Figure Preview / Instant Playback and DAW synced Drums plugin

I tried to attach 2 screenshots already with the initial post - did not work, so here is the second try ;-)

But what's about the mute of the instrument in the track header respectively in the arrangement rack?

If I mute an instrument (at least in the arrangement rack), I expect that no sounds will audible from it, independent from note input or a running transport causing a playback of an internal pattern.

But muting the Playbeat instrument in the arrangement rack has no impact - its sounds & patterns are still audible.

Veriying this very quickly with the Pigments Synthesizer, it seems to be (it sounds like) that mute only sends a "all notes off" and does not use the Audio Engine to mute the audio output of the instrument / plugin, as I can still hear the delay & reverb tail after muting the instrument track.

Okay that makes sense, although its strange ;-).

Moving on to MDrummer I experience another issue : with a Pitch Symbol I cannot get notes lower than C0.

In the attached screenshot you see a Pitch symbol at C-1 (see the Figure Parameter Inspector), but Synfire plays C0 and its also the note that's beeing rendered on export, as you can see in Ableton MIDI Editor.

I set the category of the instrument (MDrummer) to Synth (and not Drums) to get the full range of MIDI notes.

Do I miss something else?

@andre : that's great news, because it will help in several situations ... and your hint on Synthesizer-V Solaris is awesome, if their YouTube Trailer "Erode" isn't a fake ;-).

I was looking for a real sounding "human singing voice synthesizer" for a long, long time and did some experiments with Vocaloid, which is nice, but in the end it sounds artifical - nice for a background singer or some specifc genre style, but its not a "real singer alike" ... but the "Erode" trailer of Synthesizer-V Solaris makes my creative heart vibrate in pure excitement!

It's a off topic, but what are your experiences : is it "real alike" and worth to explore and dive into?

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@housekeeper : moving down the symbol in MIDI pitch range does not help, as the output keeps being nailed on C0 and this happens for the Synfire internal playback as well as the MIDI file drag & drop to Ableton. 

To understand the screenshots I attached : the red key in the keyboad visual of the MDrummer UI is the MIDI note that it receives and which triggers a correspondig loop.

And by the way : the UI & concept of MDrummer could be a nice inspiration for Synfire, to combine its existing Factory features for Drums with a new Drums & Percussion Editor ... the most basics in less the 2 min (from 2:28 till 4:04) :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfXuNcfDuIA&t=148s .

BUT I found the cause & the solution : its the middle register playing range - it clips the rendered MIDI Note to C0 (refering to the logic of the Interpretation parameter).

After giving the middle register playing range the full MIDI Note range, Synfire rendered MIDI Note output as expected.

Or in other words : the Pitch symbol seems to be tied to the middle register playing range, which is a surprise as I though Pitch Symbol means fixed pitch and no further interpretation by Synfire.

Anyways ... problem solved ... have a nice day.

@Andre : I heard your little work in progress - very nice and I am more than impressed about this Solaria voice, I am blown away. 

That even sharp sounding consonants are so clear and smooth ... unbelievable but great ;-).

Honestly Synthesizer V and the Solaris & Asterian voices are another level (compared to Vocaloid) and a game changer for me. 

This warmth & soul and smooth power in the voice of Asterian is awesome too.

Also the Hayden voicebank sounds quite nice, especially in this little user composition (https://youtu.be/zBqIsthfcp0?feature=shared), as in this piece the voice has less "sh" sounds as in the demo song from Dreamtonics - whereby this was maybe explicitly composed with a voice mode or parameter, but even if not, could most probably be tamed by a plugin like iZotope Nectar.

But the Solaria and Asterian voicebanks from Eclipse Sounds are outstanding, which I believe is due to the excelent human performers who lent their voice - their full & rich sounding voice really shines through and is preserved when we create new melodic lyrics they never have sang before. 

So after listening to a lot of examples on YouTube and fiddling around with the free basic and lite voicebanks version I am convinced and will buy the full version.

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As you mentioned the AU/VST3 API and already sketched a "wishful" workflow between Synfire and Synthesizer V, you hooked me on it ;-).

I saw their scripting feature, supporting JavaScript (uses the Duktape embeddable Javascript engine and I am not sure if its possible to load third party libraries) and Lua and in this Video (https://youtu.be/qXsiC32PSqU?feature=shared) a user shows off the usage of ready made script to let the voice "growl".

The scripting manual (https://resource.dreamtonics.com/scripting/) states : "What is possible with scripting? ... Read, add, edit and remove notes/groups/parameters/tracks ... Access and modify the current selection (of notes and groups)".

Curious if lyrics can be chamged this way too, which would be essential - I did not dig into it yet.

I do not know if this is the API you were talking about, but what came to my mind - assuming that what you wrote means the Host -> Plugin API is not that useable - let's use a path outside the tools : use a Synfire export and import it with a JavaScrip / Lua script into Synthesier V and update the MIDI Notes and Lyrics.

Whereby this is no fluid and "frictionless workflow", it could still be better, faster and much less cumbersome as to reedit the MIDI notes (and maybe the lyrics as well) in Synthesizer V with every change and creative exploration of another harmony (chord progression) in Synfire ... what makes Synfire so great, gets stuck in the front of Synthesizer V ;-).

I did not experiment with the Synfire export by now, but I saw that MusicXML is an option - hence everything what's needed should be present there.

Just as an idea : if there could be a specialized export for such a voice track in JSON format the work that has to be done JavaScript (JSON parsing is a breeze, XML parsing is like climbing nested spiral staircases of for-each's ;-) and maybe even in Lua could be substantially lowered.

Disclaimer : I did not check / research if their scripting api supports a file import.

What do you think?

Short update regarding the Synthesizer V build in scripting feature.

Loading a file (MIDI notes and lyrics exported from Synfire) is possible with Lua, but not with JavaScript, see : https://synthv.info/resource-scripts#scripts/1.3 .

Accessing and updating the lyrics - as well as the notes - is also possible : https://resource.dreamtonics.com/scripting/Note.html#setLyrics .

My pleasure ... Synfire working hand in hand with Synthesizer V would be really great - writing songs not only with lyrics, but also immediately sung by realistic sounding synthesizer is a entire new level of song composition.

Although Synfire claims only to be for music prototyping, joining forces and capabilities with Synthesizer V, puts working with Synfire into a another room - together with a great vocalist.

Yes I know, all that host automation stuff and "sound designing" the output of the instruments with chains of audio effects etc. is not possible, not meant to be done within Synfire ... BUT ... having a great singer in the room is a completely different & "leveled up" story - well, fun & musical joy, depening of the genre of course.

Just as an intro ;-) ... in my opinion, its real worth spending time, thoughts and effort into this setup, to make it work as smooth as possible.

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Doing a little more research, it seems that it would take some effort to bring this "couple together" ;-), ontop or beforehand the already mentioned "note & lyrics" exchange, as the lyrics parameter of Synfire is not compatible with Synthesizer V.

The syntax of distributing the syllables of a sentence is different, most obvious the underscore character "_" in Synfire functioning as an extender to let the syllable sound over multiple notes in succession AND the minus character "-" in Synthesizer V, which does the same and is called legato : https://manual.synthv.info/quickstart/entering-lyrics/.

The spelling and arrangement (with characters like +, - and others as well) of the lyrics is cruical for Synthesizer V and goes beyond that seems originially intended with Synfires lyrics parameter, which I think was for a proper print out or usage in other notation software.

There are also some other "Voice Commands" that are used alongside the normal words of the lyrics like "br" and "hh" for generting breath sounds, which in some cases are really needed to smooth out artifical sounding artefacts - not only for a realistic sounding voice ... and which are completely unknown to the lyrics parameter of Synfire, but as they are meant to use similar as syllables (duration of a note), they should be not that hard to support.

I found this awesome tutorial for Synthesizer V that shows the aspects mentionied above and other techniques to smooth out artifically sounding artefacts, which is really impressive - its worth spending 22 min watching this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RtWbhC6lkI. And besides that, the channel seems to have further great tutorials on detail technical aspects of Synthesizer V.

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The points I see so far : lyrics are crucial for Synthesizer V and not only for "getting the words in" that should be sung, but to programm or parameterize the AI based algorithm for best sounding or creative results.

That's a different purpose than the existing lyrics parameter of Synfire has. This might call the need for a different lyrics parameter mode or an entire new parameter, so that the existing workflows keep working as expected (never ruin a beloved feature ;-). Not mentioned the transition of the data from Synfire to Synthesier V.

This smells like a need for a cooperation of Cognitone and Dreamtonics to make this working out in a smooth manner, where both companies have to do work on their side and Synfires lyrics parameter becoming likely a (another) lyrics editor for Synthesizer V ... a very specialized feature, for a (only currently ?) not as huge group of user benefiting from this.

Another more hack alike approach : one or two pieces of software that implement a bridge between Synfire and Synthesizer V - from Synfires MusicXML (or specialized version) export to a Synthesizer V script ... but this cannot be as frictionless and easy to use as a direct interaction between Synfire Host and the Synthesizer V plugin.

Just my 2 or some more cents ;-).

… its getting even more complex … as always if the research digs deeper ;-)

First of all the phonemes take a huge role in the quality of the outcome and can even completely substitute the lyrics.

Great explanations & tutorial on these : https://youtu.be/Ueu22VTwVmU?feature=shared

Also the several adjustable parameters can have a great impact, where one of them might directly have an impact when syncing Synfire Symbols (MIDI note output) to Synthesizer V : the somehow automatic Pitch curve and the ability to adjust it with the pitch deviation parameter. 

Which means that Synthesizer V automatically creates pitch curves between the individual MIDI note pitches and it seems to be not seldom that these needs some adjustments to get the kind of expression we need for a song.

These Pitch curves can be easily edited in a parameter curve inside Synthesizer V editor (as an offset), but they make only sense for certain pitches.

So if we update the harmony parameter in Synfire and get new pitches into Synthesizer V - even if the MIDI note sync would be seamless - the previous crafted pitch curve might now sound wrong.

So MIDI notes and lyrics are not the only aspects for a great souding Synthesizer V patch and its editor exists for a good reasons respectively great sounding outcome.

Whereby these are aspects of getting the sound quality realistic and nearly to ones taste, one can argue that this is beyond the music / song prototyping stage.

But that’s like sound design for lead synthesizer sound - would one use a bad sounding lead sound to compose a melody in Synfire?

In the end it’s a matter of taste and how sensitive the composer (aka Synfire & Synthesizer V user) is to the human voice.

For me a singer or vocalist is even more present and dominating the feeling of a song like a lead sound and hence hearing a singing voice that’s sound off or artificial, kills my creative flow ;-)

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The good news are : Dreamtonics is about to add ARA support, which might help the Synfire Host to Synthesizer V plugin communication, see : https://forum.synthesizerv.com/t/topic/10189.

I do not know if the ARA interface can be used for other data exchange than audio, but at least it means Dreamtonics is open to and currently working on I/O with DAWs - maybe a good time to get in contact with them ;-).

There are great examples for Synthesizer V scripts by a pro user that shows file I/O in Lua script and other essential actions (processing notes, lyrics, phonemes) :  https://claire-west.github.io/svstudio-scripts/

cheers

Hi Andre,

great news to have the „disable unused plug-ins“ feature - very helpful!

Besides all the thoughtful arguments and reasonable thoughts & wishes from the users above - regarding a Drum & Percussion „pattern editor alike“ feature in Synfire, the first and foremost that comes to mind : an appropriate visual representation of the drum types (Kick, Snare, HiHat …) for the static pitch figures with which we can compose drums.

A visual map of drum types and their static pitches, that can be saved as a preset, since a lot of drum & percussion plugins have different midi note keyswitches for triggering their sounds.

For this reason I referred to MDrummer (see YouTube link above), which is a great example for such an UI - but for sure not the only one.

We can program a drum & percussion track with static pitches, yes. But some days later, using a different drum or percussion plugin in the meantime whose keyswitches are different and also not General MIDI compatible, and the entire static pitch figure in Synfire becomes a mystery.

Imagined description of a user experience : What the hell do these static pitches trigger, its a percussive sound, yes - but which one? Do I really have to look it up in the plugin, or even worse if the keyswitches are not visible in the UI to look it up in the manual, or do I have to hear the figure and create a visual map of static pitches and their sounds in my imagination, that will be lost, in the next few days? (;-)

Once upon a time mankind discovered tailored and self explanatory user interfaces (driven by iconography & visuals that naturally explain what happens) that demystify the unknown consequence and behaviour of switches and knobs on complex machines ;-).

But if icons or other visuals cannot be integrated in the existing UI „that easy“, colors can help out. Colors alone can make a big difference, especially when they are supplied with an easy to use color palette that supports continuous tints of a base color.

What I mean by tints of a color : thinking in HSL color space you got a „source“ color, which is chosen by hue + saturation and the tints (or shades) can be easily achieved by various level of lightness.

Which means the figures with static pitch symbols will no longer have 1 color, but each MIDI Note pitch has or can have its own color.

So e.g. we could color the static pitches for several kick drums with different tints of red - the more boomy kick on midi note pitch X with a desaturated dark red and the more punchy kick on pitch Y with a saturated light red. The snares in tints of blue and so on.

As drums and percussions will most probably have their own track and will only be used / programmed with static pitch symbols, there will be no conflicts with the existing color scheme of the other symbols.

Just as an idea ...