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Hello ;)

when I send some tracks (or even the complete song) from Studio One 4 to my Notion 6, all instruments will arrive in the treble clef. Saxophones and trumpets would be right. Trombones, electric bass, etc. unfortunately not.

Is there a way to mark the tracks in Studio One 4 in such a way that they arrive in notion in the correct key, the correct octave and, if possible, correctly transposed (with the corresponding sign)?

Thank you for your help

many Greetings

Studio One 4, Notion 6, Cubase Elements 10.5, Steinberg HALion Sonic 3, Focusrite Scarlett 2i2, AKG P-420, Hammond SK1-73, KORG Pa4X, AKAI MPK mini, Microsoft Windows 10 Pro (10.0.18363.720), Intel64 Family 6, 2,59 GHz, 4 CPUs, 8 GB RAM
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by Surf.Whammy on Thu Apr 04, 2019 9:56 pm
With the caveat that this is not something I do, nevertheless I did a few experiments to get an initial sense of how it works . . . :)

THOUGHTS

I use NOTION to provide music notation on ReWire MIDI staves to play VSTi virtual instruments hosted in Studio One Professional--both of which are the current versions . . .

There are a few VSTi virtual instruments that are easiest to host in NOTION, where Realivox Blue (Realitone) is one of them and is a personal favorite, since "Blue" (as I call her) is my virtual soprano . . .

[NOTE: This was done when I was using Digital Performer (MOTU) and NOTION External MIDI staves to send MIDI to Digital Performer. Since then I have switched to ReWire MIDI, Studio One Professional, and NOTION, which is considerably easier and works better . . . ]

phpBB [video]


Project: "Sweet Hour of Prayer" (PreSonus NOTION Forum)

Yet, from reading forum posts, I tend to understand that doing correct drumkit mapping requires using one of the GM drumkits in Studio One . . .

I did some experiments for about an hour and gleaned some useful information and observed a few of what appear to be incongruities, most of which should be easy for the PreSonus NOTION software engineers to correct . . .

The strategy I used was to create two staves of music notation in NOTION and then to export the MIDI, which I then imported to Studio One--using the standard "Export MIDI" method rather than the newer "Send . . . " methods. In other words, I created some MIDI the "old school" way . . .

It's important to observe that I started NOTION first, which among other things prevents creating a ReWire session where Studio One is the ReWire host controller . . .

In various previous experiments, I have observed that the "Send . . . " techniques work best (a) when there is a NOTION score already opened (which can be an empty score) and (b) when there is no ReWire session . . .

[NOTE: Technically when you run NOTION by itself and have the "Enable ReWire" option checked, a ReWire session is created with NOTION being the only participant; but this is something only ReWire developers, such as myself, and folks who read my posts know. It's the way the ReWire infrastructure works, and its primary use is for making technical observations when you want to be a jerk or a total computer nerd. I am a registered ReWire and Reason Rack Extension Developer, so I have all the internal documentation on these two Propellerhead Software technologies. The "one application" ReWire session is not a secret covered by NDA, but it's not so easy to find, even though it is provided to the public at the Propellerhead Software website . . . :ugeek: ]

The key to some of the expected functionality working is found in the NOTION 6 User Guide, where I underlined "not" for emphasis . . .

"Instrument names - if Notion recognises the instrument name (and it’s not a VST) then Notion will set up the correct clef and transposition, and load the Notion equivalent sound."


I used different native NOTION instrument names, and some of them worked as expected . . .

For example, I renamed one of the imported MIDI Instrument Tracks in the Studio One ".song" file to "Tuba", and this mapped to the NOTION "Tuba" when I did a "Send . . . " from Studio One to NOTION. The native NOTION "Tuba" instrument was used, and the correct clef was applied to the staff, specifically a bass clef . . .

"Tenor Sax" worked nicely as expected, but instead of the clef being a tenor clef, it was a treble clef that was transposed so that notated C is played as B♭ one octave lower, which I suppose is good, but mostly according to the strange rules that "horn sections" continually devise to annoy electric guitar players, such as myself, except that since I know Barre chords and play "by ear" I cannot be defeated by a "horn section", no matter how many team meetings they have toward the goal of tormenting me . . . :P

On the other hand, every attempt at "Baritone Sax", "Bari. Sax (Orch)", and so forth mapped to a basic treble clef with the notes played by a piano, which is not what I consider to be an expected behavior . . .

PONDERING THE STATE OF THE ART OF EVERYTHING

In much the same way as absolutely no new discoveries from the Large Hadron Collider in the two years after verifying the existence of the Higgs Boson are perplexing quantum physicists and perhaps are leading them to the realizations (a) that time is discrete rather than continuous and (b) that the speed of light in the gaps between discrete instants of time is zero or instantaneous--which means that Albert Einstein's brilliant equation is even more simple and profound than most folks imagine--I use treble staves for everything, a strategy based on the fact that here in the sound isolation studio there are 12 notes and 10 octaves, two of which octaves are provided primarily to annoy cats and dogs . . .

Code: Select all
E = mc²

*Except in the gaps when time does not exist, in which case the speed of light squared
disappears--because (a) zero squared is zero and (b) instantaneous action across potentially
cosmological distances cannot be squared--and this is what you have:

E = m

Explained another way, all the things that the standard model, supersymmetry, relativity, and
quantum mechanics suggest cannot occur, actually occur routinely in the gaps between discrete
moments of time, where the various interactions are not restricted by the conventional rules
of continuous time-dependent spacetime.

phpBB [video]


Regarding the "Send . . . " functionality, I think there needs to be a complete and well-documented set of rules . . .

Some of it works as expected, but other aspects are a bit confusing . . .

Lots of FUN! :)

Surf.Whammy's YouTube Channel

The Surf Whammys

Sinkhorn's Dilemma: Every paradox has at least one non-trivial solution!
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by jrgkochhann on Tue Apr 09, 2019 11:56 pm
Hi Surf.Whammy,

many Thanks. So in short - it does not work right. :(

Studio One 4, Notion 6, Cubase Elements 10.5, Steinberg HALion Sonic 3, Focusrite Scarlett 2i2, AKG P-420, Hammond SK1-73, KORG Pa4X, AKAI MPK mini, Microsoft Windows 10 Pro (10.0.18363.720), Intel64 Family 6, 2,59 GHz, 4 CPUs, 8 GB RAM
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by Surf.Whammy on Wed Apr 10, 2019 6:09 am
jrgkochhann wroteHi Surf.Whammy,

many Thanks. So in short - it does not work right. :(


Right, but I did a few more experiment and made some progress, although so far there continues to be a bit of confusion regarding the difference from (a) what I think should happen and (b) what actually happens . . . :roll:

THOUGHTS

From what I can determine, there is not a lot of useful information in the documentation with respect to the way everything works in detail . . .

Along the way, I discovered that according to the generally accepted rules of music notation, all saxophones are notated on treble staves; so as you observed, the saxophones are on the correct staves . . .

However, while I was able to put MIDI on two Instrument Tracks in the Studio One Professional ".song" for "Tuba" and "Tenor Sax", with these being sent to NOTION and put on the correct staves (bass clef for "Tuba", and treble clef for "Tenor Sax") and played by correctly by native NOTION instruments, this did not happen with "Baritone Sax", which while on the correct staff was played by a piano . . .

I tried a few variations like "Baritone Saxophone", "Bari. Sax (orch.)", and so forth; but none of them was played in NOTION by a baritone saxophone--all were played by a piano . . .

Thinking about this for a moment from a practical perspective, it does not make a lot of sense to do it this way when you start with Studio One Professional, because even though you provide MIDI for the Instrument Tracks, there are no sampled sound libraries, hence you don't hear anything when you play the Studio One Professional ".song" . . .

In that scenario, the sounds for the instruments are in NOTION, and Studio One Professional has no access to them . . .

So I did a bit more reading and noticed there was information about VSTi virtual instruments mapping correctly to VSTi virtual instruments in NOTION, subject to a few caveats, mostly that the VSTi virtual instruments are available in NOTION and Studio One Professional . . .

Based on this information, I did some experiments with Kontakt 5 (Native Instruments); and for the most part this works nicely--except that the NOTION score shows everything on treble staves . . .

I added an Instrument Track in the Studio One Professional ".song" and named it "Electric Bass", which I assigned to Kontakt 5 and its factory library "Pop Bass" . . .

When sent to NOTION, this mapped to the native NOTION "Electric Bass" and appeared on a bass staff and a tab staff, which was not correct . . .

It was a Kontakt 5 Instrument Track, but when sent to NOTION it became the native NOTION "Electric Bass" . . .

With this new bit of information, I renamed the Instrument Track in the Studio One Professional ".song" to "Fender Bass" and redid the send to a new NOTION score, in which case it was mapped to the correctly selected Kontakt 5 electric bass--except it was on a treble staff, as were all the Kontakt 5 VSTi virtual instruments in the experiment . . .

I also did sends from NOTION to Studio One Professional using the option to create a new ".song" and then did a send from Studio One Professional to NOTION, also with the option to create a new score . . .

Even when I explicitly changed the Kontakt 5 "Tuba" and "Fender Bass" in the NOTION score to bass clefs, after the roundtrip everything in the NOTION score was on a treble stave . . .

Nevertheless, everything else worked nicely . . .

This doesn't solve the problem of everything being on treble clefs when sent to NOTION, but I think it verifies that you can start with an empty ".song" in Studio One Professional and then populate it with Instrument Tracks assigned to VSTI virtual instruments and then send it to NOTION . . .

In yet another experiment, I added a "Mark One" electric piano from Addictive Keys (XLN Audio), and this worked correctly . . .

To do a bit more verifying, I added a "Twin 2" (FabFilter Software Instruments) synthesizer, which is another VSTi virtual instrument; and this also worked correctly . . .

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SUMMARY

There was an odd behavior, which is that everything is on treble staves when it's sent to NOTION . . .

Other than this, everything worked nicely when I used VSTi virtual instruments, which can be done starting with NOTION or with Studio One Professional, as shown in the YouTube video . . .

The Kontakt 5 instruments all mapped correctly once I renamed the electric bass to "Fender Bass", and somewhat curiously the "Tuba" also mapped correctly to Kontakt 5 . . .

If the only real problem is everything mapping to treble staves, then while this can be a bit annoying, I don't think it's a show-stopper . . .

I do everything on treble staves anyway, so for me the only problem is needing to go into NOTION Score Setup to do the transposition mapping . . .

If I were doing a roundtrip every few measures, I probably would not mess with doing the transposition mapping (or clef changing) until I was happy with everything . . .

I do everything in C Major (A Minor or whatever maps to no sharps and flats in the key signature), and I don't transpose the horns; so that's another thing which would be annoying if I needed to waste time on that stuff . . .

[NOTE: I like being able to tell NOTION to play a note upward or downward by one or two octaves, since this makes it possible to use treble staves for everything; but transposing the way it's done for horns is not something I find useful. As noted, here in the sound isolation there only are 12 notes, and when I see a note on a staff that looks like C, then it needs to be C. Otherwise it adds a layer of confusing stuff that I have to remember. The goal is to keep everything as simple as possible so that I don't need to think about anything other than the music and the way it sounds. This also is the reason I only use treble staves. 12 notes is as simple as it gets, and it's fine with me if notes are played an octave or two higher or lower as needed. Ultimately it's the same 12 notes, and I think this is mathematically elegant. My personal opinion is that much of the complexity in music is contrived to discourage otherwise bright people from making music. If horn players want to pretend that C is B♭, it's fine with me; but I don't want to know about it, because it's illogical. It's the same as saying that A### is C. I suppose it's legal, but it's confusing for no useful reason . . . ]

Based on my experiments so far, I think it works reasonably well when you use VSTi virtual instruments that both NOTION and Studio One Professional recognize; but this is not something I do routinely; so it's more of an experiment to determine the rules . . .

As noted, I do everything with ReWire MIDI staves and music notation in NOTION and use Studio One Professional to host the VSTi virtual instruments and real instrument and singing tracks, with the exception of Realivox Blue (Realitone), which is easier initially to host in NOTION as a VSTi virtual instrument and is fine with me . . .

When "Blue" is happy, I'm happy . . . :+1

Lots of FUN! :)

Surf.Whammy's YouTube Channel

The Surf Whammys

Sinkhorn's Dilemma: Every paradox has at least one non-trivial solution!

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