Posted
Has anyone yet seen this?
(http://www.hexachords.com/orb-composer/)
Looks like another competitor for Synfire has emerged...
Thu, 2017-07-06 - 17:07 Permalink
It's not yet available, but the screenshots look beautiful. I couldn't find a hint of anything that resembles notes or symbols, though. Just blocks. From its feature descriptions, it seems to be generating music automatically from settings like style, darkness, contrast, tension and such, structuring it into sections that represent question vs. answer, etc. It's a nice concept, but given this extreme level of automation, it will probably boil down to whether you like what it composes for you, or not (built-in styles). It remains to be seen how much individual expression it will support, or if most of a style's output will sound somewhat similar.
By its appearance and claims, interested users will be inclined to compare it directly to Synfire, but it's really an other kind of tool with a completely different approach: Synfire let's you retain control, down to the level of creating, re-purposing and transforming existing material of any kind. The idea of Synfire is to build up from the ground, rather than filling-in a structure from the top with style-generated music.
That said, generative elements are still a nice thing to have, if only to quickly get something refreshing to play around with. We are working on that already for a while (including the generation of song structures, but not limited to built-in styles). We would never sacrifice the powerful workflow freedom of Synfire for automatically generated music. Therefore, using generators and transformators will always be optional, not mandatory.
Thu, 2018-01-25 - 11:06 Permalink
It's now on pre-sale: Hexachords Orb Composer
They have an introductory video at
Indeed seems that the user has no direct influence on the music generated by this software.
Something slightly similar to Band-in-a-box... though a very sophisticated one as it seems.
Fri, 2018-02-16 - 13:51 Permalink
They have their first demo videos up now
and
Andre, you referred above that you are working on something generative like this for Synfire, is there an ETA on this?
Fri, 2018-02-16 - 15:39 Permalink
I asked about a demo version too, but I guess it would divert too many resources away from their team. I do think the videos give a decent feel for the software, plus they have a video coming soon where Orb controls external synths in a non-orchestral context.
I did notice a decent amount of cusomtisation per clip in both videos, where you could put (some of) your own stamp on generative music, which is a good thing. Plus the interface is beautiful. I find working in synfire to be somewhat challenging & difficult, partly due to a complex and non-intuituive UI and design, but that could just be me. I do, however, get nice results from synfire and find myself in awe of it mostly. I do think Synfire is way way more powerful than what I understand Orb to be from those videos, but I can't help wondering if orb would suit me better (again, just for me, IMO!) I'll wait to see more videos.
Fri, 2018-02-16 - 15:50 Permalink
I've asked the creator of Orb Composer about how chord changes work in his program. He told me that there's one chord for each bar of music. If one needs more chords, the time signature can be changed to 1/4, which allows for one chord per quarter note. Faster chord changes aren't yet possible.
The smallest unit for tempo changes is a "block" of music, so I think that "accelerando", "ritardando", "tempo rubato" and similar tempo changes are impossible with Orb Composer.
Currently in my opinion Synfire is still way ahead of Orb Composer.
Fri, 2018-02-16 - 16:51 Permalink
My concern is what Andre stated " It remains to be seen how much individual expression it will support, or if most of a style's output will sound somewhat similar." Band in a box will create songs and render solos but is limited to what seems to be the same phrases placed at different places in the song. The FAQ says that Orb can import melodies. Would like to see if it will produce good harmony based on the melodic input. So many questions....
Fri, 2018-02-16 - 22:03 Permalink
As I said, I pre-ordered it on trust. Honestly, the music in those videos sounds pretty ugly and lifeless to me, but it could well be that giving to Orb a more genuine, personal raw material, who knows...
I was curious about what I suppose to be the AI side of Orb, i.e. the Intensity and Momentum curves, but they didn’t give any clue about this.
Hopefully in next videos...
Tue, 2018-02-27 - 17:38 Permalink
From the questions and answers i am seeing over on gearslutz they havnt figured out that you need rewire to move the DAW playhead. Some VSTs need to synch with the host tempo. It looks like they are trying to do everything with virtual midi cable. really need a video of the inner workings of this thing.