Posted
A great easement in synfire would be if you could change a selected chord in an chord progression to the chord that is currently pressed on a MIDI keyboard.
I know you can get the chord into synfire with the harmony navigator into a palette and then drag it into the chord progression. But this involves too many steps. It interupts your creative workflow.
The natural way most musicians work on a chord progression is not to think "Now I need a G# 7/b9/11 chord". No. They press some keys on the keyboard, state that it sounds good. They don't care what name of the chord actually is.
This feature could work like this: You press a chord on the MIDI keyboard. It appears on the virtual piano in synfire. Now there could be a button on the
virtual piano
"Replace selected chord" or maybe even a "MIDI IN progression chord input" that can be activated.
Sat, 2016-04-16 - 17:39 Permalink
Hi Pete,
I already knew this feature. But first, this only works (for me) if I play a chord that's in the current key. Example: C Major scale is loaded. Now press a "Gb Maj" chord on the keyboard: It is not displayed and not added to the palette.
Second, I'm prefer working in the arrangement view, so I would need to switch my focus to the palette view. As mentioned in my post, this interupts the workflow.
It would be so comfortable if I simply have a chord selected, press a chord on keyboard, and the chord changes to the pressed chord.
Sat, 2016-04-16 - 18:22 Permalink
The chord shows up underneath the Circle Of Fifths widget if you've got that displayed. I've just tried this and when in a C Major pallette and I play a Gb Maj chord, it's displayed as F# (which is fine). It also adds any chord I play to the palette if it's not already there. I didn't know it did that; maybe it's a nice new feauture that slipped in somewhere! Not sure why that's not happening for you though.
Sun, 2016-04-17 - 10:34 Permalink
No, this never works for me.I start synfire, open the palette tab. C Major scale is loaded by default. I tick "Live chord detection". When I press the F# on the midi keyboard, some chords in the palette get colored blue (maybe because F# is part of the chord). But if press A# key, then none of the chords gets colored. And if I press the whole chord F# G# A#, it is not added to the palette. @cognitone: am I missing something or is this a bug ?
Anyway, my feature request suggested somethging else.
Sun, 2016-04-17 - 11:45 Permalink
Can you see for example what triads belong to the C major key in the palette ? 
They are - C -Dm-Em-F-G-Am-Bdim-....
To work with this information seems to be not important in Synfire? : only the functional relations between chords then.
Is it handy to know with what chord you want to do a (functional,diatonical, chromatical, ........ ) substitution ?
Keep it simple?: use known working progression and modulation and do substitutions there in the progression for variation and chance the progression also to your liking
Adding octave doublings can be interesting to get full chords sounding.
Probably i miss a more advanced use of the pallette...don't forget that working with the coloring schemes!
If you use this workflow then it is not important what chords belonging to a certain key..agree ?
Mon, 2016-04-18 - 09:03 Permalink
It also adds any chord I play to the palette if it's not already there.
It has always been that way, unless the palette hides out-of-scale chords (check layout settings).
A great easement in synfire would be if you could change a selected chord in an chord progression to the chord that is currently pressed on a MIDI keyboard.
The current way to do that is to tick Live Detection, play on the keyboard and drag the chord off the info panel.
Keep in mind that it is difficult to judge whether a chord is a good choice or not without playing the progression in context. So if we had this feature, the current selection needed also be locked somehow, or you'll mess with your entire progression when you touch the keyboard.
Still a good suggestion. Added it to the wish list.