . . .

Image

IMPORTANT STUFF

The basic rule for ReWire is that the host controller (which in this scenario will be GarageBand) is started first, and then after it is started, you will start the ReWire slave (which in this scenario is Notion 3) . . .

And it is important that no other ReWire applications be running when you start the ReWire host controller application . . .

Additionally, since every software company implements ReWire in varying levels, sometimes you need to restart Mac OS X to clear "helper" processes and whatever . . .

[NOTE: When I first started experimenting with ReWire, I had a MOTU 828mkII connected to the Mac Pro, and sometimes it was necessary to turn-off the MOTU 828mkII and then to restart the Mac Pro to clear something that was involved with the MOTU 828mkII, Mac OS X, or who knows what, but after a while and a bit more experimenting I discovered a series of steps and somewhat strange rules that avoids needing to clear processes by restarting and so forth . . . ]

There is a reasonably simple test that you can do, which is to download the DEMO version of Reason 5 (Propellerhead Software) and see if it works with GarageBand '11 on your Mac. This is something that the folks at MOTU suggested I do, since ReWire is a technology designed and provided by Propellerhead Software, so by installing the DEMO version of Reason 5, if your ReWire software was not current, then it probably will be current after you install the DEMO version of Reason 5 . . .

[NOTE: The DEMO for Reason 5 is found via clicking on the "Downloads" tab at the top-right of the webpage on the orange bar. I use Reason 5 for a few things, but it is not a VSTi instrument, so using it with Notion 3 requires a different strategy, but Reason 5 is great for discovering how low-level synthesizers work, so I like it even though I do not use it so often. Instead, I use SampleTank 2.5 XL (IK Multimedia) and the festival of virtual instruments from IK Multimedia, since (a) I really like synthesizers and (b) SampleTank 2.5 XL and all their VSTi instruments work very nicely with Notion 3 . . . ]

http://www.propellerheads.se/products/reason/

Another thing that you can do is to get SampleTank FREE, which is the full version of the SampleTank engine and comes with a nice set of FREE VSTi instrument sounds. It is not a DEMO version, which also is nice . . .

[NOTE: IK Multimedia currently has a 57 percent discount extravaganza, which maps to being able to get SampleTank 2.5 XL for $99, which is a very good price. Occasionally, they do a Musician's Friend "Stupid Deal of the Day" thing, where you can get one of their virtual instruments for $50, which is the way I got Sonik Synth 2 a few weeks ago. I was going to get SampleMoog in another of their discount deals, but one of the FORUM moderators at the IK Multimedia FORUM told me about the Musician's Friend "Stupid Deal of the Day" event and suggested waiting a few days on SampleMoog, which was very helpful and frugal advice, which kept everything well under the amount of money I had budgeted for SampleMoog by itself, and since IK Multimedia has "JAM Points", I got full retail price JAM Points, which basically maps to getting a $50 discount on anything I purchase at the IK Multimedia Store, which overall maps to getting $500 of great stuff for about $100, which is one of the reasons that I like IK Multimedia. For the most part, they get all my money, but I get a lot of great stuff, so it works nicely for everyone over the long run . . . ]

http://www.ikmultimedia.com/sampletankfree/features/

So, if you get the DEMO version of Reason 5, and you get it working correctly with GarageBand '11, this is a good way to do a bit of troubleshooting . . .

And for reference, there is a YouTube video that shows how to use Reason 5 with GarageBand that has some useful and detailed information on what essentially will be the same technique for using Notion 3 with GarageBand . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooDH1fKyAC8

[NOTE: The most important thing in the strategy where Notion 3 only has its transport controlled by a ReWire host is to ensure that everything is based in Notion 3 rather than in the host controller, where "based" maps to Notion 3 being the foundation and anchor for the song in the literal sense that the tempo, reference tuning tones, and measures are defined and maintained in the basic Notion 3 score. In other words, whatever you do in the host controller is done in such a way that Notion 3 always is what technically is called the "source authority" or "originating source document". The reason for doing it this way is that it ensures that you can add instrumentation and orchestration easily as a song develops, since by basing the real instruments and voices on the Notion 3 score, you can work in Notion 3 with music notation and VSTi instruments but just as easily can work in the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) host controller with real instruments and voices. And while in theory one should be able to use a "click" track in the DAW along with a pair of reference tuning tracks to make the DAW application the source authority or originating source document, if you begin by recording only real instruments and singing done by a human, then it is not so easy to get everything synchronized and tuned when you later decide to start doing instrumentation and orchestration with music notation and VSTi instruments in Notion 3, even though it might be intuitive to think that you can start in the real universe and then later extend it with music notation and virtual instruments in Notion 3. And for reference, using Notion 3 as the source authority or originating source document simply is a matter of having (a) a pair of kick drum tracks for the equivalent of a metronome or "click" track and (b) a pair of piano tracks for reference pitch tuning purposes, where there are a few bars or measures of Concert A (440-Hz) followed by a set of bars or measures with reference tones for tuning electric bass and electric guitar. And I usually do the Notion 3 foundation or anchor tracks for 20 minutes or so when I am not entirely certain how a song might develop, but when I know enough about the song to do a "basic rhythm section", then I keep the total number of bars and measures reasonably consistent with the expected length of the song, although I always include four empty bars or measures at the start of the Notion 3 score, which is necessary to make Digital Performer 7.22 happy when it is the ReWire host controller, which also requires starting no earlier than the beginning of the fifth bar or measure, which I do with what in Digital Performer is called "marker", since starting any earlier causes Digital Performer 7.22 to crash and Notion 3 to go into La-La Land, where since Digital Performer 7.22 crashed, Notion 3 never gets the messages it needs to determine what happened, and I suggest that this is a Digital Performer 7.22 misbehavior, because here in the sound isolation studio the basic rule is that Mac applications are not supposed to fail catastrophically, which basically maps to Digital Performer 7.22 encountering an error condition for which it has no error handler, hence Mac OS X intervenes and zaps the application, but so what . . . ]

CAUTION

I did a bit of Google searching to find information about ReWire and GarageBand, and there is a discussion in one of the Apple forums where someone using the moniker "idiot.radar" provides the advice to reinstall Mac OS X and to install only GarageBand and the Melodyne Editor (Celemony), which is so far beyond goofy that it deserves an "I Have No Sense!™" award . . .

It is OK to use the Mac OS X Disk Utility to Verify Permissions, Repair Permissions, Verify DIsk, and Repair Disk, but there is no need to flatten your Mac and to do a fresh install of Mac OS X . . .

There are some additional things that might be helpful, such as clearing various low-level caches and application preferences, but if that is necessary, then Notion Music Technical Support or AppleCare can tell you how to do it, since although it is easy to do, it tends to wander a bit too far into Mac OS X and UNIX internals for me to be comfortable explaining it . . .

The FACT of the matter is that Mac OS X essentially runs on top of UNIX, and if you are comfortable with having a bit of FUN with UNIX internals, you can do a lot of fascinating things, but you also can do things that even the folks at AppleCare cannot undo, so while I occasionally delve into the somewhat frightening world of UNIX, I mostly never go there, in part because I am so proficient in UNIX stuff . . .

There is lot of UNIX stuff running in the background on the Mac, where for example your Mac is running the Apache web server, JAVA, PHP, and SQLite, as well as bunch of other stuff, but for the most part most folks have no need to know anything about it, and my perspective at present is that it is best when it is something that happens automagically, really . . .

Really!

SUMMARY

One might presume that anything is possible with a computer and software, but the most likely explanation for the difficulties you have encountered is that something very simple is not setup or configured correctly, and it probably is the way the audio output is configured on your Mac . . .

I found a few discussions where folks were reporting strange problems with GarageBand '11, but since I do not have GarageBand '11, there is no way that I can verify any of it . . .

What I can state as a fact is that GarageBand '08 works nicely with the current version of Notion 3, and it is very easy to use, although as noted it simply coordinates and synchronizes the GarageBand '08 and Notion 3 transports, which appears to be exactly what you need to do . . .

[NOTE: A more subtle possibility is that if GarageBand '11 is controlling your video application via ReWire, then you might need to experiment with the order in which you start Notion 3 and the video application after you first start GarageBand, but my best guess is that GarageBand '11 uses QuickTime for video playback and probably does not do it via ReWire, so this is more of a off-the-wall guess. However, you might do an experiment where you use a GarageBand '11 project without any video connected, just to verify that the video playback in GarageBand '11 is not interfering with the ReWire to Notion 3, since it a fact that the QuickTime plug-in or whatever has a transport, so if GarageBand '11 is manipulating multiple transports via ReWire, then this might be involved in the overall problem . . . ]

Lots of FUN! :)

P. S. Another strategy is to contact Notion Music Technical Support, and if you have AppleCare, you can get technical support from Apple, of course . . .

P. P. S. Since I usually like to include a song in my posts, this is the song I did after becoming quite annoyed by there being no lead guitar solo in "Bad Romance" (Lady Gaga), which according to the strange rules here in the sound isolation studio mapped to Lady Gaga needing to be spanked metaphorically, which is fabulous . . .

[NOTE: This is the official YouTube music video for "Bad Romance" (Lady Gaga) . . . ]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrO4YZeyl0I

[NOTE: And this is the current version of "I'm Going Goo-Goo Over Ga-Ga" (The Surf Whammys), which has real vocals, but I have not added the real lead guitar solos. All the instruments are done with music notation and VSTi instruments in Notion 3, primarily using SampleTank 2.5 XL VSTi synthesizers, drumkit, and electric bass guitars, and then the Notion 3 generated audio is recorded in Digital Performer 7 via ReWire as soundbites. It took me several hundred hours to devise a set of rules for doing everything, most of which time was focused on learning how ReWire works, doing a lot of experiments, and so forth. The system is working very nicely, and it is accurate, precise, repeatable, and reliable. This is a headphone mix, which is what I do when I am working on a song, but later I switch to doing loudspeaker mixes, which sound better. I need to add a few more Dubstep, Techno, and Trance "sparkles", but so what . . . ]

http://surfwhammys.com/Im-Going-Goo-Goo-Over-Ga-Ga-11-28-2010-2-DP7.mp3

Fabulous! :D
The Surf Whammys

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Re: Help with Garageband and Notion 3 Rewire

Postby Brian » Mon Apr 11, 2011 12:53 pm

Hi Johnny,

This is Brian from NOTION Music Technical Support. I came across your post in the forum and wanted to shed some light on the situation with ReWire. First of all, is NOTION showing up as a ReWire device in other programs? If not, there may be a permissions problem of some sort that we will need to iron out. Please let me know what OS you are running and we can take it from there.
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Re: Help with Garageband and Notion 3 Rewire

Postby JonnyLost » Mon Apr 11, 2011 1:33 pm

Hello Brian,

Thanks for the help, in advance. I'm not in front of my Mac right now, but I believe it is 10.4.6. I'm about 95% sure that's accurate. I have a 13" Macbook Pro, the newest version of Notion downloaded from the update section on Notion's website and Garageband 11.

Like I stated above, all I'm wanting to do is use the video hosting aspect of Garageband 11 with Notion. Any help you can give will be awesome and greatly appreciated!!

Thanks man,
Jonny
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Re: Help with Garageband and Notion 3 Rewire

Postby Brian » Mon Apr 11, 2011 2:06 pm

Does NOTION show up as a ReWire device in any of your programs?
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Re: Help with Garageband and Notion 3 Rewire

Postby JonnyLost » Mon Apr 11, 2011 3:20 pm

Brian,

Not, that I recall. I can give you a definitive answer when I get home this evening.

Thanks,
Jonny
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Re: Help with Garageband and Notion 3 Rewire

Postby JonnyLost » Mon Apr 11, 2011 8:39 pm

Brian,

OK, I was way off on the OS version. I have OSX 10.6.7. Also, no, Notion is not showing up as a Rewire device in Logic or Garageband.

I hope that helps.

Thanks,
Jonny
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Re: Help with Garageband and Notion 3 Rewire

Postby Surfwhammy » Tue Apr 12, 2011 1:16 am

JonnyLost wrote:I have OSX 10.6.7. Notion is not showing up as a Rewire device in Logic or Garageband.


[NOTE: For reference, I am running Mac OS X 10.6.7 on a 2.8-GHz 8-core Mac Pro with 8GB of memory (8x1GB) and plenty of hard drive storage . . . ]

I do not have Logic, but I have GarageBand '08, and Notion 3 does not appear anywhere in GarageBand '08 as a ReWire slave, since as best as I have been able to determine, Apple only implements controlling the transport of a ReWire slave in GarageBand, so Notion 3 will not appear anywhere in GarageBand '08, which probably is the same with GarageBand '11 . . .

However, Apple has implemented what appears to be the full set of standard ReWire functionality in Logic 8, which is explained in this tutorial for Reason 5 (Propellerhead Software):

http://www.propellerheads.se/substance/rewirehelp/index.cfm?fuseaction=get_article&article=logic8_0

There is a DEMO version of Reason 5, which has a few limitations but is fully sufficient for basic ReWire testing and verifying:

http://www.propellerheads.se/substance/ ... e=logic8_0

"The Reason demo has all the features of the full version but is save/export disabled, has no support for ReFills, and needs to be restarted after 20 minutes."


The only drawback to using the Reason 5 DEMO for ReWire testing is that it is a 600MB download, but it has the advantage of ensuring that the current version of ReWire is installed, and it works . . .

And since Reason 5 works with Logic 8, I think it reasonable to infer that Notion 3 also will work with Logic 8, and the general instructions and procedures will be the same . . .

As noted, when I first began making sense of ReWire--which was an entirely new technology here in the sound isolation studio--I had problems getting Notion 3 to work with Digital Performer 6, which is one of the reasons I upgraded to Digital Performer 7, but I also had problems with Digital Performer 7 doing ReWire with Notion 3, so I called MOTU technical support to get a bit of help, which mostly mapped to being told that it worked and that doing the experiment with the Reason 5 DEMO was a good way to verify that it works. The technical support specialist also suggested getting a DEMO version a Ableton Live, since it was another way to verify that Reason 5 was working, all of which I thought was a bit strange, but I did the DEMO suggestions, and everything was working nicely, at which point I decided that I probably did not understand exactly what needed to be done in Notion 3 and Digital Performer 7 to get ReWire to work correctly, so I did another rather extensive round of experiments and so forth over the next 72 or so hours, with the result that I discovered how to do it . . .

And the way I got ReWire working involves some rather unusual rules:

(1) I avoid using ReWire channels 1 through 10 in Notion 3 . . .

[NOTE: As best as I can determine, there might be a special use for the ReWire channel pair 1-2 in Notion 3, since this appears to be associated in some way with the Notion 3 Master stereo output, but this is only a guess, and there also appear to be problems with single-digit channel numbers, although I am not certain whether it is a problem with Digital Performer 7, Notion 3, or both. So rather than mess with it, I only use two-digit ReWire channels, which works very nicely with no problems . . . ]

(2) I add four empty bars or measures at the beginning of the Notion 3 score, and I never position the transport in Digital Performer 7 before the beginning of the fifth bar or measure, which I do via what in Digital Performer 7 is called a "marker", which is a user-defined starting point that makes it easier to jump to a specific bar or measure, as well as jumping to a specific time . . .

[NOTE: If I rewind the transport to the beginning in Digital Performer 7 and then start playing, Digital Performer 7 crashes and Notion 3 goes into La-La Land, so based on Notion 3 not crashing, I attribute this problem to Digital Performer 7, if only because Mac applications are not supposed to crash, which to me indicates that an error happens that Digital Performer 7 does not handle correctly, so what one might call the "Smelt It-Dealt It" rule applies, since although I call it "La-La Land", the reality is that Digital Performer 7 is the ReWire host controller and the last instruction it gave Notion 3 was to "play", which is what Notion 3 does, since by crashing Digital Performer 7 is not there to give Notion 3 more instructions, hence Notion 3 simply continues following its last command from Digital Performer 7, which was to "play" . . . ]

There are a few other procedures or steps, but mostly these are focused on creating additional stereo tracks in Digital Performer 7 and ensuring that the mapping of Notion 3 tracks and ReWire channels is consistent with the mapping of Digital Performer 7 tracks and ReWIre channels, where in Notion 3 the ReWire channels are assigned as outputs, while in Digital Performer 7 the ReWire channels are assigned as inputs . . .

[NOTE: Based on doing this in sets of 20 stereo tracks at a time, I am convinced that nobody at Notion Music or MOTU ever actually tested ReWire in the scenario where a song has several hundred instruments, which also is the case with the way the Solo button works, since if anyone actually had done this type of testing (a) there would be a way to clear all Solo buttons as well as a way to save Solo button settings in a list and (b) there would be a way to save and load a specific set of ReWire channel assignments in Notion 3 and Digital Performer 7. This is not difficult to do in terms of the required computer programming, which is the reason that I suggest nobody actually does testing with a lot of instrument tracks. I deal with it, but it certainly could be easier, since needing to set 20 pairs of ReWire channels in two programs is a bit too much of a repetitive activity not to have a better way to do it. And with Notion 3, there is another problem, which is that once you set the output for a track to a ReWire channel pair, then you no longer hear the audio for that track in the Notion 3 Mixer, which essentially requires having two versions of a Notion 3 score, where one has the output for tracks set to "Master" so that you can hear the audio, while the other version has the output for tracks set to ReWire channels . . . ]

SUMMARY

As noted, there might be a problem with GarageBand '11, since I found a few discussions that referred to various problems with GarageBand '11, but Logic 8 works with Reason 5, so it also should work nicely with Notion 3 . . .

If Notion 3 is not working correctly on a Mac running Mac OS X 10.6.7, then it is a problem with the way Sound and Audio/MIDI are configured on the machine, but this requires having the "Enable ReWire" option checked in Notion 3 Preferences, and it requires that the output of each track be set to a ReWire channel pair in Notion 3 for the tracks that are intended to be input tracks for Logic 8 . . .

However, for use with GarageBand '08, the rule is reversed, where the Notion 3 tracks must be set to "Master" for the individual tracks and "Default" for the Notion 3 Master stereo output track . . .

(1) For use with Logic 8, you need to set ReWire channel pairs for each instrument track in Notion 3 that you want to control via ReWire in Logic 8 with Logic 8 being the ReWire host controller and Notion 3 being the ReWire slave . . .

(2) The ReWire host controller always is started first, and then the ReWire slave is started. When the ReWire work is complete, the ReWire slave is closed or exited first and then the ReWire host controller is closed or exited last. So to begin you start the ReWire host controller and then start the ReWire slave, but to end you quit the ReWire slave and then quit the ReWIre host controller. And most ReWire host controllers will not let you quit them when there is a ReWire slave running . . .

(3) GarageBand probably implements only the common transport aspects of ReWire, so you cannot record Notion 3 generated audio directly into GarageBand via ReWire, but Logic 8 implements the standard set of ReWire functionality, so you can record Notion 3 generated audio in Logic 8 via controlling Notion 3 in ReWire slave mode, which mostly requires that the ReWire channel assignments be done correctly . . .

As noted, the various Sound settings for the Mac need to be done correctly, as is the case with the various application Audio/MIDI settings . . .

And as I recall, I had to do a virtual festival of experiments over several weeks to discover how ReWire works with Notion 3 and Digital Performer 7, but it was a new technology for me at the time, and I discovered how to make it work, even though the actual documentation for everything in all the relevant applications is sparse at best, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous! :)

P. S. I continue to suggest that this particular problem mostly is a matter of something very simple not being configured properly. Setting the ReWire channel pair assignments is a bit of a hassle, but it is part of doing ReWire both in the host controller (Logic 8) and in the slave (Notion 3). Configuring the audio and MIDI for a DAW also is a bit of a hassle, but it is necessary and cannot be avoided. If you never have done this, then it certainly can appear to be vastly complex, but this is the way it work, and it becomes easier to do when you have done it a few times . . .

Another reality is that doing digital music on a computer is at least as complex as flying a commercial airplane or running a Fortune 500 corporation, but so what . . .

So what!

Digital music is FUN, and the fact of the matter that Digital Performer 7 and Notion 3 do ReWire very accurately and productively on the Mac once you learn how to do it . . .

And while a lot of stuff tends to happen automagically on the Mac, the reality is that ReWire in a full-featured DAW is a power-user activity that requires a good bit of computer knowledge, since it is an interapplication communication and control technology and protocol, which makes it an advanced activity, hence the designation as a "power-user" level activity, where a "power-user" is sufficiently expert in computer skills to be a "developer" level user in at least some respects, which maps to requiring a greater set of skills and expertise, for sure . . .

For sure! :)

P. P. S. To put the amount of work required to make sense of using ReWire productively with DIgital Performer 7 and Notion3 into perspective, I have a Computer Science degree and over 25 years experience doing advanced Windows software architecting, designing, and engineering, which includes extensive SQL database work, as well as over a decade of Mac OS X work, with approximately 5 years of selectively focused Mac OS X development work and a few years of iOS development work, and it took me approximately 150 to 250 hours to discover how do do ReWire with Digital Performer 7 and Notion 3, which included wandering into devising a way to do MIDI with Notion 3 and Reason 5 so that I could do ReWire with Reason 5 and Digital Performer 7 in a way that maintained Notion 3 as the foundation or anchor for everything, which also works very nicely, although it requires an extra roundtrip for the MIDI export from Notion 3 and MIDI import to Reason 5 . . .

And in fairness, approximately 75 percent of the 150 to 250 hours mostly was a matter of my having absolutely no clue what ReWire was or how it worked, with the other 25 percent being devoted to devising "workarounds" for what only can be described as various application-specific "eccentric" behaviors, but so what . . .

So what!

It works like a champ, and I am happy, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous! :)
The Surf Whammys

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