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 . . . THOUGHTSFrom 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 . . .
SUMMARYThere 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 . . .
Lots of FUN!