Hi everyone,
I have had a break from music making since 2015. Upon returning I need to refresh my skills, and I have sketched a short happy-go-lucky piece in order to remind myself of some technicalities. Notion was my software of choice back then, and I have picked up the latest version and used three different sample sets to perform the piece. First, Notion’s own samples; then VSL Special Edition (the original, not he SYNCHRON-ized version), with the presets included in Notion; finally the Spitfire Symphonic Orchestra series. The piece is called «A Tune in Search of Itself», and it depicts how a little tune tries to find its inherent identity, which finally emerges when it is raised a semi-tone from G to A flat and the tempo is slightly increased — and the melody line is subtly altered in bar 33. Used with a decent reverb, the aging Notion sample set compares rather favorably to the two contenders. The type and quality of the reverb can do a lot, in my experience. In this particular case I have used the Vienna Hybrid Pro Reverb for all three sample sets, with a somewhat less spacious setting for the Spitfire version, since the samples are recorded with natural reverb form the Air Studios. Notion was — and still is — a great tool for composing music. My wish is that Presonus would develop Notion further as a stand-alone application, in addition to integrating it with Studio One. Since I was active in 2015 Dorico has come up as a new alternative, with an unbeatable set of engraving-level notation tools. However, the uncluttered interface and smooth workflow still makes Notion my software of choice when it comes to plotting down musical ideas as notes in an intuitive way — even more so as the audio features of Dorico are somewhat unimpressive. The activity in the Notion forum seems to have slowed down since I was active in here many years ago, which i see as a sign that some people might think that Notion is becoming a dead horse — but please, Presonus (or Fender, or whoever), keep on developing Notion and make a superb composer’s tool even better for those of us music makers who primarily conceptualize music as notation. The Notion LSO samples were reworked from v2 to v3 back in 2009, and since most people now use fast SSDs and much more powerful computers than back then, perhaps it might be an idea to have a new look at the bundled samples and expansion packs. Some additional string articulations is one of the things that would be appreciated. That said, the current Notion samples still do a respectable job, as my little piece indicates — so I will continue using Notion after my long break, hoping for and expecting future updates that will make a great piece of software even better. |
What a fun little piece!
I agree, pretty much, with all you've said. I find Notion easier to compose in than other software I've tried. For engraving...well, let's face it, Notion doesn't match up to the competition. MuseScore, a free product, produces a cleaner and more readable score, with a much more extensive set of specialized musical symbols. I'm watching MuseScore with interest, because I have feeling that the upcoming MuseScore 4, with its promised support for sample libraries, is going to be as powerful and useful as any of the paid notation products. Let's hope, for Presonus' sake, that they have a Notion version "in the pipeline" that can compete. |
Welcome back, Otto! Glad to see you return!
Very nice little composition! I agree with you completely that a good quality reverb makes a huge difference with the Notion native instruments. I also am a fan of the VSL Hybrid Reverb. I have used it a long time and have checked out alternatives but have yet to find its equal for orchestral venue emulation. This forum has unfortunately gotten very quiet. A few old timers are still around but a lot of folks have moved on. There is a fair amount of activity on the Facebook Notion Users group page. See a related post here: https://forums.presonus.com/viewtopic.php?f=167&t=37649 There was a call there by the Notion product manager, Chris Swaffer, for folks that might be interested in Beta Testing for iOS and desktop versions. Sounds like you might be a great candidate!
iMac (Retina 5K 27", 2019) 3.6 ghz I9 8-core 64 gb RAM Fusion Drive
with small AOC monitor for additional display macOS Sonoma 14.4 2 - 500 gb + 2 - 1 tb external SSD for sample libraries M Audio AirHub audio interface Nektar Panorama P1 control surface Nektar Impact 49-key MIDI keyboard Focal CMS40 near-field monitors JBL LSR310S subwoofer Notion 6/Notion Mobile + Studio One 6 Pro http://www.tensivity.com |
michaelmyers1 wroteBeta Testing for iOS and desktop versions. Hmm... reading between the lines, I like what I'm reading. Notion is in need of some updating, if it's to compete with the competition. Right now, I'd say that Dorico Elements (the "lite" version at $99) is a better value than Notion for most people. Too bad that the request was made on facebook but not here, on their "official" forum. I don't do facebook, or any other "social media," and I suspect I'm not alone in that. |
Notion is so close to being great. I find its ease of use unprecedented and it's so simple to record live from a MIDI instrument with pretty accurate transcription. The NTempo functionality really is a great idea and again, easy to implement in Notion.
But all of the issues and lack of basic features that you can find throughout these forums hold it back. I would also guess Fender has more interest in the hardware side of Presonus than the software side. |
acequantum wroteNotion is so close to being great. I find its ease of use unprecedented and it's so simple to record live from a MIDI instrument with pretty accurate transcription. The NTempo functionality really is a great idea and again, easy to implement in Notion. Yeah, for me, Notion's editing/composing interface is the best of what I've seen. It's quick and easy to get ideas down, and the GUI never gets in your way. It's less great when it comes to playback. While it's possible to use 3rd party libraries, it's tricky to get rulesets working, so it's hard to get much better sound out of it than the built-in instruments. It's almost a necessity to send the score to Studio One to "realize" a performance. (I've actually taken to doing a lot of my score editing right in Studio One, even though that's a different set of problems.) But the biggest problem is engraving. I've had musicians complain that my part printouts are hard to read, and I know what they're talking about. The fonts are not proportioned well, the ledger lines tend to print very thin and indistinct, and it's really awkward to adjust system length and spacing "on the fly" to make a score scan better. Plus a lot of specialized notation items are just plain missing. |
macwilson wroteIMHO Well they added a score editor to Studio One, based on Notion. https://s1manual.presonus.com/Content/S ... Editor.htm https://s1manual.presonus.com/#Score_Ed ... 257C_____1 Now you can also freely send song data back and forth in either direction between Notion and Studio One. https://s1manual.presonus.com/#Setup_To ... Notion.htm |
Now you can also freely send song data back and forth in either direction between Notion and Studio One. Sending songs between Notion and Studio One has been around for years nothing new there other than adding Tablets to the party using Notion Mobile In the past we would need to push our songs to iCloud to talk with our iPads and iPhones
Last edited by ennbr on Fri Nov 25, 2022 6:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
|
ennbr wroteNow you can also freely send song data back and forth in either direction between Notion and Studio One. It wasn't fully integrated in the past. Now it is (at least since v5). No more re-wire, etc. |
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 6 guests