rickbreckwoldt wroteI have written and recorded a few songs on SO4 with many of the preset sounds or insturments that are in SO4, such as Rob Lee signature strings, however when I open Notion 6, it will not write the section out as notes, nor will it play it back.

There are several possibilities that can explain this, but they depend on specific information, hence without the specific information only can be guessed with varying degrees of accuracy . . .

When you write "written and recorded", are you referring to playing the notes on a MIDI keyboard or MIDI synthesizer and then recording the audio in Studio One but not the MIDI?

Are you referring to inputting MIDI to Studio One and then having the MIDI you input played by one of the Studio One native instruments or synthesizers?

Are these Studio One Audio Tracks only (not MIDI on Studio One Instrument Tracks)?

When you open NOTION 6 after the transfer from Studio One, do you see "piano roll" style MIDI on the various staves rather than music notation?

The reason I ask these questions is that when transferring the audio for Studio One Audio Tracks, there is no conversion to MIDI or music notation; and what is transferred are audio clips in audio files, in which case there is nothing to convert to MIDI or music notation . . .

On the other hand, if you have MIDI for an Instrument Track in Studio One, then the MIDI can be transferred to NOTION in at least two ways, where one way is to export the MIDI from Studio One and then to import the exported MIDI to NOTION, and the other way is to use the automated transfer capabilities to do essentially the same thing automagically . . .

rickbreckwoldt wroteI have used the plug in manager in Notion to attempt to import these sounds into Notion with no success obviously. I understand that it needs to use VST plug ins, but is there any way to get the preset sounds in SO4 put into Notion? Is there anyway to make the software recognize these as VST plug ins?

At present, there is no easy way to convert native Studio One sampled instruments to VSTi virtual instruments (Virtual Studio Technology [VST] is a Steinberg technology) . . .

Yet since virtually anything is possible on personal computer at the dawn of the early-21st century, one might suppose there is a way to do something at least "ballpark" to what you intuitively are thinking might be possible; but it will require a huge amount of work that could take many months or perhaps a year or more; hence while being somewhat possible, this is not practical . . .

Specifically, there are applications that are designed specifically to make and play user-defined custom sampled sound libraries, with SampleTank 3 (IK Multimedia) being one example, which runs as a VSTi virtual instrument on both the Mac and Windows . . .

SampleTank 3 (IK Multimedia)

Combined with another music application, Audacity, it's both possible and to some degree practical to create your own user-defined custom sampled sound libraries, which then can be used with SampleTank 3 running as a VSTi virtual instrument . . .

Audacity

[NOTE: To distinguish virtual instruments from effects plug-ins, I use the terminology "VSTi" for VST instruments but "VST" for effects plug-ins. At a high-level, both of these are VST technologies, but virtual instruments are different from effects plug-ins, hence the "i" appended to "VST" when I am writing about VST virtual instruments . . . ]

The way creating your own user-defined custom sampled-sound libraries works is that you begin by recording short audio clips of individual notes played in various articulations and styles, including various dynamics and so forth . . .

Consider that you play lead guitar and have a particular effects pedal rig that you like, all of which makes it possible for you to create your own signature lead guitar sound . . .

If you want to create a sampled sound library of your signature lead guitar tones and so forth, then you can record at least one note for each note on your lead guitar . . .

Since, for example, a Fender Stratocaster has nearly four octaves, this maps to approximately 48 notes, which in turn maps to needing to record yourself playing 48 notes--one at a time--which can be in one recording or in 48 separate recordings, where in the latter case, there is a separate audio file for each note . . .

Using Audacity, you can edit the audio file(s) to focus them more clearly and distinctly; and in the case of all 48 notes in one file, you can use Audacity to create a set of 48 individual audio files . . .

SampleTank 3 has very specific requirements for the audio files that will be used to create a user-defined custom sampled sound library; and one of the requirements involves the specific name of each file, since the file names are used by SampleTank 3 to identify the notes and to provide other information, where for example you need to use the correct file name for "Middle C" so that SampleTank 3 knows that the audio file for the note is for a "Middle C" rather than for some other note . . .

If your user-defined custom sampled sound library only needs to have one articulation, playing style, dynamic, or so forth, then you need only 48 audio clips--one for each note--but if you want to have more options, then you need at least 48 notes for each specific playing style, articulation, dynamic, and so forth; but there is a way to do this with only 24 sampled notes . . .

[NOTE: More specifically, there are two general types of sampled-sound libraries, where one has samples only of every other note, and the other is chromatically sampled, which means that there is a sample for each note. When a sampled-sound library is not chromatically sampled, then the non-sampled notes are computed using logarithmic extrapolation via various algorithms, which can be acceptable but not always. For example, when there is tremolo in a sampled note, the tremolo for the computed note will be different; so for any types of time-based articulations that are embedded in the digital samples, you want to use a chromatically sampled library. Otherwise you want to use "dry" samples and then add tremolo or other time-based effects with an AU or VST effects plug-in, since this ensures the time-based effects are correct and consistent in timing, rates, and so forth . . . ]

As an example, in the first version Miroslav Philharmonik (IK Multimedia), there are over 150 playing styles, articulations, dynamics, and so forth for French Horn . . .

There are more than 150, but when I was counting them several years ago, I got bored after an hour and stopped counting . . .

It's also important to observe that SampleTank 3 supports what is called "round robin" sample rotation, where when activated if you specify the same note eight times in a measure, then SampleTank 3 will use a different sampled sound for each note--provided the sampled sound library has eight samples for each note in the same playing style, articulation, dynamic, and so forth, which for purposes of creating your own user-defined custom sampled sound library for lead guitar maps to multiplying everything by eight . . .

In other words, if you have only one set of 48 notes for a specific tone, then to do "round robin" you need to have 384 total note samples (8 samples for each note) . . .

If you want to have 10 different playing styles, articulations, dynamics, and so forth, then multiply the total number of required sample by 10 when you want to use "round robin" playback technology, which then maps to needing 3,840 samples . . .

When you become proficient in doing the processing in Audacity required to create a digitized note file for SampleTank 3 and can do one note every 15 minutes, then doing a bit more arithmetic, continuing with the example, this maps to 960 hours just to get the note files ready for SampleTank 3 . . .

This does not include actually having SampleTank 3 build the user-defined custom sampled sound library, testing, and so forth . . .

In other words, if you did nothing but work on this 10 hours a day, it could take you approximately 3 months plus however much time it takes for compiling, building, and testing your user-defined custom sampled sound library of lead guitar notes . . .

In theory, you could do this with the various native Studio One instruments; but (a) I think this would violate your PreSonus license agreement and (b) even if you ignored the legality aspect, it could take perhaps a decade or two, which makes it beyond impractical . . .

rickbreckwoldt wroteIt does populate one or two items, such as a piano that has a VST plug in, but other than that, nothing.

The automagical Studio One to NOTION transferring technology keys on the names of Instrument Tracks in Studio One, where "Piano" is an officially "recognized" instrument name that makes it possible for both Studio One and NOTION to know what to do . . .

This is the reason the two tracks (Studio One) or staves (NOTION) transfer with no problems . . .

If the tracks in Studio One are Audio Tracks, then when transferred automagically to NOTION there will be no MIDI sequences or staves with music notation, because neither Studio One nor NOTION has technology that examines an audio clip and derives the notes . . .

The most likely explanation for the other instruments not transferring to NOTION is that instead of being MIDI on Studio One Instrument Tracks, they are audio on Studio One Audio Tracks . . .

It is possible to do this, but it's an advanced computing activity that among other things uses the analytical technology Joseph Fourier discovered approximately two centuries ago--something that now is grouped into the category of Fast Fourier Transforms (FFT), an example of which is seen in the following YouTube video of the epilogue to one of the chapters in my science fiction radio play ("Extreme Gravity"), where the MOTO "FFT Analyze"r examines the music and voice in real-time as the recording is played and then separates the audio into frequency bands, with each frequency band (vertical line) showing its relative volume level . . .

Joseph Fourier (Wikipedia)

[NOTE: This was done about 10 years ago when I was doing everything with real instruments. Any similarities to the rhythm guitar chord patterns for "Walk Don't Run" (The Ventures) and "I Want To Hold Your Hand" (Beatles) are purely coincidental . . . ]



Possible? Yes . . .

Practical? No . . .

THE REWIRE MIDI STRATEGY WITH STUDIO ONE AND NOTION

Yet, there is another way to do this in a practical way . . .

As best as I can determine the Rob Lee Signature Sound Set is not available as a separate VSTi virtual instrument, but there are third-party VSTi virtual instruments that provide strings and other instruments; so you can use one of them, although they can be a bit expensive . . .

However, the practical way to do this is to use music notation on NOTION 6 ReWire MIDI staves to play native Studio One and third-party VSTi virtual instruments that are hosted in Studio One, with this being done in a ReWire session where Studio One Professional 4 (PreSonus) is the ReWire host controller and NOTION 6 (PreSonus) is the ReWire slave application . . .

If you never have done any work with ReWire sessions, then there is what one might call a "learning curve", since (a) in this scenario for you it is a new technology and (b) nobody is "born-knowing" how to make intuitive sense of ReWire (Propellerhead Software), including me . . .

For reference, I have a university degree in Computer Science and decades of experience doing software engineering, as well as music, and it took me about 3 months to make sense of ReWire when I first stared using NOTION 3 in 2010 . . .

During that time if anyone from what then was Notion Music or what continues to be MOTU knocked on my door to ask me how my learning experience with ReWire was coming along, I probably would have chased them around the yard with a battle axe . . .

I was not a happy camper, and the thing about ReWire is that companies say "It's easy", but none of them actually document how to do ReWire in any useful detail, which in some respects is what one might call the "Technical Documentation Dilemma", with this mostly being a matter of financial reality . . .

Software changes frequently, by design; and if one were to document exactly how to do ReWire with each participating application, each of the virtual festivals of versions of operating systems (Mac and Window), and so forth, then by the time the full documentation was completed it would be out-of-date, archaic, and mostly useless . . .

Explained another way, it's a variation of the complexity involved in creating your own user-defined custom sampled sound library . . .

It certainly can be done, but few companies or people actually take the time to document every aspect and variation of doing ReWire . . .

In this forum, there are a handful of folks who provide what I consider to be highly useful and accurate information specifically on how to do ReWire with NOTION and various Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) applications running on the Mac and Windows; but even then, the information tends to be very specific, which is fine with me . . .

This is something I do, but since I do everything on the Mac, my advice and guidance on ReWire is specific to the Mac . . .

In part due to my initial learning experience with ReWire being so frustrating and mind-boggling--even though I am highly skilled in computer stuff--since then I have devoted quite a bit of effort to helping folks with ReWire in this forum, as well as in the NOTION Music forum before NOTION became a key part of the PreSonus product family . . .

Using what I call the "ReWire MIDI" strategy, you can export the MIDI you have in Studio One as MIDI files and then import the exported MIDI files into NOTION, which gets the MIDI into NOTION and is something you do manually using the Studio One export MIDI functionality and the NOTION import MID functionality . . .

It does not take a long time, but there are additional things you will need to do both in NOTION and in Studio One . . .

Specifically the imported MIDI in NOTION will be put on regular staves and at first might be in "piano roll" MIDI sequence notation, which you can convert to music notation with the "Convert to Music Notation" functionality in NOTION . . .

Then you have the music notation, but it's defined to be played by a native NOTION instrument--probably the NOTION Piano . . .

Next, you will need to create a matching set of ReWire MID staves and then you will copy the MIDI from the regular staves to the matching ReWire MIDI staves, at which point you can delete the regular staves . . .

Now you have a set of ReWire MIDI staves in NOTION, each of which is assigned to a specific bus and channel, which is the first step in the strategy . . .

Then after saving your work in NOTION, you can switch to Studio One and create a set of Instrument Tracks, which you likely already have done . . .

The next step is to connect the ReWire MIDI staves in the newly created NOTION score to the matching Instrument Tracks in Studio One, where you also will want to create a matching set of Studio One Audio Tracks, when then makes it possible to record both (a) the MIDI sent from NOTION to Studio One Instrument Tracks via ReWire MIDI staves and (b) the audio generated by the Instrument Tracks in Studio One, where this is explained in great detail in one of my project topics in this this forum . . .

[NOTE: This is the current version of "Surf Zot". All the instruments (including my favorite virtual soprano, Realivox Blue [Realitone]) are done with music notation on NOTION ReWire MIDI staves with the AUi (Mac) and VSTi (Mac and WIndows) virtual instruments hosted in Studio One Professional 4. My singing is real but highly produced with a virtual festival of effects plug-ins, mostly because I tend not to listen to Pretend George Martin with respect to practicing singing before recording here in the sound isolation studio where for the most part there is no adult supervision . . . ]



Project: ReWire ~ NOTION + Studio One Professional (PreSonus NOTION Forum)

SUMMARY

You can do this, but there is a very specific way to do it . . .

If this is a new bit of technology, then there is a learning curve; but (a) it works and (b) once you discover the rules, it's a very easy and vastly productive way to create music in the digital music universe . . .

And at present, this only can be done with PreSonus software (Studio One and NOTION), because nobody else provides the necessary ReWire MIDI implementation in their digital music production applications . . .

Lots of FUN!