Mandolin

[phalke2001@yahoo.com]

Hi
I need mandolin instrument from Notion. Can it be used in studio one 2.6? I mean can i buy it as a separate vst and use it in S1 without buying Notion?

[Surfwhammy]

Hi
I need mandolin instrument from Notion. Can it be used in studio one 2.6? I mean can i buy it as a separate vst and use it in S1 without buying Notion?

The NOTION 4 Bundled and Expansion Sounds only run in NOTION 4. They are not Audio Unit (AU) or Virtual Studio Technology (VST) instruments, hence the answer to the second question is "No, you will need NOTION 4" . . .

If you want a Mandolin that works as an AU and VSTi virtual instrument, then I recommend the Mandolin from Bolder Sounds, and it requires Kontakt 5 (Native Instruments), although you can use it with the FREE version of the Kontakt 5 Player. This solution costs more, but it is at the high-end of Mandolin sample libraries and specific playing styles, articulations, and so forth, where the more advanced capabilities are done with Kontakt 5 scripts which are supplied with the Bolder Sounds Mandolin . . .

[NOTE: There is a very detailed video that explains and demonstrates the various capabilities of the Bolder Sounds Mandolin sample library and its functionality in Kontakt 5 with respects to KSP scripts and so forth . . . ]

Pure Mandolin for Kontakt (Bolder Sounds)

[NOTE: Over the past few years, Native Instruments has had a 50 percent discount sale on Kontakt 5 during the week of the Thanksgiving Holiday in the US. This year they already had a 50 percent discount sale on Kontakt 5 earlier in the summer, so it is difficult to guess whether they will have the annual Thanksgiving Holiday sale in two months, but considering the economy I think it is a possibility, hence if you are not in a hurry, my advice is to get on the Native Instruments mailing list and to start checking their website at the start of the Thanksgiving Holiday week. The MSRP for Kontakt 5 is $399 (US), so a 50 percent discount maps to the price on sale being $200 (US) with a bit of rounding, which is a significant discount for folks who are on a budget and are not in a hurry . . . ]

Kontakt 5 (Native Instruments)

Kontakt 5 Player (Native Instruments)

Another solution is to purchase NOTION 4 and the "Guitar/Bass" Expansion Sounds, all of which costs less than the Bolder Sounds Mandolin and full-version of Kontakt 5 solution, and has the advantage of adding music notation functionality to your digital music production system, as well as a very nice virtual orchestra that runs natively in NOTION 4, but also can be played with an external MIDI keyboard and recorded in Studio One 2.6 Producer or Professional (PreSonus) . . .

If you are doing digital music production on the Mac, then this YouTube video demonstrates a ReWire 2 session where Studio One 2.6 Producer is the ReWire 2 host controller and both NOTION 4 and Reason 7 are ReWire 2 slaves. Additionally, real-time MIDI played on an external MIDI keyboard is recorded in both Studio One 2.6 Producer and NOTION 4, where the MIDI input to NOTION 4 is converted automagically to music notation when the recording step is completed, where for reference the MIDI keyboard is directed to a staff in NOTION 4 that is assigned to Twin 2, which is a VSTi virtual instrument from FabFilter Software Instruments, as is the case with the MIDI input to Studio One 2.6 Producer, where although they both are Twin 2 synthesizers, the synthesizers are distinct and have different settings and so forth . . .

Studio One 2.6 Producer, NOTION 4, Reason 7: ReWire2 Dual Real-time MIDI Recording -- YouTube video

THOUGHTS

I do everything on the Mac, but some of the folks who participate in the PreSonus FORUM for Studio One have done the same verification tests for Studio One 2.6 and NOTION 4 doing ReWire 2, and both NOTION 4 and Kontakt 5 work nicely on the Mac and on Windows computers, although as noted I can verify this only on the Mac . . .

If you have not done a lot of work with music notation, then it can be a bit daunting at first, but the way NOTION 4 does music notation is very intuitive for "play by ear" musicians, and for reference although I learned soprano treble clef music notation as a child when I sang in a liturgical boys choir, I did everything in "play by ear" mode until a few years ago, when I decided to do a Flamenco song and realized that I needed to use a virtual drumkit and music notation to do complex Flamenco percussion patterns, and at the time my skill level in music notation mapped to being able to play "Mary Had A Little Lamb" on piano by reading the sheet music if I worked on it for a few hours, although in "play by ear" mode I could do it in a few minutes, which is a bit strange but is the way it works here in the sound isolation studio, where the truly strange aspect is that I can singing nearly anything immediately by looking at it on sheet music, provided it is on a soprano treble staff, even though I am a baritone . . .

I can sight-sing it, but I cannot play it on a keyboard or guitar, since the only proficient and intuitive mapping I have for music notation is very specific to singing and then is even more specific to soprano treble clef, although doing the octave mapping is trivial, since the mapping is based on two very important rules, where using a guitar as an example, "quarter tone" maps to having 24 frets for an octave rather than 12 frets, hence a "half tone" maps to one fret on a standard guitar, but a "quarter tone" maps to half of that and requires the guitar to have twice as many frets:

(1) There are only 12 notes (24 notes in quarter tone) . . .

(2) There are approximately 10 or so octaves . . .

Another useful bit of information is that for most popular music genres like Pop, DISCO, Electronic, Dubstep, Rock and Roll, Heavy Metal, Country Western, Bluegrass, Rhythm and Blues, and so forth, you do not need to use a lot of articulations, dynamics, and embellishments in music notation, since for the most part everything essentially is "pumped" in one way or another and you can tailor instruments in the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) application using effects plug-ins, which for this purpose maps to keeping the music notation work in NOTION 4 as simple as possible and makes it all the easier for "play by ear" folks . . .

This is an example of what one can do with music notation and virtual instruments in NOTION, where all the instruments except the Instrumental Surf electric guitar are virtual instruments and are played via music notation on virtual instruments in NOTION where the NOTION generated audio was recorded in Digital Performer (MOTU), which is the DAW application I used at the time, and also was used for the real custom-modded Fender American Deluxe Stratocaster and singing, where the reason for playing the real Stratocaster is that it was vastly easier to do on a real guitar, since lead guitar is my primary instrument in the real world . . .

[NOTE: This was done with NOTION 3 and VSTi virtual instruments from IK Multimedia, although some of the Latin percussion instruments are from Notion Music, where everything was recorded in 32-bit mode, which was what NOTION 3 and Digital Performer supported at the time. Now, I do everything in 64-bit mode with NOTION 4 and Digital Performer 8, but I also use Logic Pro X (Apple) and Studio One 2.6 Producer (PreSonus), and I provide a bit of support for Live 9 (Ableton) but using the FREE version, mostly to help folks in this FORUM. The Latin percussion instruments and chimes are NOTION 3 Bundled Instruments, but I "pump" them with various signal processors from T-RackS (IK Multimedia) so that they are as loud as the other instruments, which I do because "orchestral" sampled sounds tend to be a bit softer in terms of dynamics and unless you "pump" them a bit, they are more in the background, which is not so good for Pop music . . . ]

"Feel Me" (The Surf Whammys) -- YouTube music video

This is another example, which is more recent, and it is the basic rhythm section for a song I am developing for the Smooth Jazz market, although it has what eventually will be a Grunge chorus--hence is a rather surreal combination of Kenny G and Nirvana--and everything in this basic rhythm section is done with music notation and VSTi virtual instruments in NOTION 4 and recorded as soundbites in DIgital Performer 8 in a series of ReWire 2 sessions, where the mixing is done in Digital Performer 8. Some of the virtual instruments are NOTION 4 Bundled instruments, but most of the instruments are VSTi virtual instruments, and while I suppose that a professional saxophonist could listen to this and determine nearly instantly that the tenor saxophone is virtual rather than real, I doubt that most people can tell the difference, which is one of the more useful bits of information about virtual instruments when one knows how to do a bit of producing in a DAW application using advanced effects plug-ins and signal processors, where I think that if I took the extra time to add scripted articulations and embellishments to the virtual tenor saxophone, it would be all the more difficult to determine whether it was real or virtual, which is fabulous . . .

"The Darkest Hour" (The Surf Whammys) -- YouTube music video

Fabulous!

[Admin]

Currently, our instruments are only available for use in Notion.

-Admin