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I was wondering if it were possible to map Notion's Mixer Faders and Buttons to MIDI CCs? I have a KORG NanoKontrol and it would be great if I could map the faders and buttons to Notion's Mixer. Can anyone please chime in? This would be amazing for live applications!

Mac mini (Server, late 2012) 2.3 Ghz Intel Core i7 with 16 GB RAM, (2011) Macbook Pro 15" 2.3 Ghz Intel Core i7 with 16 GB RAM, Mac OS X Yosemite 10.10.4 & 10.10.3, Notion 5.1, Sibelius 7.5.1, Logic 10.1.1
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by martinkutschker on Mon May 25, 2015 12:56 pm
Nope. Notion does not support CC. You have to reconfigure your hardware controller it sends MIDI notes. Pretty dull :(

And as my keyboard has a transport buttons I would find it very handy to use the record and stop buttons on the MIDI keyboard for recording. But this seems to be very complicated as the 5th iteration of Notion doesn't have this feature. I wonder how they do it in all the DAWs ;)
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by drumlogik808 on Mon May 25, 2015 6:52 pm
martinkutschker wroteNope. Notion does not support CC. You have to reconfigure your hardware controller it sends MIDI notes. Pretty dull :(

And as my keyboard has a transport buttons I would find it very handy to use the record and stop buttons on the MIDI keyboard for recording. But this seems to be very complicated as the 5th iteration of Notion doesn't have this feature. I wonder how they do it in all the DAWs ;)


Thanks for the reply, martin. I was actually more concerned with the faders.. I don't see a way of mapping Notion's Mixer faders to my nanoKontrol. :(

Mac mini (Server, late 2012) 2.3 Ghz Intel Core i7 with 16 GB RAM, (2011) Macbook Pro 15" 2.3 Ghz Intel Core i7 with 16 GB RAM, Mac OS X Yosemite 10.10.4 & 10.10.3, Notion 5.1, Sibelius 7.5.1, Logic 10.1.1
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by michaelmyers1 on Tue May 26, 2015 7:10 pm
Can't be done directly. Notion doesn't currently support any control surface, not even Presonus' own Faderport. You could write MIDI CC data to sequencer staves, but I don't think that's as direct as you'd like.

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by drumlogik808 on Tue May 26, 2015 7:20 pm
michaelmyers1 wroteNotion doesn't currently support any control surface, not even Presonus' own Faderport.

I hope they'll soon implement this. Especially if they are marketing Notion as a live performance tool. Imagine this: being able to use Notion live and control the Mixer using a MIDI controller like the nanoKontrol... muting/soloing instruments, moving faders... This would come in very handy especially in a live situation where you could be playing with a band or orchestra and someone/mixing engineer yells out, "Ermm.. your 'strings' are too loud", and you could reach over to your controller and make adjustments...never having to reach for your mouse..

michaelmyers1 wroteYou could write MIDI CC data to sequencer staves, but I don't think that's as direct as you'd like.

Yes, you can record the MIDI CC but you can't edit it at the moment. So the only way to fix something is if you re-record the data all over again. I've said this many times before but if they somehow add in the feature of being able to draw in MIDI CCs, that would bring Notion to a whole new realm of awesomeness.

Mac mini (Server, late 2012) 2.3 Ghz Intel Core i7 with 16 GB RAM, (2011) Macbook Pro 15" 2.3 Ghz Intel Core i7 with 16 GB RAM, Mac OS X Yosemite 10.10.4 & 10.10.3, Notion 5.1, Sibelius 7.5.1, Logic 10.1.1
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by kmlandre on Wed May 27, 2015 1:52 am
drumlogik808 wroteThis would come in very handy especially in a live situation where you could be playing with a band or orchestra and someone/mixing engineer yells out, "Ermm.. your 'strings' are too loud", and you could reach over to your controller and make adjustments...never having to reach for your mouse...


Isn't this sort of the point of Rewire? You can buss all the strings (or winds or whatever) to a couple of Rewire outputs and control them via Reaper, Cubase, etc.

Though I'll admit, it truly can be a pain in the a** to implement the first time and it can be something of a memory/CPU hit...

Kurt
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by drumlogik808 on Wed May 27, 2015 6:31 pm
kmlandre wrote
drumlogik808 wroteIsn't this sort of the point of Rewire? You can buss all the strings (or winds or whatever) to a couple of Rewire outputs and control them via Reaper, Cubase, etc.


Never been a fan of Rewire, I've always thought it more efficient to keep everything in the same DAW. I come from a DAW background and I use Logic 10.10.1 exclusively. I've also used MainStage 3 for live in the past.

MIDI CC controlling is something I could live without but I really do hope that it gets implemented better in the future. In Sibelius, you can use a MIDI Controller to control the Transport and Mixer with some Input Maps hacking. I just think that it would make sense for a program like Notion to get these features too, and soon.

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by Surf.Whammy on Thu May 28, 2015 12:00 am
I did a bit of research, and there is an application for the Mac that makes it possible to use MIDI to trigger various actions in an application . . .

QuickKeys 4 for Mac (Startly Technologies)

I downloaded QuickKeys 4 for Mac and read enough of the User Guide to do an experiment in which I set the target application to NOTION 5 and created a QuickKeys shortcut that sends a single space character to NOTION 5 when I press "Middle C" (C4 in scientific pitch notation) on the Behringer UMA-25S mini-MIDI keyboard that I have on a notebook swivel arm next to the Apple Display . . .

It took about 15 minutes to get it working, and this is the first time I have done anything with QuickKeys, so if I actually knew how QuickKeys works, I think more stuff if possible, but this experiment is sufficient to verify there is a way to use a MIDI keyboard to do some types of actions in NOTION 5 . . .

Image

THOUGHTS

I set QuickKeys to watch for MIDI Note On events and used "Middle C" as the specific trigger for a simple shortcut that emulates pressing the Apple Keyboard space bar, which in turn controls the NOTION 5 transport, where pressing the space bar starts playback, and pressing it during playback stops playback . . .

Based on this test and a bit of reading, I think QuickKeys can be set to watch MIDI CC messages and to do various actions based on them . . .

QuickKeys can emulate mouse actions, so it might be possible to use this to control the volume and other controls in the NOTION 5 Mixer, but I think that discovering how to do this is a very advanced activity . . .

As a general rule, if a person can do various actions with the keyboard and mouse to cause an application to do something, then this also can be done by an application which "pretends" to be a person, but this is not such an easy thing to do, since it requires software engineering skills . . .

If the goal is to be able to use a MIDI device to control volume sliders, panning, and so forth, then using a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) application that provides the necessary interface for MIDI devices is the preferred strategy, of course . . .

NOTION 5 can be part of the system when it is a ReWire slave, but when NOTION 5 is running as a ReWire slave, NTempo is not available . . .

However, I did another experiment where I set the output for an instrument in a NOTION 5 score to the "Ch 3-4" channel pair, and this sends the audio for the instrument to the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid where it is output to "Analog 1-2" . . .

[NOTE: This is a bit confusing until you understand how the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid maps audio channels. Specifically, the first two output channels are mapped to "Main Out 1-2", and then the eight Analog stereo channels are mapped in sequence, so while the name of the first Analog stereo pair is "Analog 1-2", it actually is audio channels 3-4, so for example "Analog 3-4" will map to channels 5-6 for output. It also helps to understand that "Analog 1-2" is just the factory default label, so it can be changed to "Ch 3-4" to avoid confusion, but once you know the way the channel numbers are managed, it's easier to use the factory default names for stuff. It's documented in the MOTU user guides, but the information is provided in a way that makes more sense to software engineers than composers, musicians, and singers, which is the case generally with all digital music production documentation, in part because it takes too much time to document every possible scenario, and only people who actually need to do it will read it, so it not a "value add" type of thing. The best advice in this respect is that NOTION does a lot more than most folks imagine . . . ]

This is useful to know, because there is an iPad app that acts as a controller for CueMix FX, which in turn is the Mac OS X application that can be used to control the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid, which effectively makes the iPad app a "virtual control surface" for the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid . . .

As best as I can determine, the PreSonus AudioBox 1818VSL can do the same thing, and it has an iPad app, as well . . .

So, in this scenario, if you have either (a) a MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid or the newer MOTU 828x or (b) a PreSonus AudioBox 1818VSL, then you can set the NOTION 5 Mixer to output various instruments to different channel pairs in the same way this is done to cause NOTION 5 to output its audio to a DAW application in a ReWire session . . .

The difference is that instead of routing the audio from NOTION 5 to a DAW application in a ReWire session, you are routing the NOTION 5 audio to the Mac OS X application that controls an external digital audio and MIDI interface like the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid, MOTU 828x, or PreSonus AudioBox 1818VSL. Then, you can use the corresponding iPad app as a control surface, and there you are . . .

AudioBox 1818VSL (PreSonus)

Doing it this way, NOTION 5 is running by itself rather than in a ReWire session, so NTempo is available . . .

I think the iPad apps probably do not require the corresponding external digital audio and MIDI controlling applications to be in the forefront or to have focus, so this does not interfere with NOTION 5 being the application that has focus, hence is in the forefront . . .

QuickKeys runs in the background, as well, and when it is running, you can use a MIDI device to send MIDI Note On or MIDI CC events to do various things with NOTION 5, although when you running NOTION 5 in NTempo mode, this probably makes no sense, because you are controlling NOTION 5 with the Apple keyboard, but so what . . .

I did another experiment where I set the input of a stereo audio track in Digital Performer 8 (MOTU) to "Analog 1-2", but it did not get the audio output from the NOTION 5 instrument as done in the first experiment (see above), which makes a bit of sense, because in the first experiment NOTION 5 was sending the audio for a specific instrument to the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid "Analog 1-2" output--which works--but the problem is routing the output to an input . . .

Routing the output to the input is done easily using a 1/4" TRS patch cable to route the "Analog 1-2" output to the "Analog 1-2" input, and this does not create a loop, since everything is kept separate the way I have it configured, where the output of Digital Performer 8 goes to "Main Out 1-2" on the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid; NOTION 5 is sending its audio output to various analog outputs on the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid; and I have the various analog outputs routed to the corresponding analog inputs on the MOTU 828mk3, which in turn are inputs to Digital Performer 8 stereo audio tracks, where each stereo audio track outputs to the "Main Out 1-2" . . .

Explained another way, (a) NOTION 5 does not have any audio inputs, so it only outputs audio; (b) NOTION 5 is outputs its audio to MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid analog outputs; I routed the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid analog outputs to their corresponding analog inputs using 1/4" TRS patch cables; the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid analog inputs provide the input signals for the Digital Performer 8 stereo tracks; and Digital Performer 8 outputs to "Main Out 1-2" on the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid . . .

Done this way, there are no feedback loops or whatever, which is excellent . . .

The drawback is that the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid the eight analog inputs and outputs are monaural, so a stereo pair requires two monaural analog inputs or two monaural outputs, which in turn limits it to four stereo pairs . . .

However, the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid can be chained with additional units, but if you want a separate stereo audio track for each of the 32 NOTION 5 channel pairs, then this requires a total of eight MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid units and costs approximately $6,000 (US) . . .

There are other ways to do this, but the advantage of doing it this particular way is that so long as four stereo audio tracks are sufficient, it just requires a Mac, one MOTU 828mk3, a DAW application, NOTION 5, and some type of external control surface to make adjustments to the DAW application volume sliders, where this could be the iPad app that is a control surface for CueMix FX . . .

You can do this without the extra steps of routing everything to a DAW application, where instead in the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid scenario, you use CueMix FX to control the output levels of the analog outputs via the iPad app . . .

Digital Performer 8 also can be controlled with a KORG nanoKontrol2 Slim-Line USB controller and other types of physical external devices . . .

This also works with the PreSonus equipment, but I do not have any of it, so I have no way to do experiments . . .

If you are using Studio One (PreSonus) as the DAW application, then there are control surfaces for it, and the same ones that work for Digital Performer 8 will work for Studio One . . .

[NOTE: The iPad apps for controlling the external digital audio and MIDI interface devices are specific, so you need to use the matching iPad app for the MOTU products and the matching iPad App for the PreSonus device . . . ]

NOTION has been used in live performances for many years, so everything is there, but some of it is designed to be used with the types of professional equipment one uses in live performances, some of which will be external devices designed specifically for live performances and advanced studio recording . . .

Explained another way, I think it's more productive to ask the question, "How is this done?" than to ask, "Why doesn't NOTION do this?" . . .

It's not so easy to find information on NOTION being used in live performances, but if you study the information that is available, when there are photos you can see that there is other equipment in addition to the obvious computer, keyboard, and mouse . . .

None of this is documented in detail anywhere in a single source, so discovering how to do it requires a bit of reading and researching, since it spans a virtual festival of technologies and products . . .

It's an advanced activity, so you need to understand more stuff, but so what . . .

On yet another related note, in a live performance it makes nearly no sense to attempt to do a lot of nearly constant volume level adjusting, so the general strategy is to "set it and forget it", since tinkering with stuff tends to increase inadvertent mistakes, so it's better to keep everything as simple as possible and to have it configured correctly before the live performance begins, because doing the NTempo work is a full plate, really . . .

In some respects, the primary aspect of the two general scenarios--specifically (a) studio and (b) live performance--is a matter of "do-overs", where in studio work do-overs are allowed, if not expected, but in live performances there are no do-overs allowed . . .

Of course, there are exceptions, where for example in rehearsing for a live performance, do-overs are allowed, and there are studio scenarios where you want to get everything right without tweaking stuff, but the general scenarios provide clues toward the goal determining how to do stuff and which types of applications and hardware are best and most practical . . .

Lots of FUN! :)
Last edited by Surf.Whammy on Fri May 29, 2015 10:23 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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by kmlandre on Thu May 28, 2015 12:19 am
drumlogik808 wrote
kmlandre wrote
drumlogik808 wroteIsn't this sort of the point of Rewire? You can buss all the strings (or winds or whatever) to a couple of Rewire outputs and control them via Reaper, Cubase, etc.


Never been a fan of Rewire, I've always thought it more efficient to keep everything in the same DAW. I come from a DAW background and I use Logic 10.10.1 exclusively. I've also used MainStage 3 for live in the past.

MIDI CC controlling is something I could live without but I really do hope that it gets implemented better in the future. In Sibelius, you can use a MIDI Controller to control the Transport and Mixer with some Input Maps hacking. I just think that it would make sense for a program like Notion to get these features too, and soon.


So given that, what about dumping all the instruments to stems/submixes and just dump the .wav files (or .AIFF on the Mac) into Logic or the DAW or your choice? Wouldn't that be exactly the same thing as playing it back from Notion only you'd have the option of adjusting the strings (or whatever) on the fly?

I think I must be missing something here...

Kurt
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by Surf.Whammy on Thu May 28, 2015 2:28 am
kmlandre wroteI think I must be missing something here...

This discussion spans at least two separate topics, so the original posts provide a few clues to the context . . .

drumlogik808 wroteI'm looking to possibly utilize Notion for a musical which will be staged in October. The budget allocated for the band is a little low so I thought of using Notion for strings, brass and other instruments. Anybody here used Notion for live performance? Can you please share your experience with it? Would you recommend it? Pros/cons?

[SOURCE: Experience with using NOTION for LIve Performances? (PreSonus NOTION Forum) ]

drumlogik808 wroteI was wondering if it were possible to map Notion's Mixer Faders and Buttons to MIDI CCs? I have a KORG NanoKontrol and it would be great if I could map the faders and buttons to Notion's Mixer. Can anyone please chime in? This would be amazing for live applications!

[SOURCE: Need clarification: MIDI CC are not supported in Notion? (PreSonus NOTION Forum) ]

THOUGHTS

In the scenario where NOTION 5 is used to enhance real instruments, real singing, and real dialogue in a musical production, this is best done when NOTION 5 is running in NTempo mode rather than as ReWire slave to a DAW application . . .

Running NOTION 5 in NTempo mode removes ReWire as an available option, since in a ReWire session the DAW application will be the ReWire host controller and NOTION 5 cannot run in NTempo mode . . .

As explained in my previous post to this topic, depending on the available hardware and software, there are several ways to provide the ability to control the volume levels of the various sections (strings, brass, woodwinds, and so forth), and none of them require using ReWire, but they are strongly dependent on specific hardware . . .

If the strategy is to provide only a single stereo audio signal from NOTION 5 to the mixing board for the sound reinforcement system, then either all the NOTION 5 instrument levels need to be preset correctly or (b) there needs to be a way to make occasional adjustments, with practical emphasis on "occasional", since playing a NOTION 5 score via NTempo is a full-time activity, separate from any other activities, unless NOTION 5 is considered to be the official metronome or tempo controller . . .

In other words, if the real musicians and singers all play and sing to the NOTION 5 score, then there is no NTempo work other than pressing the Play button to start the song, which is fine, except that it's not so easy for real musicians and singers to play and sing in precise synchronization with a metronome, and for all practical purposes it is sufficiently difficult to be impossible to do in a practical way . . .

This is the reason that orchestras have conductors and everyone in the musical group accompanied Elvis rather than the other way around, and this included the performances where there was a conductor. Everyone played and sang to Elvis, so Elvis was the one who set the tempo and so forth . . .

The specific responsibilities of the audio engineer running the sound reinforcement system and the musical director or conductor will depend on the way the hardware is setup and configured . . .

If there are microphones, then they probably will be XLR-style microphones, and this requires an external digital audio and MIDI interface if the mixing is done via a virtual mixing board. Otherwise, there will be a physical mixing board . . .

It does not require a physical mixing board, per se, but doing it with a virtual mixing board requires a computer and a DAW application or some type of application that can control the external digital audio and MIDI interface . . .

Without knowing more specific details, all I can do is guess, but regardless of the specific details, if the musical production is performed in an auditorium and there are real musicians, real singers, and real dialogue by actors and actresses, then (a) there will be a sound reinforcement system with a mixing board,which can be real or virtual, and (c) in both instances someone needs to run it, although with a few caveats it is possible to put it on autopilot . . .

From the perspective of the sound reinforcement system, the audio output of NOTION 5 is like two or more monaural microphones, and it becomes input to the sound reinforcement system . . .

There is a way to provide separate stereo outputs for virtual instrument sections if the necessary hardware is present, where for example a MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid can provide four stereo output signals and a fifth stereo output for whatever instruments are routed to the "Ch 1-2" master output channel pair . . .

Done this way, the audio engineer running the sound reinforcement system can do a bit of real-time volume level controlling and mixing for the virtual audio generated and outputted by NOTION 5 . . .

Having a high-level system diagram will be helpful toward the goal of providing more detailed information, and this should include information about which instruments, singers, and so forth will have microphones, because using microphones affects the hardware and software requirements . . .

If everything is configured and used in a "set it, forget it" strategy, then I think one person can do the work typically done (a) by an audio engineer running the sound reinforcement system; (b) by an NTempo performer; and (c) by someone running a control surface for an external digital audio and MIDI interface, but it's an advanced activity and it requires a bit of configuring and practicing . . .

The auditorium size and expected audience are additional considerations, and while there is a bit of wiggle room with respect to running a sound reinforcement system in a smaller venue, as the venue and expected audience become larger, so does the sound reinforcement system, and at some point there needs to be an audio engineer monitoring and controlling the sound reinforcement system, if only be able to constrain the amplifiers and loudspeakers and to keep everything within acceptably safe sound pressure levels . . .

If I were doing this by myself, I would use the "set it, forget it" strategy for everything so that I could focus on NTempo performing, since I think the NTempo work in the scenario where the NOTION 5 instruments are accompanying rather than leading requires full attention and the ability to make real-time adjustments to the tempo . . .

From experience playing lead guitar and using elaborate effects pedal rigs, I know that I can (a) play lead guitar and (b) operate one of three motion pedals simultaneously, where everything else is in "set it, forget it" mode. Two of the motion pedals are DigiTech Whammy pedals, and the foot controller for each pedal is used to do octave jumps and dives, while the third motion pedal is a Budda Budwah wah-wah pedal, all of which maps to doing stuff with both hands and one foot while composing the lead guitar solo in real-time on the fly . . .

[NOTE: One of the great aspects of a DigiTech Whammy pedal is that it can be set to do octave jumps or octave dives, so that if you want to play something an octave higher, you just press the motion pedal forward and the notes automagically are an octave higher. If the other DigiTech Whammy pedal is configured to do octave dives, then you can play notes in a two octave range without needing to change hand positions on the guitar neck . . . ]

This is a full-plate with respect to what is possible and practical to do, and I think this is similar to what an NTempo performer needs to do to use NOTION 5 to provide virtual instrument accompaniment . . .

The is a limit to what one person can do in real-time on the fly in a live performance . . .

[NOTE: There is only one lead guitar, but it is custom modded to have two monaural output signals, and I run each monaural output signal through a separate set of effects each of which includes cascading echo units. This creates a "Wall of Guitars" even though it actually is just one lead guitar with no overdubbing. There is a separate rhythm guitar, which was recorded first, so the lead guitar is not playing the chords . . . ]

phpBB [video]


[NOTE: As this fellow demonstrates, if you sit rather than stand, you can use both feet . . . ]

phpBB [video]


Lots of FUN! :)

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