Discuss Notion Music Composition Software here.
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This is the first version of "Chapter 13: The Happy Valley" and is focused on the Intro and first half of the story . . . :)

THOUGHTS

I have switched from doing the work in ReWire sessions where Studio One Professional 5.5 and NOTION 6.8 is the ReWire helper device . . .

Now I am doing everything within Studio One Professional 6, which is most excellent since NOTION is nicely packaged within Studio One Professional 6, thereby not requiring ReWire sessions--a good thing, because ReWire is not supported in Studio One Professional 6 . . .

There are a few things which are different but mostly with respect to equivalent--or better--activities having names which are more focused on working with real instruments and less focused on working with virtual instruments and music notation . . .

For example, when the focus is on music notation, as it is in NOTION, adding more measures is done via inserting bar lines, one-at-a-time, which takes a while . . .

Yet in Studio One Professional 6, this is done by "inserting silence"--something that took me about five hours to discover . . .

I searched the Studio One Professional 6 "Reference Manual" for phrases like "insert measure", "insert bar", and so forth but found nothing . . .

After a few hours with no success, I searched YouTube and found a helpful video that explained how to do it . . .

There are several ways to insert silence, but none of them are intuitive for music notation folks like me . . . :roll:

It's actually easier in Studio One Professional 6 than in NOTION; and the key is to position the cursor somewhere already in the recorded time line in the Studio One Professional 6 "Track Lane" . . .

There is a command on the "Edit" menu to "Insert Silence", and you can enter the number of measures you want inserted . . .

This is reflected in the music notation, and there you are--super easy . . . :+1

Along the way, I tried adding more empty measures via sending a NOTION score to Studio One Professional 6, but (a) it did not work and (b) it created several sets of duplicate staves in the music notation "Edit" window, where as best as I could determine there is no way to delete spurious staves . . .

The "workaround" solution was to create an empty Studio One Professional 6 ".song" and then to populate it with the correct set of Instrument Tracks and Audio Tracks, which involved some copying and pasting, and switching from one Studio One Professional 6 ".song" to another to do the copying and pasting . . .

There might be another way to do this, but i was not be able to find it . . .

The "workaround" solution did not take long; and it provided the solution . . .

There was another behavior which for me was not intuitive; and even though I sent 800 empty measures from NOTION to Studio One Professional 6, only 150 or so measures actually arrived . . .

I think the strategy is to insert a sufficient quantity of silence before doing the send from NOTION; but I have not done that experiment--mostly because I see no purpose in doing it that way now that I am doing everything in Studio One Professional 6 . . .

Doing everything in Studio One Professional 6 is very nice; and I can do everything I need to do . . . :+1

[NOTE: As with everything I am doing at present, this is mixed for listening with studio-quality headphones and Apple AirPods, since I am doing headphones-style "stereo" mixes", which are different in several ways from studio monitor-style mixes. For historical reference, mixes were done this way starting in the mid-1960s, but headphones were not ubiquitous at the time, hence this was something folks discovered mostly from having headphones for recording work. It's not "stereo" in the way the term is used with studio monitor systems where everything tends to blur with respect to panning locations. With studio monitor systems, there can be distinct far-left, center, and far-right, but there usually is a bit of what I call "location blurring"--not always, but usually. On the other hand, there are mixes which are excellent for setting "center" for a traditional stereo studio monitor system; and the single version of "Billie jean" (Michael Jackson) is stellar for this purpose, where the better your spatial perception for audio, the less you need a digital SPL meter for anything other than ensuring the maximum volume level for your studio monitor system never exceeds OSHA-recommended SPL levels. The procedure is first to satisfy the OSHA-recommended SPL levels for everything (computer output, external digital audio and MIDI interface, external equalizers, and self-powered studio monitors and subwoofers) and then to fine-tune stereo "center" by making tiny adjustments to the volume levels of the various loudspeakers and subwoofers until when you sit in the stereo "center" location of your studio, the kick drum, bass, and far-left and far-right activity is correct. There are other ways to do it; but if your hearing is excellent, then you can do the fine-tuning "by ear" after you ensure the entire system is within OSHA-approved specifications, of course, which mostly is a matter of setting the maximum volume to 90 db SPL measured with a dBC weighting . . . ]

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Lots of FUN! :)

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by Surf.Whammy on Sun Nov 13, 2022 2:53 am
I finished writing the story and my voiceovers so now am focusing on composing music to represent the 12th Dimension . . . :)

THOUGHTS

This is done exclusively within Studio One Professional 6--no ReWire and no NOTION . . .

At this point in developing, I use repetitive music as a cadence metronome for the voiceovers; and I usually start recording and reading.

I tend to make mistakes, but I keep reading and then edit the Audio Tracks after they are recorded . . .

This is very easy to do with Studio One Professional 6, as is merging the various clips of an edited Audio Track to a single audio part . . .

Now that I know how to add and delete measures ("Insert Silence" and "Delete Time", respectively), this part of the work is considerably easier than it was when I was doing everything in ReWire sessions with Studio One Professional 5.5 as the ReWire host controller and NOTION 6.8 as the ReWire helper device . . .

This version has 19 Instrument Tracks, and I plan to add more VSTi virtual instruments, probably by what I call the "In-n-Out" strategy where I add a new Instrument Track "temporarily" and use it to generate audio, which I record on an Audio Track, followed by saving the ".song" as a version; removing the newly added Instrument Track; and then working with the recorded Audio Track, which keeps the computing overhead to a minimum, since among other things there is not much overhead associated with Audio Tracks . . .

[NOTE: This is mixed specifically for listening with studio-quality headphones and Apple AirPods, since it's mixed for headphone-style "stereo" and has motion effects and echoes that are focused on panning (far-left, top-center, far-right, and in-between locations). For reference, Beatles songs were mixed this way but most folks did not know it, since in those days having studio-quality headphones was not ubiquitous, as it is now. There were no personal computers, iPhones, AirPods, and all that stuff, plus recording was done with magnetic tape machines rather than with computers, which among other things was like during the early-20th, 19th, 18th, and earlier centuries when the peasants and proletariat were restricted to so-called "folk music" because (a) having access to a symphonic orchestra was a rare luxury and (b) so-called "music theorists" did everything possible to discourage everyone from making sense of music notation, in part by creating a virtual festival of clefs, transposing instruments and voices for no logical reason, and so forth and so on. Here in the sound isolation, I do nearly everything on treble staves, which I set to play notes one or two octaves lower or higher--one octave lower for electric guitar and two octaves lower for electric bass--which simplifies everything to 12 notes and 10 or so octaves, at least 2 of which mostly are provided to entertain bats, cats, dogs, dolphins, porpoises, sea turtles, and whales. As you can see and hear, Studio One Professional 6 supports this, although since Realivox Blue (RealiTone)--my favorite virtual female soprano--is controlled by keyswitches on the bass clef staff of a grand staff, I make an exception at various times to have direct access to keyswitches . . . ]

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Lots of FUN! :)
Last edited by Surf.Whammy on Mon Nov 14, 2022 12:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

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by Surf.Whammy on Mon Nov 14, 2022 12:45 am
I enhanced the music with more instruments, added foley sounds, and did some producing and audio-engineering . . . :)

THOUGHTS

It's coming along nicely, and I plan to add a few more foley sounds and additional instruments . . .

[NOTE: As always, this is mixed specifically for listening with studio-quality headphones and Apple AirPods, which is the best way to enjoy the motion effects, echoes, and panning . . . ]

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Doing this entirely within Studio One Professional 6 is excellent, natural, and intuitive once this way of creating songs "clicks" . . . :+1

One of the key aspects is my focus on avoiding articulations, dynamics, playing styles, and everything else that I consider to be gross wastes of time and energy in music notation, where for reference (a) I carefully select my VSTi virtual instruments and corresponding sampled-sounds so the playing style is determined by the VSTi virtual instruments and their specific sampled-sounds rather than notation, (b) I control dynamics with a combination of effects plug-ins, including compressors, limiters, and "ducking", as well as tremolo, vibrato, echoes, and so forth, and (c) It's a matter of trading additional time researching sampled-sound libraries and virtual instruments in general to avoid messing with lots of music notation elaboration . . .

When all this is combined, it closely matches the Graphic User Interface (GUI) design and intuitive usability focus of the Studio One Professional 6 native implementation of the NOTION . . .

When needed, the complex music notation capabilities are present, but here in the sound isolation studio all I need in addition to notes, rests, and ties are occasional flats and sharps, and tuplets . . .

It might be different if I were doing other styles of music, but for my needs (a) it's just not necessary, which (b) makes it a waste of time and counterproductive . . .

FACT: Nobody listened to "Engel" and "Du Hast" (Rammstein) and said something like, "The transition from pianissimo to pianississimo when the vibrato of the tinkly bells changed to tremolo was superb."

The perspective on dynamics here in the sound isolation studio is that if you cannot hear it, then it either (a) was not produced and audio-engineered correctly or (b) it's useless noise that occupies otherwise useful and necessary sonic space, which makes it the enemy of all that is good in the world . . .

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Lots of FUN! :)

P. S. I'm fascinated by German musical group Rammstein these days, and the synthesizer player is one of my favorites . . .

I should be able to listen to the synthesizer phrases in "Radio" and transcribe them instantly, but alas this is not the way it works, mostly because of the flats and the "tightness" of the series of notes, as well as the mode, which is part of it . . .

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Large intervals are easy for me to transcribe, but as another example it took me a while to identify the bass notes in "Billie Jean" (Michael Jackson), even though it's a simple set of notes . . .

In contrast, it's easy for me to transcribe the rhythm guitar patterns, bass guitar, and drumkit parts for "Radio" (Rammstein) . . .

I am devoting a good bit of energy to the Rammstein synthesizer phrases, and I think this might lead to an epiphany regarding what I call "tight melodies", something which in no small respect is what made John Lennon and Paul McCartney so skilled in composing and singing melodies and harmonies--George Harrison, too, of course . . .

It might be laziness, but I think it's more a matter of focusing on the simplicity and intuitiveness of larger intervals--or even monotone "melodies", which is something John Lennon did when nothing else appeared, with "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" and "I'm Only Sleeping" being examples where the melody alternates between (a) monotone, (b) large intervals, and (c) scales . . .

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Sometimes, I sing entire songs monotone while playing the same electric guitar chord over and over, which I suppose in some respects is counterproductive to being able to discern smaller intervals, but so what . . . :roll:

It's a good way to determine whether the cadence and specific word selections of lyrics are correct or at least consistent . . .

Record singing the same lyrics several times--doubling and tripling--and you might discover that what you think are the lyrics you are singing are not the true lyrics . . .

[NOTE: This is not copying and pasting the same track. It's literally singing and recording it several different times . . . ]

For reference, I use "tight" in this context to refer to typically chromatic melodies that are constrained at most to the chromatic notes within half of an octave, which is in contrast to more "vast" melodies that have octave jumps and larger intermediate intervals, where "Over The Rainbow" (Judy Garland) is an example of a "vast" melody, although it has sections that are "tight" . . .

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"Night And Day" (Fred Astaire) works the reverse way, where it's "tight" but has "vast" segues, as contrasted to "Over The Rainbow" which is "vast" but has "tight" segues . . .

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I have been listening to "Radio" (Rammstein), and I decided to add a flavor of the synthesizer phrases to this new version of "Chapter 13: The Happy Valley"; but rather than identifying the Rammstein notes and then copying them, I composed some tight phrases with 16th notes and flatted some of the notes to add a stylized Rammstein mode . . .

[NOTE: The "tight" 16th note phrases in "Chapter 13: The Happy Valley" begin at 14:30 and appear a few more times thereafter. The phrases end with a Scottish bagpipe "shout-out" . . . ]

Instead, I am listening to the "Radio" phrases over and over with the goal being to be able to identify them without needing to resort to doing it one note at a time, which is what I did when I was teaching myself how to play lead guitar and playing lead guitar phrases on vinyl records at half-speed so the notes sounded like bass guitar notes, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous! :reading:

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Sinkhorn's Dilemma: Every paradox has at least one non-trivial solution!
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by Surf.Whammy on Tue Nov 29, 2022 5:18 pm
I added more foley sounds and electric guitars . . . :)

THOUGHTS

I also added more melody to the electric bass and added some synthesizers . . .

Unless new ideas appear, I think this is the final version; but I might do more producing and audio-engineering to polish it . . .

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Now I need to write the story for "Chapter 14: A Murder of Clowns and Babblers", which among other things is a pun on a flock of crows--called a "murder" rather than a "flock" . . .

The Clowns are followers of the Grand Eye of Toll-Eh and in this chapter are being observed inside one of the spaceships . . .

Babblers, which are introduced in "Chapter 13: The Happy Valley" are extraterrestrials who primarily focus on sharing their thoughts about such things as baseball, golf, climate change hypotheses, politics, and a virtual festival of contrived annoyances.

As explained in this introductory chapter, some of the Babblers speak very slowly, while other Babblers speak rapidly or backward like George Harrison's lead guitar in "I'm Only Sleeping" (Beatles); but all of them make diligent efforts to be generally confusing and incoherent whenever possible . . .

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Threta von G’bergthun is the Babbler introduced in "Chapter 13: The Happy Valley", and there might be more information about her in the next chapter . . .

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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