Miroslav and Notion 3

[dcuny]

I'm sorry, I should have been more clear. The "popping" only occurs under Notion, not with external programs. I only mentioned other programs (Reaper, actually) as an example of non-NOTION programs which had similar resource issues on my machine.

Thanks for explaining that NOTION is loading "full" instruments - it should come in handy in the future. For now, I'll probably stick with Sections, since that seems to work well on my machine.

It might be helpful if this sort of stuff were documented in the manual. (hint, hint ).

Thanks!

[Surfwhammy]

Miroslav handles VSTi a little differently than does GPO. You are most definately running out of resources and this is why the program is crashing. You can only use about 3-3.5 GB of Ram on a 32 bit machine/OS. If you are using Windows 7 (which has a different memory manager than does XP) and 4 GB of RAM, you can load about 12-14 Miroslav instruments without crashing the program. Due to the way Miroslav is designed, I'm afraid that we cannot do anything differently.

This matches my experience with all the IK Multimedia virtual instruments, which is what I use primarily, although I also use the Notion 3 guitar--since it supports all the advanced electric guitar articulations, including whammy (a personal favorite)--and a few of the LSO orchestral instruments . . .

For the most part, at high-quality resolution all the IK Multimedia products are "heavy" in terms of computer hardware and application workspace usage, where the reigning "heavy" IK Multimedia product is AmpliTube 3, which is pretty much on par with Panorama 5 (Wave Arts), which does 3D spatial positioning (a personal favorite), although as best as I have been able to determine AmpliTube 3 and Panorama 5 are more processor-intensive than memory-intensive, with this being one of the reasons that I switched from an iMac G5 to the 2.8-GHz 8-core Mac Pro a while ago, which tends to support the processor-intensive hypothesis . . .

Since I now am doing everything using the technique where I begin a song by doing what I call a "basic rhythm section" in Notion 3, which I follow by getting the Notion 3 "basic rhythm section" recorded in Digital Performer 7 via ReWire, it is very important to me to be able to have as many as 500 to 1,000 instruments, which of course is beyond the capabilities of everything (Digital Performer 7, Notion 3, ReWIre, and so forth and so on), so after a lot of experimenting and testing I devised a very nice system where I start with a Notion 3 "basic rhythm section", which I limit to somewhere in the range of 15 to 25 instruments, all of which are "heavy" IK Multimedia virtual instruments, and then I make several clones of this Notion 3 score, where I give each cloned score the name of the particular song appended with an identifier to indicate the specific section of instruments that it contains . . .

So, for example, the "basic rhythm section" for "(Baby You Were) Only Dreaming" is named "(Baby You Were) Only Dreaming PT 1", and it goes in a folder named "(Baby You Were) Only Dreaming" . . .

As I add more instruments, there soon is a set of these scores (PT 1, PT2, . . . PT n), and I get everything into Digital Performer 7 via ReWire where I record it as soundbites, but I also merge the Digital Performer 7 sound bites when the number of tracks gets around 25, since there is a limit to the number of tracks that Digital Performer 7 can handle, all of which is fine with me . . .

I build a song in layers, and I do it what essentially is the digital version of the way songs were built in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s by using multiple magnetic tape machines, so this is great, and I know how to do it, plus there is no "generational tone loss" in the digital universe, although there is another problem, which is that background noise accumulates, but there are strategies for minimizing the accumulation of background noise . . .

Another thing I do is to reserve a few instruments in each Notion 3 score clone for reference purposes, where I will have a kick drum track, chord track (piano or rhythm guitar), and a melody track, as well sometimes as a harmony track, common to every cloned Notion 3 score, so that when I am working on a new section of instruments I hear enough of the song to know where stuff happens and so forth, which by the time I finish the "basic rhythm section" is all I need for reference purposes, since by that time I have listened to the song enough times to know exactly which instruments I want to add, what the instruments need to play, and when the various notes and phrases need to occur . . .

So, everything is fabulous here in the sound isolation studio, and Notion 3 has transformed the way I create songs, as well as greatly improved the way the songs sound . . .

QUESTION: Is the limitation on the number of "heavy" IK Multimedia virtual instruments and other "heavy" VST plug-ins in a Notion 3 score mostly a matter of limitations on 32-bit memory space, such that if Notion becomes a 64-bit application, then I can have a lot more "heavy" VSTi instruments and VST plug-ins in a Notion score?

If so, then this definitely is valuable to me and certainly is something for which I am ready, willing, and able to pay a reasonable price for an upgrade, since it will save me a lot of time . . .

On the other hand, I am very happy with Notion 3 as it is, and the system I devised for having a lot of instruments works very nicely for my needs, which is fabulous . . .

[NOTE: This is the "basic rhythm section" for the current song I am developing, and everything is done in Notion 3 with music notation and "heavy" IK Multimedia virtual instruments, and there are 25 instruments, which is the upper limit for this particular set of virtual instruments. So, it is "PT 1", and everything then switches to adding more instruments in a clone, which becomes "PT 2", and so forth and so on essentially for as many instruments as I need, with some Digital Performer 7 track merging along the way to keep the number of tracks in Digital Performer 7 at a reasonable number. This is a headphone mix, and I have some of the instruments a bit louder, since I use them as cues for various purposes, including practicing the phrasing of the vocal melody and lyrics . . . ]

"(Baby You Were) Only Dreaming" (The Surf Whammys) -- MP3 (9.2MB, 280-kbps [VBR], approximately 4 minutes and 24 seconds)

Fabulous!

P. S. The first one of these songs I did with Notion 3 and IK Multimedia virtual instruments took about 500 hours, but I was learning how everything works, as well as getting up to speed on music notation . . .

In contrast, the "basic rhythm section" for "(Baby You Were) Only Dreaming" (see above) took about 50 hours, so with a few more songs and a bit of additional learning about all this stuff, I am getting nearer to having a system with which I can do a silly DISCO or Pop song in perhaps 10 hours, which will greatly increase my ability to flood the market with this stuff and might actually map to doubling international sales of Surf Whammys albums from 1 to 2, for sure . . .

For sure!

[elerouxx]

The short answer is: good and cheap RAM

[Surfwhammy]

The short answer is: good and cheap RAM

So long as NOTION is a 32-bit application, the correct answer is that any memory beyond 4GB is never used, because 4GB is the theoretical maximum for a 32-bit application workspace . . .

The best answer is that NOTION needs to be a 64-bit application, for sure . . .

For sure!

[pcartwright]

I'm attempting to use Miroslav with Notion 3, but I'm having a lot of difficulty.

Edit: I forgot to mention, I'm running on Windows Vista.

If you need to access more RAM on a 64 bit machine, try jBridge. It's a useful little program that runs VSTs through their own process so that you can use additional RAM that is otherwise capped by a 32 bit application (i.e. Notion). jBridge is Windows only I believe, but I use it regularly and it works like a charm. If, however, you are running a 32 bit OS, then jBridge won't do that much for you.

[catshsh]

Hi all,

The only way I found to run Notion 3 with Miro and a lot of instruments on my Vista 32 environment, is tricking a bit. Using ensembles, and getting rid of samples I do not use in specific instruments' articulations. For instance, one can delete the 11-violins stuff when using violins if these are not needed (by the whay, I could not find the standard parameterization in the prules file that triggers these 11-violin stuffs). This makes the instance of Miro for violins much lighter.

To my opinion, Miro has got a set of samples that sounds very warm. Thanks to Notion for providing this as a standard soundset. But!
But... Please, Notion guys, could you provide us with a lighter version of miro instruments parameterization that corresponds in a better way to articulations notation ? Choices of 11 violins or 23, but not a mix of the two as an example. Moreover, Miro has tons of atomic samples for horns that are natively unused in notion... Same for woodwinds...

I know, one can manually setup his/her own set of instruments, but this is time waisting, not music creating.

[elerouxx]

I just posted custom rules and presets for Miroslav in the Custom Rules forum. However, these aren't any lighter than current rules and presets. Miroslav is a little heavier on resources than GPO or native Notion instruments - I just bought 4GB more Ram just to make things easier.

I think the Sections instruments are a good way to save resources, if you don't need all the effects.

The Woodwinds I, for instance, include piccolo, flute, oboe and english horn in a single interface, with basic articulation channels that are covered by the rules. (legato and staccato, mostly).

For instance:

You add only one instance of the Woodwinds I section, and use the Instrument Change dialog (Shift I) to select Channel 1 for piccolo.

To add another instrument of this section, you add a BASIC STAFF, go to Instrument Change again (shift i) and click on 'show all instruments' checkbox, so all the already loaded instances of instruments show up. You then select the same instance of 'woodwinds I', and set the channel to 3 for flute, and so on.

You can edit the text of the Instrument Change marking to "flute" or "piccolo", and the name of the staff will change automatically. You can then hide the text marking in the score. Repeat this for the other instruments of the section and you will have a woodwind quartet low on the CPU, working very fine with the original rules or the ones I shared.

[elerouxx]

Here, I am attaching a file that was done with this method. There was no need for complex editing of the VST channels in Miro, and only 1 instance of Woodwinds I is used. Since rules are already programmed to play staccatos or legatos, or effects like fluttertongue if they exist, this is a quite straightforward process and you can start composing right away.

The only thing it doesn't handle automatically isinstrument transposition. But, you could easily create template .notion files with already set orquestras or ensembles with correctly transposed clefs for the instruments (set in Staff Settings).

woodwinds1.notion

Example of using a single interface

(2.31 MiB) Downloaded 418 times

I hope this helped.