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View Poll Results: Would you be interested in a Notation VST as described.
Yes, this sounds interesting 12 66.67%
Yes, but with some changes. 1 5.56%
No, I have a better solution 1 5.56%
No, I don't need a song writing tool 4 22.22%
Voters: 18. You may not vote on this poll

 
 
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Old 07-06-2014, 06:54 PM   #1
Deanna
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Default Notation software

I have looked at various Notation software tools and their interaction with Reaper and have yet to find a solution. I want something that I can use to help write songs, change notes and have them play with the rest of my tracks. Sibelius with a rewire through a virtual midi cable does some of the job, but leaves out many important aspects. The most important shortcoming is that I don't see a way to set it up for different articulation samples. For instance, using velocity, key, or range switching. Or even being able to change a midi channel for a certain note articulation.

There are other things I would like to have from various other sources. First I would like a song structure database that would create regions and sub regions and sub sub regions, down to a song section. For the section I would like to be able to define a chord sequence (lets say for an A section) and have all the A sections reflect that. Here I would like a feature from Cubase's chord track that applies the chord over all the material in the DAW. I also like the idea of chord selector from toontracks ezkeys, but it would be nice to have it work with a chord sequence database of common progressions you like to work with.

Back to the Notation part, if the piano roll had a notation view above the piano roll that would go a long way to help. But all these require changes to Reaper code and feature changes.

Would there be enough interest in something like this for me to code a VST that would act as a notation program, that had the song pattern db, chord track, and most of the stuff I described above. It wouldn't be able to set Reaper regions, but it could maintain them within it's own data. It might even be able to export a region map that reaper could import for the project.

For the notation part, I could imagine it working like this. You create the song in musical notation. Then under the staff it would open something like the Reaper piano roll, where you could set the velocities and CC's. For each part you could set up an articulation map (for range, velocity, key, or midi channel) and then on any note choose the articulation. I have more ideas but I don't want to confuse the basic idea. Even this much will probably be lots of work. I first want to gauge if there anyone else interested in something like this.
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Old 07-07-2014, 06:14 AM   #2
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After thinking on this over night, I'm not sure this needs to live in a VST. I originally conceived of this as part of the DAW. But since it isn't in the DAW, maybe this would be better as a stand-alone executable that would act as a MIDI source for the DAW. It would have to be set up with ReWire which might be harder to configure than a VST living in a Track. But a VST would also have to be set up with sends to various samplers in other tracks, so I'm not sure it would be that much harder. Anyone have thoughts or preferences on this aspect?

Last edited by Deanna; 07-07-2014 at 06:27 AM.
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Old 07-07-2014, 07:20 AM   #3
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Deanna,

sure, notation is very welcome.
However, I don't know if Rewire and standalone would be the way to go. Then you'd soon realized you've started a full blown notation software.

Something a like the pianoroll,
with the necessary key-markers would be more ideal.

Add good XML import/export, and it would be really good.

But I don't know how easy this can be done as an addon.
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Old 07-07-2014, 07:34 AM   #4
Deanna
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You are right that I don't want to write yet another full blown notation tool. There are solutions for that already out there. An good solution would be to replace the reaper piano roll editor, but that only works for Reaper and I'm not sure how much control the editor would have over the midi item. I would need it to be able to change the size, add midi channels, and interact with selected regions and sync. From what I have seen the Reaper external midi editor function just lets you statically edit midi items that have been set to midi files.

If I do this as a VST, I'm actually creating a new type of VST that acts as a virtual player/band, as opposed to the virtual instruments or effects. If I did it standalone, I wouldn't want to get into making things look like a score with pages and other more ornamental symbols - although I might would provide a musicXML out to import into those tools. I also wouldn't want to get into sound fonts. It would be meant to be a front end to samplers.
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Old 07-10-2014, 08:32 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Deanna View Post
Sibelius with a rewire through a virtual midi cable does some of the job, but leaves out many important aspects. The most important shortcoming is that I don't see a way to set it up for different articulation samples. For instance, using velocity, key, or range switching. Or even being able to change a midi channel for a certain note articulation.
Hi!

I´d like to say that I work on a daily basis rewiring Sibelius as slave and Reaper as master, and those things can really be done from Sibelius using JS/Insert Piz Here plugins on each Reaper´s track. You can even make some kind of Expression Maps in Sibelius, and it´s certainly possible to keyswitch or change the channel for a certain note. As the MIDI stream sent via a virtual port (LoopBe30 in my case) is tied to the audio latency in Reaper, some precautions have to be taken, but there are a lot of programming possibilities with the Sib - Reaper combo.

I´m really busy right now, but I´ll try to make some tutorials as soon as I can. As soon as I make them, I´ll post them here :

http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=137265
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Old 07-11-2014, 07:49 AM   #6
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Thanks Soli. I will give that a go and see if it improves the workflow. Are you able to open a full orchestra of parts each on it's own virtual midi cable?
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Old 07-11-2014, 07:58 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Deanna View Post
Are you able to open a full orchestra of parts each on it's own virtual midi cable?
Yes, sure! If you use LoopBe30, it´s important to untick the "Autodetect shortcuts" option since it can create some problems during certain performances. The instructions in the link above should work in any rewire scenario. Just remember to record-arm the rewire track and take into account that the latency of your audio card will be important for your MIDI stream. I generally set my M-Audio Audiophile 192 buffer to 1024 while working with rewire, since it generally proves to be a good size even in big projects. This, of course, has to be tested carefully on each case basis. If you have any doubt just ask; I work full time with this and I´ve observed many details regarding its use...
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Old 07-12-2014, 04:25 PM   #8
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I respectfully suggest the Reaper team, were they to think about notation seriously sometime in the future, look at developing it separately from Reaper, along the lines of an engraver as well, something like the old but still fabulous to use, Igor Engraver. (Written in lisp, and probably bitrotted, but great workflow, and all the "admin" of writing and engraving built in.)

Imho, if notation were to be considered, it should be aimed at the serious users as well, and not as an adjunct/plugin. There's a lot of daw/sequencer/notation hybrids out there that often compromise poorly across all those roles.

My 2 Euros worth.

Alex.
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Old 07-13-2014, 01:11 AM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by alextone View Post
I respectfully suggest the Reaper team, were they to think about notation seriously sometime in the future, look at developing it separately from Reaper, along the lines of an engraver as well, something like the old but still fabulous to use, Igor Engraver. (Written in lisp, and probably bitrotted, but great workflow, and all the "admin" of writing and engraving built in.)

Imho, if notation were to be considered, it should be aimed at the serious users as well, and not as an adjunct/plugin. There's a lot of daw/sequencer/notation hybrids out there that often compromise poorly across all those roles.

My 2 Euros worth.

Alex.
We'll never see a fully engraver-notation tool with Reaper. That's just so different from a DAW.
What to hope for is:
- View midi as score
-- with right keys
- xml import and output
- maybe some score-write tools
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Old 07-14-2014, 01:18 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by G-Sun View Post
We'll never see a fully engraver-notation tool with Reaper. That's just so different from a DAW.
What to hope for is:
- View midi as score
-- with right keys
- xml import and output
- maybe some score-write tools
Maybe paper and pencil?
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Old 07-14-2014, 02:15 PM   #11
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what I want... just to SEE multiple tracks on a staff so I can tell what's happening at a glance in an orchestral arrangement!

Even just editing a single part, I would like to see the notes - it taked me *forever* to figure out which pitch each note is - the piano roll is space-hogging and unintuitive.

Try spotting a note in the wrong key...

proffessional exgraving? I have other tools for that.
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Old 07-15-2014, 12:55 AM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mollvik View Post
Maybe paper and pencil?
Yes, bundled
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Old 07-27-2014, 05:26 AM   #13
Deanna
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After looking over what I could do with Sibelius, I find it lacking in what I want it to do. I am going to push ahead with this project. I hope to create a song writing tool as a vst, that will then be able to export to notation tools like Sibelius. I have a laundry list of features I would like for it to have. I suppose at this time I should create a web site so others can interact and tell me the features they would like also. I just need a catchy name. Right now I have been just referring to it as the Articulate Composer.
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Old 07-27-2014, 10:13 AM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Deanna View Post
After looking over what I could do with Sibelius, I find it lacking in what I want it to do. I am going to push ahead with this project. I hope to create a song writing tool as a vst, that will then be able to export to notation tools like Sibelius. I have a laundry list of features I would like for it to have. I suppose at this time I should create a web site so others can interact and tell me the features they would like also. I just need a catchy name. Right now I have been just referring to it as the Articulate Composer.
Cool
Kvr is a nice place for vst-development I guess.
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