Crowdfunding?

I would be willing to pay for a update  if the  chord recogonition was on par with Scaler. 

I would prefer a paid upgrade over an crowdfunding project, but would support that as well

I'm skint so am prepared to wait lol

You want to 'crowdfund' a seriously expensive software with no major point updates since years?

Am I the only one to find this quite ridiculous?

(Around here though... probably yes.)

software developed by a very limited number of engineers (maybe one or two?)

 ..like most other software applications, even major DAWs as well... So?

(One guy basically developed the last Digital Performer versions alone. Bitwig has a core dev-team of two. Renoise one head coder and

one or two 'helpers'.  Reaper is bascally one guy too... Even Pro Tools isn't really a bigger team than three since Avid outsourced

the development. And so on, and so on.. Only team that I know of is a bit bigger is FL Studio. And still,  you get LIFETIME updates when you buy...)

I get it: Synfire is probably way more problematic/difficult/time-consuming to code because of the crazy platform it uses so I get it that it takes quite some time.

(Also AFAIK this is why there is still no easy way to do configurable user hotkeys for example...)  

OTOH, so is Sensomusic Usine. Still, one guy. Including full modularity of the platform, Video stuff implemented, DMX Lightshow

interface included, Gesture support for stuff like Leapmotion and 3D support, preset-morphing, cascaded automation,

scripting language and a lot of other crazy stuff.... And the latest version jump from 2 to 3 was craaazy. And still, cost me nothing...

 I don't say Synfire is too expensive per-se. Don't care. But still, the idea of pushing more user-money into this with these long update cycles

and no idea what will come in the next 'years', not weeks or months...  - sounds flat out crazy to me. 

The Synfire updates from the last years feel like the Bitwig update from 2.0 to 2.2. Period. (Which had a dev-cycle of only a few months, really..)

Still okay with me given the uniqueness of the software, but come on. Think again about that crowdfunding nonsense...

Best,

tL.

Duderanch, Synfire actually recognizes chords into the Palette.

 (Correct me if I am wrong) I think he means that Synfires chord recognition on midi-import is often waaaay off...

Scaler's recognition in detection mode is extremely (!) correct. Best in the business IMHO right now, but I don't know about

Mixed In Key's "Captain Chords" which also is getting quite popular right now.

(FYI Regarding Synfire: When you import everything static and copy the figure with the most recognizable chords to the harmony parameter it often gives you 

much better results with less need to tweak...I think this is because SF tries to find the scales fitting to the chords immediately on import, whereas scaler does not. There you have to choose the fitting scale(s) afterward yourself.)

Synfire does a poor  job of naming the actual chord.   Check out Scaler   

Lytz have you tried the option “open a suitable palette”?

Of course. ;)  Also, I don't have any particular problems with getting the chords/scales/harmony in that I need/seek/look for.

Just pointed out what 'the Dude' was most likely referring to with his comment about scaler.  

Personally, I am more into tools like  'Auto-Tonic' and things that are more performance/jamming oriented anyways. than Scaler or Insta-Chord,

Sundog Scale Studio or whatever else there is right now.

(i.e.: In Synfire I don't even use/need the phrase pool at all, at least for the most part. Takes too long to create, to listen through and so on. Just takes tons of time no matter how you look at it. Production  = Efficient use of time, so in the current state that's just a no-no for me. The SF 'Magic', which is certainly there,

unfortunatelty doesn't help with multiple ridgid workflow issues that just eat up way too much time if you really need to go-go-go. 

Synfire has quite some problems here in general but anyways, I moved on regarding this after I and others tackled that topic already quite some time (years) ago and not much has happened since then anyways. )

Jamming gets me where I want to be in 95% of the case much faster anyways. Which is actually why I leave Synfire as soon as possible.

(ironically the reverse of the intended 'change everything until the last minute' ideology behind SF ) and might use it after that point only

as additional background app in palette-view mostly for help in key modulation.  The tons of mouse-miles click-drag-click-clicking, non-realtime-ness and especially COMPLETE LACK of applying edits/operations on multiple (!) tracks at once just drive me nuts when staying too long in there.  

(Don't tell me I can do this with containers or container-parameters... Been there, done that... Doesn't cut it... thank you very much...  )

Still looking forward to the interface rewrite though... We (hopefully) might be in for a surprise or two. Fingers crossed.

Best,

tL.

(FWIW: Like some others, I also don't particularly like this Orb-Composer thing. Like at all. But you have to acknowledge the

smoothness, accessibility, and speed of this thing. This is what I like. Speed.  Get stuff done fast. No 'testing' or 'playing around'.  

In my book that's why most of the time you only see/hear no more than 4-6 tracks in any SF song anywhere. It becomes tedious quite early. At a relatively low track count already. Fun is something else, I tell you... Or, in another example, we see some other guys just doing gazillions of tests. )    

You won, Lytz1 (I’m serious!)  I guess that Andre will now spend a minute to give us a hope

;-)

 Haha, don't worry'bout it. :) I am a cynical pr*** more often than not. Pretty sure a lot of things are happening in the background. Like I said we might talk about a very different situation if SF could use a different development platform. Which obviously isn't possible because of all the AI stuff in there. So we all just need a lot (!!) of patience around here... ;)

Best,

tL.

Indeed, you're correct.  :) However 4 or 5 years ago I thought otherwise.

Also, I didn't know that SF can be extremely frustrating. That comes with time though... :)

So the typical cycle is: Working with it, getting hyped up about it, and be very active with suggestions etc.... time goes by, not much happens, Software still feels like a brick, then getting p***sed off so much you just rant a while and then leave for a couple of months. Then come back, restart cycle from new...  Rinse and repeat.  :D

This is true for a lot of people on this very forum. Seen this a lot here, myself included. Wait a while, you'll see.. ;) 

I am just sorry that quite some cool users from a couple of years ago seem to be gone for good by now. 

Then again, well some were already quite old back then, so... well.... years go by... who knows, right? 

One might speculate that half of the userbase won't live long enough to see 2.0...  Oh ok ok, I am sorry... :)  

Alright, I stop know... Sorry, really...  :) :) 

Best,

tL.

(Also you should know that 1.7 was released in 2013. Yeah, really.  Lol. The changelog from then to now isn't exactly mind-blowing compared to what happened elsewhere in just the last year. But again, given the circumstances, to a certain degree, this is understandable. )

Best,

tL.

so what do you suggest as synfire alternative besides orb composer?

Cognitone is healthy and very busy, even if you don't see much of it lately. 

Sure, Cubase, Logic and the likes are updated with more marketing buzz and such. But have they really changed substantially during the years? Ableton being a rare exception, has any other DAW evolved into something new? It doesn't seem to matter if there are 90, 30 or 2 people in a team. For decades, the features of a DAW are established fact for millions of users and it's therefore mainly about slow incremental progress.

This incremental progress is possible only because the core workflow is already agreed upon.

What users expect from AI-supported composing is a totally different story. Nothing is settled, all is still open, subjective and personal. We've learned about so many different ideas, workflows and and musical styles, it looked all but impossible at times to wrap all of this into one product. Therefore it is Cognitone's task to discover and define a vision and invite our users to follow us. Synfire in its current shape is a step toward that goal. 

Make no mistake, a lot is being done behind the scenes in regard to unifying the many diverging suggestions we received. In the past years, we tried several new approaches, most of which had to be abandoned as not viable, too limited or unsustainable (I've written about some of that). Should we have eagerly released an upgrade for each of these, only to pull the changes back a year later? Imagine the chaos this would have entailed.

Cognitone is doing no less than envision a new way of creating music from the ground up. Finding a sustainable common denominator is a challenge. We did that to some extent already, but in some regards it is still new terrain. We are now in the process of focussing on a core workflow, unmistakably guided by a streamlined user interface. This however won't happen in small incremental updates, so please bear with us while we are working to achieve this goal.

Besides, Synfire is already deep and powerful enough to keep users exploring and productive for many years. I agree there could be more inspiring videos and examples to get them going faster.

We are grateful for users sharing their explorations, questions and music examples in this forum, like Roberto and others have done with enthusiasm. Writing about musical ideas, showing actual music, rather than bits and bytes, doesn't seem to come easy. Probably because it's personal. After all, music is personal. Therefore it is much valued and appreciated!

Sure, Cubase, Logic and the likes are updated with more marketing buzz and such. But have they really changed substantially during the years? Ableton being a rare exception, has any other DAW evolved into something new?

 Looks like someone has to do some recon...  ;) Cubase and Logic have changed way *way* more drastically the last couple of years than Ableton has.

Abletons move to 10 is absymal compared to Cubase's move from 8 to 9. (Includind the massive .5 inbetween...)

And Logics changelog is also quite over the moon in the last two years... Just sayin...

Again, no offenses here. I said more than once one has to become very patient around here.

But for purpose of comparison, even if I don't use it, I just pulled up the Rapid Composer Changelog . It's one of the more

closer things to SF in terms of targeted users. And also a one-man-show... I still consider this a rather weak changelog compared to

the front-runners right now (i.e. Bitwig, Studio One and Reaper) but still... Well... take a look for yourself: 

(http://www.musicdevelopments.com/history.html)

 

Make no mistake, a lot is being done behind the scenes

That's what I/we expected. Obviously this is 'new grounds' software on a rather crazy development platform so this is to be expected. 

However, you do yourself no favor in rolling out a 'clickboard' as the only "major feature" in nearly two years... Especially because

chord-track based stuff is poppin' up left and right all over the place lately and developing rapidly. But that's only my opinion of course. 

Even the cubase copy-cat dodo-dudes from PreSonus have integrated a chord-track in the latest Studio One.

And I see that Captain Chords just released v2 as well. 

These are getting better and better and don't forget, they ain't that deep, but all that sh** is realtime, dude and DAW integrated...

That's a big factor for a lot of people...  

OTOH, given that SF is AI based and non-realtime, so much more could be done with Algos. Just checked the RapidComposer Rhythm Generator Algos,

why isn't sh** like this not in SF since 8 years ago?

 (http://www.musicdevelopments.com/wiki/doku.php?id=en:overview:rhythmgen…)

Phrase Generators also not a bad idea.

(http://www.musicdevelopments.com/wiki/doku.php?id=en:overview:generators)

And this is still quasi-real-time... Come On....  With a non-realtime platform, we should be killin' it in that department.

Anyways, really looking forward to the next step from Synfire. I love to rant, you all know this by now. But I still love SF as well, otherwise I wouldn't care.

Best,

tL.

 Ableton being a rare exception,

Just had to look it up to see if my mind is still working or if I am in a wormhole here or sumthin'...

Ableton 9 was released 2013 (!!)

9.5 = released 2015

10 = Feb 2018

Major changes 9-10? Nil...Zero... 

Note to self: Confirms once and for all -->  users.cognitone.com  = alternate reality bubble...

Out of touch much? Lol... :D :D 

Best,

tL. ;)

(EDIT: Logic Changelog 10.3 to 10.4, 7 months inbetween... Yeah, keep scrolling down and be amazed.. 

Dot updates in this size are quite the norm and usually dumped every 6-8 months...

Also, the first third is 10.4. to 10.4.2 ONLY. But muh Abletoooooonnn... :) (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203718) )

 As far as I know, Andre could be a full-time insurance broker that puts his hands into SF code on the weekends....

I had also this feeling, but is OK because he needs also money for his living.

I think that there is no new development in Synfire, because Andre is not convinced of the urge of extra composition tools  

Hi All.

One of the big issues raised in the thread above is not so much about the features but more about workflow enhancement. 

Synfire doesn’t have a slick modern UI approach IMHO compared to what is possible. The drag and drop approach great, but it’s  still difficult to bend the UI to workflow needs and there’s still too much need to use mouse clicks I’d say. It’s all improving though. Ultimately, customisation and even scripting would help tremendously here as it would allow more community support to develop the app.

ive been experimenting with using autohotkey to bring workflow enhancements to Synfire if anyone is interested.

Litzy1 what do you exactly expect/wish from Synfire?

I agree that there haven't been as many tweaks in SF as in, say, Logic or Cubase or RC. Absolutely.

Easy buddy. :)  I am just pointing out reality. Don't try to make it about me, I don't care. I expect nothing. Good luck with your FRs though... For real.

I hope your wishes will be heard. In time... Or something like that... :) 

And again, I repeat myself for the Xth time: I/we/everyone have/has  to be patient around here. I am still  expecting (positive) suprises. All good. No?

For the most part I am here for the LOLs.   ;D

(Small community here, so most are naturally more on the fanboy-ish side of things.

Some ******** has to stir up the pot now and then and spoil the phun. )

But Andre also poiunted that there are no competitors, apart maybe Orb Composer or Band-in-a-box (LOL!!!), to copy from, like Presonus did by adding the chord track in v4 (BTW did you notice that now they use "prototyping" in the last revision of Studio1 user manual? :)

Hmmmm..... A monopoly then. Well, that's unfortunate. :D I tend to find it interesting what others have to say that are even a liiiiiitle bit more critical about it then I am.   There are some interesting points made in some of the 'non-existing' forums of the  'non-existing competitors',  where people switched to from exactly here... but, ahem, they don't exist... Whoa, what eeeeeevil wizardry is going on?  :)

(Not talking about Orb or BitB here BTW... First too young, second too old...Also I know no serious composer/producer that uses that stuff (in the first case: yet))

Best,

tL. ;)

like Presonus did by adding the chord track in v4 (BTW did you notice that now they use "prototyping" in the last revision of Studio1 user manual? :)

 Yeah, latest Buzzword.... Might get used more often by others quite soon as well... RC does this, as does LiquidNotes .

Did you know that StudioOne's  Audio tracks can follow the Chord track as well as midi does though?

(Not sure about polyphonic audio, but with Celemonys just introduced ARA2...if not yet, then that's just a matter of time really. You can DETECT chords from polyphonic Audio already though, I am certain about that.

EDIT: Polyphonic works as well... Just sounds a bit too glitchy at this point in time. But can be fixed by Melodyne.

Still, pretty amazing stuff already, check from about 3:23 in: )

One of the big issues raised in the thread above is not so much about the features but more about workflow enhancement. 

 On point. 

it’s  still difficult to bend the UI to workflow needs and there’s still too much need to use mouse clicks I’d say. It’s all improving though.

And again. On point. 

Make no mistake, a lot is being done behind the scenes in regard to unifying the many diverging suggestions we received

This is it, basically in a nutshell... By nature, this just takes a looooong amount of time and requires a looooot of patience from user-side.

So expect some whining along the way.. ;) But you seem to be a good man, I am sure you can deal with it.  

(BTW: Bitwig is developing extremely fast and the user-base is still whining every day all day long and ripping them into pieces, so you're not doing bad here...)