I recall seeing a post from Friedacornet and Surfwhammy discussing this. As I recall, Port A is assigned automatically by the program, but the other ports should be available for assignment to IAC busses.

By the way, what DAW do you use? Some time ago I was able to do what you want with Studio One 3, and it worked well. I've been trying to get the same setup to work with Cubase, but with no luck, since I can't seem to get MIDI data to transmit to Cubase instruments through IAC. I'd like also to use the notation and dynamics from Notion to transmit to instruments in Cubase and then use CC curves in Cubase to control parameters, but have not found a way. I've been exporting MIDI tracks, importing them and reworking all the dynamics and techniques.

michaelmyers1 wroteI recall seeing a post from Friedacornet and Surfwhammy discussing this. As I recall, Port A is assigned automatically by the program, but the other ports should be available for assignment to IAC busses.

This is correct, but there is a caveat--or at least there might be a caveat . . .

Specifically, the caveat is that at one time NOTION only sent elaborate MIDI notes and CC messages via MIDI Port A . . .

The other three supported ports (MIDI Port B, MIDI Port C, and MIDI Port D) did not have the extra enhancements for MIDI CC messages . . .

If you are doing this in a ReWire session where Logic Pro X (Apple) is the ReWire host controller and NOTION 5 is the ReWire slave, then there is an additional limitation, which is that Logic Pro X only records one MIDI Port at a time, so even though you can send MIDI from NOTION 5 using MIDI Ports A, B, C, and D, you need to do it one MIDI Port at a time to record it in Logic Pro X . . .



THOUGHTS

There may be another way to record MIDI in Logic Pro X, but so far I have not found it with respect to the one MIDI Port at a time limitation . . .

As referenced in the video tutorial (see above), there is a way to use MIDI objects and signal routing in Logic Pro X, but the one MIDI Port at a time limitation applies, and it's considerably more difficult to do the "advanced" strategy in the Logic Pro X MIDI Environment, hence the beauty of the simpler version . . .

If you need to send MIDI notes and MIDI CC messages from NOTION 5 to a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) application, then to the best of my current knowledge this needs to be done on MIDI Port A . . .

However, you can use keyswitches on all the MIDI Ports in NOTION 5, so if you can map keyswitches to MIDI CC messages in an AU or VSTi virtual instrument hosted by the DAW application, then there you are, since keyswitches are just notes that do something different and are outside the range of an instrument, usually being in the deep bass register . . .

From yet another perspective, it depends on what you need to do, since there are other strategies for doing nearly everything, so from this perspective this is the most important question to ask . . .

QUESTION: What do you need to do?

For example, I suppose it's possible to have four physical synthesizers connected to a computer via various MIDI cables and to want to send 64 channels of MIDI from NOTION 5 to the external MIDI-aware synthesizers . . .

And it might be possible to devise an elaborate system that makes it possible to play stuff on all four external MIDI synthesizers so that their audio outputs are sent to the computer to be recorded as audio in a DAW application, but is anyone actually going to do this?

I have no idea . . .

The MIDI output signals from the four external MIDI synthesizers can be routed to a DAW application as MIDI input, which in turn can be recorded in the DAW application, so lots of stuff becomes possible, but common sense strongly suggests that it's entirely too complex . . .

Regarding the question (see above), the type of answer that proves to be most productive is something like, "I need to record 500 instrument tracks, and I want to use NOTION 5 External MIDI staves to play a virtual festival of instruments hosted in a DAW application, but some of the instruments and their respective sounds need to come from some of my external MIDI workstation synthesizers" . . .

You can do something like this, and the key to doing it is to use a set of synchronized NOTION 5 scores, where for example there are perhaps 20 to 25 instruments in each NOTION 5 score, with perhaps 5 or so instruments being common to all the synchronized NOTION 5 scores for use to determine easily where you are in a song . . .

This requires perhaps 25 NOTION 5 scores, and you record the unique instruments for each NOTION 5 score one set at a time, where you start with the first NOTION 5 score and record the audio and perhaps MIDI for its 20 unique instruments. Then, you close that NOTION 5 score and open the next NOTION 5 score and record its stuff in the DAW application, and so forth and so on . . .

Along the way, you will want to consolidate tracks in the DAW application, which is a matter of doing non-destructive submixes, since you do not want to have 500 tracks in the DAW application mixing board, because it's too much stuff to manage productively and it's vastly visually cluttered, so you do submixes on the DAW application side to make it possible to work at a higher level most of the time . . .

Since this can be done non-destructively, the individual tracks are there in the audio folder for the DAW application, which makes it possible to redo submixes should this become necessary, and you can keep some of the solo instruments separately as individual tracks . . .

In other words, the productive answer to the aforementioned question provides high-level information on what you need to do rather than the specifics of each tiny detail . . .

(1) I need to have perhaps 500 virtual instruments that are played via music notation in NOTION 5 . . .

(2) I need to have perhaps 25 tracks in a DAW application for recording and producing real instruments, which I will record either directly or via one or more microphones connected to an external digital audio and MIDI interface . . .

(3) I need to record some audio and MIDI from one or more external MIDI workstation synthesizers . . .

(4) I want to use the sound banks from some of my MIDI workstation synthesizers, but I want the notes to be played with music notation on NOTION 5 External MIDI staves, where it needs to be recorded in the DAW application . . .

(5) And perhaps most importantly, I want to use Realivox Blue to add a few melodic spoken word naughty bits, since I plan to send the song to Miley Cyrus in hopes that she might record it, which is fabulous . . .



Realivox Blue (Realitone)

Fabulous!

wow thanks surf whammy for the entertaining exploration of possibilities:)
and thanks Michael, that is interesting but port B doesn't even transmit simple MIDI notes for me. That would be fine as I would prefer to do the cc's inside my DAW, which is Ableton Live by the way.
IAC port 1 is working great for me. I've been using what I call a "conductor track" to send a cc11 curve to the whole string section, which is made up of various string libraries, from small to large ensembles. It's working surprisingly well... I can sort of "wave the wand" and still adjust levels of the different sections (and libraries) downstream from that as it where.
it makes for a very organic sound, with something of the richness of a real orchestra.
Inside Notion I prefer to simply write (or play ) the notes only , then give them dynamics in Ableton( and change patches if necessary.)
Anyhow, it's great to rant about our nerdy tricks, but if anyone can help about those Ports, please give us a shout!

wow today all the ports are working! not sure if i was doing something dumb or if it was an "etherware" phenomenon:)
happy days! Michael I hope you have good luck like me keep on making magic music guys

reamato wrotewow today all the ports are working! not sure if i was doing something dumb or if it was an "etherware" phenomenon:)
happy days! Michael I hope you have good luck like me keep on making magic music guys

The infrastructure for MIDI and ReWire is a bit complex, and in certain scenarios it can become confused . . .

The solution is to quit the digital music production applications and then to restart them in the proper order, where for ReWire the host controller application needs to be started first, followed by starting the ReWire slave(s) . . .

This also can happen when there is no ReWire session, since technically once ReWire is enabled in NOTION, running only NOTION by itself actually is a special type of ReWire session . . .

If you watched the YouTube video tutorial for the simple way to do MIDI to Logic Pro X in a ReWire session, you will have observed that when I switched the MIDI port in NOTION 5, I saved the project; quit NOTION 5; and then restarted NOTION 5, followed by opening the same NOTION 5 score . . .

I did this to ensure that the MIDI port change was known to the ReWire infrastructure and Logic Pro X, where it was not necessary to "toggle" Logic Pro X by saving its project and restarting it . . .

There are other scenarios where this happens, and it's something I consider to be reasonable rather than to be "bug" or whatever . . .

Occasionally there will be a scenario where you need to quit all applications and then to reboot Mac OS X, which is the best way to ensure that whatever is in system memory is fresh . . .

Other times, something stops working due to being forgetful, where as an example this week NOTION 5 stopped generating audio . . .

I have a list of things to check when odd stuff happens, so I started checking everything and then got to the item where I use "Force Quit" to see which applications are running . . .

Once I did this, I noticed that Digital Performer 9 (MOTU) was running, and then I knew what happened . . .

I had started Digital Performer 9 earlier to do something with Reason 8 (Propellerhead Software) but forgot to quit Digital Performer 9 when I was finished, so it was running . . .

Then later in the day I decided to do something in NOTION 5, but there was no audio activity in NOTION 5 . . .

The problem was that since I started Digital Performer 9 first, it became the ReWire host controller and later NOTION 5 became a ReWire slave . . .

ReWire slaves send their audio to the ReWire host controller, but there was no ReWire track for NOTION 5 in the DIgital Performer 9 project, hence (a) no audio activity in NOTION 5 and (b) no audio for NOTION 5 . . .

The solution was to quit NOTION 5; to quit DIgital Performer 9; and then to start NOTION 5, at which time NOTION 5 automagically had audio activity again . . .

In other words, it was an "operator error" . . .

Generally, once you get MIDI working and get ReWire working, which includes doing a bit of configuring, if either or both of them stop working, closing the applications and restarting them in the correct sequence--if you are doing a ReWire session--solves the problem, but in some scenarios you also need to reboot the Mac . . .

These are two of the rules I use here in the sound isolation studio to avoid infrastructure and other types of problems:

(1) I save everything frequently (NOTION 5 score and DAW application projects), where "frequently" maps to the time unit that I am willing to lose and to have to redo all the work done since the last time I saved, which in some instances is every five or so minutes, although it depends. Saving scores and projects takes just a few seconds, and it's a good practice . . .

Another thing I do is to make backups of folders every few days, and then I do a full backup of the respective hard drives every few months or whenever it makes sense, because this way if a hard drive crashes, I have a bootable clone handy . . .

(2) After doing a ReWire session for an hour or perhaps two hours, I save everything (score and project); quit the ReWire applications; and then start a new ReWire session, which ensures that system memory for the application workspaces, caches, and so forth are cleared and fresh. And sometimes I include doing a reboot of Mac OS X, but not so frequently . . .

MIDI and ReWire work very nicely and accurately on the Mac, so when something stops working, it's just a matter of checking all the things that can cause a problem, which typically will be a matter of verifying that everything is configured correctly . . .

In the example (see above), the problem was that I forgot Digital Performer 9 was running when I decided later to switch to doing something in NOTION 5, which I thought incorrectly was the only digital music production application running . . .

If I am doing experiments with MIDI, I might set all the MIDI in NOTION 5 to "None" (MIDI Input and MIDI Outputs); and if I get distracted and forget this, then later a NOTION 5 score that is doing MIDI will appear not to work . . .

There's nothing wrong other than I set all the MIDI stuff to "None" but forgot it . . .

In some scenarios, the IAC Driver will be "Offline", so it just needs to be started to make it "Online" . . .

I suppose that some folks start thinking that MIDI and ReWire don't work on the Mac, so they quit trying to make it work, when the reality is that it's just a matter of getting everything configured correctly . . .

MIDI and ReWire are doing so much work in the background that it only takes one apparently insignificant configuration option or parameter to cause a problem, so having a list of things to verify is a good strategy . . .

Basically, if there is a problem with MIDI or ReWire, then here in the sound isolation studio it's just a matter of "What did I forget?", hence the list of things to check . . .

Lots of FUN!