Discuss Notion Music Composition Software here.
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Since I have Notion with my Sphere subscription, I'm checking it out to see if it's a good solution for drum set. All I want to be able to do is write out sheet music and save to PDF. I'm struggling with basic note entry and editing. For example, here I am:

Screenshot 2022-05-26 214758.jpg


Somehow it's allowing me to have the wrong number of beats in the measure, and going left/right just skips over the missing 8th note. I also am unable to select any notes to delete or modify them. One time I was able to select one (it turned orange) but not anymore. What's the trick to do that?

Finally, the stems are upside down compared to normal drum notation. Can that be changed?

Thanks for any help.

StudioOne Professional (Sphere) w/ PreSonus 1824c
Recording Drums with 7 mic inputs
Computer: Intel Core i7-9700K 3.6 GHz 8-Core, MSI-7390A Pro, 32 GB DDR4-2666, Samsung 860 Evo 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive, EVGA GeForce RTX 2070 8 GB Black Video Card
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by acequantum on Fri May 27, 2022 12:48 am
Hi,

You can technically add any number of beats to a measure: less or more than the time signature allows. If there are more, the extra notes show up in red and the measure count will be extended. If there are less, the measure will play for the full count as indicated by the time sig.

For a drum kit, it may be helpful to use voices on the staff. For example, perhaps voice 1 is the cymbols and voice 2 is the bass and snare.

That will allow you to have polyrythms in both parts. Also if you use voice one for the top line and voice 2 for the bottom the stems will automatically align and flip properly once both voices are entered. Press Ctrl + 1 (windows) for voice 1, enter the cymbols etc. Press Ctrl + 2 for voice 2 and enter the kick and snare. The screen shot shows polyrythms and the automatic alignment and flipping of stems.

notion drum stems.JPG


If you want all stems up then select the section to change, right click (Windows) > Notes > Stem Up

To select individual notes, make sure you have the arrow cursor active. Press escape if you have any other tool selected. With the arrow, click directly on the head of the note and it will turn yellow. Drag select to select an entire group.
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by Chuck37 on Fri May 27, 2022 9:39 am
Thanks. Escape opened up some options. The cursor looked like an arrow, but must have been in some other mode. So now I can select at least.

I find the drum set pad entry to be frustrating. It takes up so much real estate and I want it to be useful, but it looks like it is super limited and you really need to start mousing around the get stuff done.

For me personally, many or most drumset parts are on a grid of ride cymbal or hit-hat, so it makes sense to me to lay that down first, then start inserting in bass and snare where they go. I can't figure out how to do that without putting everything in by dragging it to the staff. It's not a huge deal, but it's more efficient if you can just get to the right point in time (left right arrow) and then click all the voices for that time.

BTW, some people notate drums with multiple voices, but most stuff I have dealt with (and my preference) is to be in "chord" mode so the different voices share connection bars and there aren't extraneous rests. For me it makes the relative time relationship more obvious when sight reading.

StudioOne Professional (Sphere) w/ PreSonus 1824c
Recording Drums with 7 mic inputs
Computer: Intel Core i7-9700K 3.6 GHz 8-Core, MSI-7390A Pro, 32 GB DDR4-2666, Samsung 860 Evo 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive, EVGA GeForce RTX 2070 8 GB Black Video Card
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by acequantum on Fri May 27, 2022 12:11 pm
Hi,

I see. I haven't used the drum pads before so I tried it out just now. I actually found it to be a pretty good experience; though I have to admit I've become a little adept at using some of Notion's short cut keys. I think if you incorporate some shortcut keys, your life with the drum entry will become easier. :D

We'll approach this from the idea of a single cymbal grid as you seem to prefer this. My recommendation is two voices (because that's how I learned to notate drum parts :D and it's actually easier - and it's all about me right? :) ), but we'll stick with one voice for the example. Some quick entry tips:

1. For real estate purposes, I recommend selecting from the menu View > Continuous so that your staff just goes across the screen. You can set it to pages later, but for editing, this may be helpful. Also, Ctrl + ; will show or hide the note pallette. Sometimes when it's visible it's just in the way.

2. When you want to enter notes, make sure the little pencil is highlighted (Entry Mode) on the drum entry pads. select it now. You probably couldn't edit the notes before with the arrow because this mode was engaged. This mode allows entry from the drum pads. Press escape to exit this mode. but enter it for our example. Also press the "2 notes" button directly under it. This is melody mode for single note entry.

3. Each note value can be called up with the first letter of that note. E for example means eight note. Once you have your note value, just click on the pad for the specific drum. We'll click the ride cymbol pad 16 times. For a rest, just press the spacebar or the note value key twice and a rest will be automatically inserted at the current staff position highlighted in yellow.

4. Navigate quickly through measures using the bracket keys [ ] to move forward or backward by measure. Hold Ctrl + left bracket to go to the beginning. use the arrow keys to move note for note or beat for beat.

5. Click on the chord symbol. Click on the kick and ride pads. Both pads should highlight. Move to the beat the kick should be and press enter. You could go and add all of the kick now, or switch to snare as you go. When you switch to snare and ride, make sure the kick pad is turned off.

Overall the process condensed is:
1. Edit Mode/Melody Mode
2. Choose note duration (E for eigth) - click ride cymbal pad as many times as needed
3. Ctrl + [ to go back to the beginning or just [ to go back 1 measure at a time.
4. Click on Chord mode
5. Click kick pad and ride pad so both are lit.
6. Navigate to individual beats or notes using the arrow keys where you want the kick. Press Enter to add "chord" of kick and ride
7. Repeat number 6 for the snare and ride pads being sure to turn off the kick.
8. Exit edit mode. Press Ctrl + A to select all.
Right click on highlighted notes Notes > Stem Up

notion drum pad 1 voice.JPG
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by Chuck37 on Fri May 27, 2022 1:15 pm
Thanks a bunch for the help. I'll give this a go when I get home tonight,

StudioOne Professional (Sphere) w/ PreSonus 1824c
Recording Drums with 7 mic inputs
Computer: Intel Core i7-9700K 3.6 GHz 8-Core, MSI-7390A Pro, 32 GB DDR4-2666, Samsung 860 Evo 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive, EVGA GeForce RTX 2070 8 GB Black Video Card
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by Chuck37 on Fri May 27, 2022 11:02 pm
Any idea why the note head style is sticky? By that I mean, the X head is highlighted and I can pick another temporarily (for one insert) but the new style never highlights, and it immediately reverts back to X head. This requires me to keep re-picking the normal head type for every new insertion. It doesn't matter which voice I pick, it just keeps preferring the X head.

EDIT: Here's a screen shot. See how the X head is highlighted? I can't figure out how to get any other to be highlighted, for example a normal head.

Screenshot 2022-05-27 221945.jpg

StudioOne Professional (Sphere) w/ PreSonus 1824c
Recording Drums with 7 mic inputs
Computer: Intel Core i7-9700K 3.6 GHz 8-Core, MSI-7390A Pro, 32 GB DDR4-2666, Samsung 860 Evo 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive, EVGA GeForce RTX 2070 8 GB Black Video Card
User avatar
by acequantum on Sat May 28, 2022 12:46 pm
Sorry. When using the Drum Entry library thingy it seems the noteheads are coded to the specific lines/drums on the staff. You can choose a note-head for a one time placement when not in edit mode. But the cursor will jump back to the cross head after placing your note. This might suffice if you are just placing like a rim shot from time to time.

An alternative would be to set up a Basic treble clef staff (not drums) . If you know the notes that the drums are mapped to, you can use step entry via the keyboard icon (not the drum icon) and you'll have complete control over all of the tools in the pallete. The editing is the same. For example instead of clicking the ride cymbal pad, you would just click the F5 key.

When you are finished, you can go into Staff Setting and convert the staff to drums so you can hear them instead of a piano.

Or have two staves, your basic treble clef staff, and your drum staff. Do all of the entry and editing on the basic treble clef (using the keyboard icon) then copy and paste that onto your drum staff. That way you can edit little by little and listen to the results, then in the end, delete the basic staff.
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by Chuck37 on Sat May 28, 2022 1:10 pm
Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure I follow your explanation of the note heads. If I pick a regular note head and place it on the staff anywhere, and in a measure far in the future from any existing notes, it instantly reverts back to X head. Then I need to click regular head again, over and over if I want to enter multiple normal notes. It's stuck in some mode where X head is king.

I started a new document and it does not have this behavior. If I select a new note head type, it stays at that new type until I change it. This is the behavior I would expect. Either there's a bug, or some feature that is causing this obsession with X head in my first document. I'd love to know how to get out of this mode.

Incidentally, I'd be happy to have it simply select the appropriate note head for the staff location. Is there a setting you have in yours that makes this happen?

EDIT: I discovered that this behavior goes away if the "drum library" thing is hidden. Note sure yet why that would be.

StudioOne Professional (Sphere) w/ PreSonus 1824c
Recording Drums with 7 mic inputs
Computer: Intel Core i7-9700K 3.6 GHz 8-Core, MSI-7390A Pro, 32 GB DDR4-2666, Samsung 860 Evo 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive, EVGA GeForce RTX 2070 8 GB Black Video Card
User avatar
by acequantum on Sun May 29, 2022 1:33 pm
I made it sound too complicated. Forget about all the copy and pasting and conversion blah blah blah. What I meant was if you want to be able to control the note heads any way you want, DON'T use the drum library icon. Instead, use the piano step entry icon.

notion piano step entry.JPG


For example, the snare is C5 and the ride is F5. The kick drum is F4. Use the pallete or press the "X" key to cycle through the different note heads. Once one is selected, you can place as many notes with the note head as you want until you choose another.

If you do use the drum library icon entry, note heads are preassigned and hard coded to specific pads. So every time you press a cymbal pad, it will be a cross-head, and regular drums will be a round head. If you want a specific note head when using the drum library, press ESC to get out of edit mode. Then use the arrow cursor and the pallete to select the duration and the note head. Place the note on your score. Once placed, the note head will revert back to a cross-head so you can't place the same note head this way in succession. Again, this is a lot of manual adjustments so if you need more than the default behavior, then it's better to use the piano icon step entry.

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