Posted
This is a language question. I'm currently editing a tutorial on import and am looking for the best word for describing the procedure of taking parts out of a MIDI file for later re-use.
Deconstruct, dismantle, diasassemble, disaggregate, dismember?
In German we have a great word for it: Ausschlachten. Literally, it connotates a butcher slaughtering an animal and taking all its innards out.
This was regularily used back in the days when us boys dismantled radios with the soldering iron, in order to re-use their electronic parts for other DIY projects. The dictionary translation is awful: Exploit, cannibalize, or in a financial sense: asset stripping. Bah.
Mon, 2015-11-09 - 17:22 Permalink
Synfire can import standard midi clips and tranform them into Synfire Figures. Long imported midi sequences are subdivided into versatile figures which can reflect the original notes or can adapt to new harmonies depending on how you set the interpretation. For instance, if you set the intpretation to absolute pitch. The new synfire figure derived from the original midi data may sound close to the original song. If the intpretation is set to arpeggio, then it may be pitched up and blend in with the new harmony chord progression. You could also set the intrepation to horizontal chord which may yield a more melodic harmony part. Synfire takes the original midi data, and subdivides the midi content onto more versatile figures, which can adapt to new chord harmonies, rythm changes and of course any addtional parameters such as velocity which you would like to add to a new combination of synfire figure phrases.
Mon, 2015-11-09 - 18:20 Permalink
I would go with "subdivide" or "parcel out". The rest are too hard to understand or dirogatory.
best
Bill
Mon, 2015-11-09 - 22:25 Permalink
Hmm. The term will be used for the workflow and the intent of collecting material, not for a tool or software feature. Neither slice nor subdivide emphasize the joy of taking something valuable apart and collecting the parts (harvesting, piling up something).
"Subdivide the works of genius Mozart!"
"Slice your previous songs to make something new off it!"
Erm.
Tue, 2015-11-10 - 02:23 Permalink
cut (Mozart) into segments. Then flip, stretch, shift and rotate figures, and then rearrange them into a fresh sound. Almost like a deck of cards that is cut, shuffled and dealt into new hands! There is no predicting the outcome.
Tue, 2015-11-10 - 10:23 Permalink
How would you say "The boy ..... the old radio for parts to build a toy UFO"
How about "take to pieces":
(http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/dismantle?s=t)
Thu, 2015-11-12 - 21:25 Permalink
Thanks for all your suggestions. I think "harvesting" conveys the purpose and motivation best, although other terms are literally more exact.
I just published a comprehensive tutorial on import and the harvesting of phrases:
(http://users.cognitone.com/tutorial/import)
Instead of squeezing tons of details into a video and relying on YouTube exclusively, I found that many explanations and hints better fit in a text with images AND videos. In a way, this turned out like a user manual with embedded videos, which is not a bad format, in my opinion.
Regarding this tutorial, I'm sure many of you didn't yet realize there's such a fast and easy workflow as "Import as all static, collect in embedded library, do all figure recognition later in the library". Heck, even me didn't realize this, only after making this tutorial. How many hours did I waste, waiting for import to complete! It's great to learn something new about a beast I thought I knew inside out ;-)
There's no voiceover yet. I will add that soon.
The Recording and Refining Phrases tutorials are also essential for the understanding of the whole thing. I will publish them asap.
Fri, 2015-11-13 - 00:02 Permalink
"Import as all static, collect in embedded library, do all figure recognition later in the library"
That's exactly how I've been collecting (or should I say "harvesting"!) phrases over the last few months. The only difference is that I've been keeping the Takes in the library as well. Doing so makes the library twice as big unfortunately, but I often find that dragging the Take from the library to the arrangement and re-analysing it (with the same or different settings as the original library version) gives surprisingly different (and quite often better) results.
I therefore suggest it's a good idea sometimes to keep the Takes in the library, particularly for fairly complex polyphonic phrases which can yield quite different results depending on the settings.
Fri, 2015-11-13 - 09:16 Permalink
I therefore suggest it's a good idea sometimes to keep the Takes in the library, particularly for fairly complex polyphonic phrases which can yield quite different results depending on the settings.
True. Maybe "Prepare for Shipping" should include a check box "Keep Takes"?
It's a brilliant format. You could even create a 'wiki' tab on this site and start populating it with this sort of essential content.
Everyone can use this format in the current Wiki: Just paste your YouTube URL anywere in the text and the site will turn it into a video player automatically. Only make sure it's not converted to a hyperlink by the editor (IIRC, it does so when you paste from clipboard). Switching to the "Source" mode will allow you to paste the naked URL.
