Lost forum messages

[elerouxx]

Is there a problem with the forums? I noticed loss of the latest replies to several threads I was following.

[robsogge]

I noticed that too... a couple of threads got lost, it gives me an uncomfortable feeling seeing that there's no moderator commenting or giving explanations... feels like an abandoned place...

[elerouxx]

Yeah, it has been lonely over here. Sometimes I get the (hopefully wrong) impression that Notion is abandoned.

[robsogge]

Yeah, it has been lonely over here. Sometimes I get the (hopefully wrong) impression that Notion is abandoned.

I hope not, because they have a winning product... if they just keep on perfecting it and listening to users' requests.

[Surfwhammy]

My most recent comment to the "Notion same as Notion SLE for Miroslav?" thread is gone, and I do not have a copy of it, so my best guess is that something happened with the FORUM server and they had to do a restore from a somewhat recent backup . . .

I usually save copies of my posts in PDF format, but I did not save a copy of my most recent post, since I usually do this when the page count increments, and the page count had not incremented . . .

My general experience with website servers in the lower price range is that they tend only to do daily backups with no history, so if a website gets zapped, then you can only go back as far as the most recent archive, which I learned after making a tiny mistake that zapped a lot of recent work for which I had no local backup, with the result now that I do my own website archiving locally, since I did not discover my mistake until a week or so later, at which point the website server folks only could restore the website from the previous day, which did not have the most recent work that I zapped, which was a bit annoying, but stuff happens, so you regroup and move forward with a new and better strategy . . .

Lots of FUN . . .

P. S. Regarding future versions of NOTION, I think that Notion Music knows that they have a stellar application foundation that can be enhanced and expanded in ways that are mind-boggling with respect to increasing usability, creativity, and productivity, which is my vision for the future and is based on a combination of (a) being a degreed Computer Scientist with extensive GUI and database experience (over three decades), (b) being a proficient musician, (c) having an unique understanding of Mathematics and Geometry as it applies specifically to the techniques of Joseph Schillinger's 'System of Musical Composition (SoMC)", and (d) understanding how to make extraordinarily complex stuff practical . . .

And some of the more obvious things for the most part are just a matter of doing a bit of algorithm designing using well-established and fully-understood rules of music, where for example a quick overview of the TC-Helicon "VoiceWorks" vocal processor provides the clue that there are no mysteries involved in generating multivoice harmony in a variety of scales, musical modes, styles, and so forth . . .

In fact, Finale already does this, where it is called "Band-in-a-box Auto Harmonizing" and maps to being able to generate algorithmically up to 6-part harmony from a basic melody or whatever . . .

Band-in-a-box Auto Harmonizing (Finale)

Whatever!

Doing this type of mathematical and algorithmic work is straightforward, since everything is known in extraordinary explicit detail, which makes it primarily a matter of programming resources, with the caveat that the software engineers need to know a good bit of information about scales, musical modes, rules of harmony, and a bunch of other stuff, as well as how to map everything to computer code . . .

For example, doing the algorithm designing for multivoice harmony is considerably easier when software engineers know some of the stuff in the following topic in the GuitarZone.com FORUM, which among things documents the way I made sense of musical modes, scales, and all that stuff over a few months as part of the research for a Surf Whammys song in the Bulería style of Flamenco, and is one of the reasons that I post treatises to a few FORUMS, since by the time I can write about something, it makes sense to me, and the more I write about something, the more insights I have, which is fabulous . . .

Modes Applied to Flamenco (GuitarZone.com FORUM)



[NOTE: This is the basic rhythm section and melody, which is done with music notation and IK Multimedia virtual instruments in NOTION 3 (Notion Music) . . . ]

"Maríta de la Luna y Pablito el Petardo (No Es Tanto Lo Que Es Como Lo Que No Es)" (The Surf Whammys) -- MP3 (7.8MB, 279-kbps [VBR], approximately 3 minutes and 40 seconds)

Fabulous!

Once you understand the basic principles of Joseph Schillinger's "System of Musical Composition (SoMC)", which for reference does not require being able to make sense of any of the vastly abstruse formulas from the perspective of traditional music theory, doing a DISCO or Pop song is no more difficult than making Kraft Macaroni and Cheese or a pot of coffee . . .

It takes a while, but this only is because there currently are no tools that make it easy to do the basic stuff . . .

Whether the universe will be improved significantly when composers have the ability essentially to "AUTO-TUNE" DISCO and Pop songs ad nauseam is a matter best reserved for metaphysicists and philosophers. but the fact of the matter is that it is not difficult to do, even when you have no option but to do it manually rather than via artificial intelligence and an intuitive auditory and visual user interface. . .

I already know how to do it, although without access to the NOTION Software Development Kit (SDK) and Application Programming Interface (API)--since currently there is none available to third-party developers--it is a bit of a hassle, and it might be the case that I am the only person on this planet who has any interest in using NOTION in this way, but so what . . .

So what!

Yet, the general set of techniques that work for DISCO and Pop songs apply just as easily to every other genre, and it certainly has the potential to be a stellar composition tool for certain types of composing, so I work on it every so often, when I am not focused intensely on something else, where for reference my current intense focus is on solving what I call the "studio monitoring system" problem, which I am documenting in a topic in the IK Multimedia FORUM, which is based on what for me were two mind-boggling epiphanies, both of which I knew but not in any immediately conscious way until recently . . .

(1) All commercial off the shelf (COTS) studio monitoring systems are incapable of reproducing the full-range of sounds for normal human hearing (20-Hz to 20,000-Hz) at an equal loudness curve (a.k.a "flat") unless you augment them with deep bass subwoofers that double or triple the cost of the resulting studio monitoring systems, which includes the most advanced studio monitoring system made by JBL, which without the deep bass subwoofers has to resort to auditory illusions to attempt to reproduce the notes on the first five frets of the low-pitch "E" string of an electric bass guitar at standard tuning (Concert A = 440-Hz) . . .

[NOTE: The lower frequency deep bass tones are present in the various COTS studio monitoring systems, but they are not present at equal loudness, which is the problem, and this maps to not hearing music and singing correctly, which in turn maps to mixing without being able to hear the actual sounds completely and fully, which for all practical purposes results in spinning wheels, since if what you hear when mixing is inaccurate, then you are making decisions and judgements based on false information. And the somewhat paradoxical aspect of this for fundamental tone hearers is that even if they anatomically or physiologically cannot hear the lowest frequencies, the lower frequencies must be present in the sound reproduced by the studio monitoring system, because the deep bass frequencies affect the way midrange and higher frequencies interact, because all of it (the full range) needs to fit into what one might call the "digital pipe" through which everything is played in the digital universe, where yet another way to explain the problem is that mixing with less than full-range flat-response studio monitoring systems is like mixing everything so that it fits inside a limited-range pipe, which is not the same as mixing everything so that it fits inside a full-range pipe and is similar to attempting to do photography with a full-color camera but then trying to adjust and fine-tune the color on a computer display that does not have any blue pixels . . . ]

(2) Recent research at Heidelberg University strongly suggests that there are two general ways that the people of this planet hear music, and this is based on the "Missing Fundamental" phenomenon of Psychoacoustics:

Missing Fundamental (wikipedia)

(2.1) Fundamental Tone Hearers: These are the folks who hear fundamental tones and are not affected by the "Missing Fundamental" phenomenon, which from my perspective is an auditory illusion, although the "Missing Fundamental" phenomenon is not generally considered to be an auditory illusion, per se . . .

(2.2) Overtone Hearers: These are the folks who focus on hearing overtones and, consequently, are easily deluded by the "Missing Fundamental" phenomenon, hence simply do not notice that modern state-of-the-art studio monitoring systems without the required deep bass subwoofers for all practical purposes are useless . . .

[NOTE: The "Missing Fundamental" phenomenon is the latest epiphany here in the sound isolation studio, but I already was doing what is required to provide the solution, so I was doing the right things but did not know why in any immediately conscious way until about a week ago . . . ]

There is a simple auditory test that provides clues to whether one is a fundamental tone hearer or an overtone hearer, and after taking the test, it is clear that I am a fundamental tone hearer, which explains a virtual festival of things that have been making me a bit crazy over the past few years . . .

The auditory test file is found at the following link to a discussion in the Hydrogen Audio FORUM . . .

How do you hear tones? (Hydrogen Audio FORUM)

[NOTE: The audio clip for the test is a FLAC format file, and the VLC Media Player (videoLAN) plays FLAC format files, where there are Mac and Windows versions of the VLC Media Player . . . ]

Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) -- Soudforge.net -- Overview

VLC Media Player (VideoLAN Organization) -- Overview

[NOTE: There are twelve pairs of notes in the audio clip, and the test consists of listening to each pair, which is announced in German and then played one time, followed by writing on a piece of paper whether the two notes are increasing or decreasing in pitch, where if the second note is higher than the first note, then the pair of notes is increasing, but if the second note is lower than the first note, then the pair of notes is decreasing. The way to interpret the answers to the test is explained in the full discussion in the Hydrogen Audio FORUM topic (see above) . . . ]

Test Audio Clip -- "audio.de.overtone.flac" (2.8MB)

And this is the link to the ongoing studio monitoring system topic in the IK Multimedia FORUM, which is coming along nicely, where the strategy is use a pair of Kustom KPC15P 15" Powered PA Speakers (which currently cost $129 [US] at Musician's Friend) in combination with a Behringer DEQ2496 Ultra-Curve Pro Mastering Processor and matching Behringer ECM8000 Ultra-Linear Measurement Condenser Microphone, Nady DSM-1 SPL Meter, and the ARC System (IK Multimedia) in a patently non-standard but amazing way that continues to look to be a stellar full-range (20-Hz to 20,000-Hz) equal loudness curve (a.k.a., "flat") at a sound pressure level (SPL) of 80dB to 85dB studio monitoring system for less than $750, where the 80dB to 85dB SPL is a bit on the high side but is necessary at least some of the time when mixing and mastering, although it is just as easy to calibrate the studio monitoring system for use at the more comfortable listening levels of (a) 70dB to 75dB and (b) 75dB to 80dB, since the Behringer and IK Multimedia equalizing and calibrating systems support storing and then recalling custom equalizing and calibration configurations, which is fabulous . . .
. . .

The Fabulous Affordable Studio Monitor System Project (IK Multimedia FORUM)

Fabulous!

[Admin]

Sorry for the lack of presence here folks!! Thankfully it is because we've been REALLY busy over here at HQ.

Good news is definitely around the corner and I'll try to make sure to stay on top of letting you all know as soon as I can!

-Kyle

[robsogge]

thanks for chiming in, Kyle... good to know this is still a living place. Can't wait to see what's coming

[fabiolcati]

Sorry for the lack of presence here folks!! Thankfully it is because we've been REALLY busy over here at HQ.
Good news is definitely around the corner and I'll try to make sure to stay on top of letting you all know as soon as I can!
-Kyle

The message we hope will be never go lost!

[elerouxx]

Sorry for the lack of presence here folks!! Thankfully it is because we've been REALLY busy over here at HQ.
Good news is definitely around the corner and I'll try to make sure to stay on top of letting you all know as soon as I can!
-Kyle

The message we hope will be never go lost!

Of course i (we all?) prefer that the team is working on the software than replying lots of forum messages, but a single word is way better than complete silence. Thanks for coming by, Kyle! keep the good work.

[wcreed51]

Sorry for the lack of presence here folks!! Thankfully it is because we've been REALLY busy over here at HQ.

Good news is definitely around the corner and I'll try to make sure to stay on top of letting you all know as soon as I can!

-Kyle

But how far away is the corner? It's very telling that no one even bothers to comment or whine about the lack of updates or news. The long time users that used to post a lot are no longer heard from. You need to tell us something REAL.