I just want to comment Synfire Pro shortly. I have bought it and thought there was too much unwanted interpretation. One morning I woke up and tried Synfire Pro anew. I just switched off voice leading and interpretation and suddenly the vertical scales did exactly what they should do. A very reliable program!
Please, listen to the result.
Yours sincerely,
Markus
catharsis_0_0.mp3
Comments
Mon, 2019-04-29 - 19:26 Permalink
That's a wonderfully crafted mood. Thanks for sharing!
The default interpretations mostly aim at faster progressions. They are tuned to make quick changes more plausible by emphasizing certain notes. For a melancholic piano, turning most options off is the right choice. It gives you the full vertical scale almost all the time.
Tue, 2019-04-30 - 19:20 Permalink
Hey André, I'm happy to read that you like the mood. I have to admit that most work was done by Synfire Pro. I have used only vertical scales instead of chords, because then the chords are left open and you can add every tension in the respective key. Then I created a motive by declaring which onsets in the figure should be the root, the fifth, the third and the seventh. For this purpose Synfire Pro has the vertical scale degrees -7 to +7. Then I only have substituted the vertical scales by other vertical scales that were in the respective key. The lydian mode is the deepest harmonic point, the subdominant which I have repeated a lot. I also made a lot of use of containers. I like the container feature, because it maintains great flexibility till the end of the composition. With the containers it is also very easy to write a minimal variation. Just copy the entire container, rename it and change the parameter vector that should be differed. Very nice feature! As you can see, I am a great fan of the whole approach. Have a nice day!
Yours sincerely,
Markus
Tue, 2019-04-30 - 21:17 Permalink
Thanks for your positive feedback!
It is certainly helpful to have some musical background knowledge in order to leverage all of Synfire's features. Your approach reflects this.
You can also just put an empty container anywhere and only set the parameters you want to change. Then you can move that almost empty container around and see how it affects the local environment.