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Advice before I investing

Posted

Hi all! need some advice before I invest.
(Synfire Pro)
Right now I have no synth or sequencer at all.
Is the latency really that bad with only working with
computer?

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Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
Intel Core i7 @ 3.70GHz
Coffee Lake 14nm
32.0GB Dual-Channel 1066MHz (15-15-15-36)
Z370 AORUS Gaming 7
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti

232GB Samsung SSD 960  EVO 250GB(SSD)
232GB Samsung SSD 960  EVO 250GB(SSD)
465GB Samsung SSD 960  EVO 500GB(SSD)
1863GB Western Digital WDC     (SATA)

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I bought MMM 2019 couple month ago, and made this
tune for relaxing purpose. It is not attended
to be a song, just a slow and relaxing tune/sound.
It's going to be 1 hour long in the end when I'm done.

(I'm going to invest in a synth later on.)

I Used to play the drums at hobby level for many years.
Chords and Scales I have no clue at all how
it works :) So I have to listening to what goes with what.
Pretty tedious but 100% FUN.

It's never too late to learn anything new, Right.
when i put myself in something new! I go for 100%.

PS: Recommendation synthesizers?

Bestregards: Peter Wassmuth


Wed, 2019-05-08 - 13:14 Permalink

This is a personal view of Synfire, I have been a user for many years and produce music for fun and my own personal enjoyment. I am not a musician and before getting Synfire I knew very little about scales, modes, etc.

Firstly I use a Mac for producing music and Synfire drives Ableton Live via its drone system, although I do use the inbuilt synth provided by Synfire (as a general midi device) to provide the global sounds. Often I prototype my tunes via the global sounds before using the DAW's sounds as it is a simpler workflow which aids creativity. Some people have experienced problems with Windows when working with Synfire and a DAW as some audio interface drivers don't like to be shared between more than one application.

As I had no knowledge of musical theory when starting out with Synfire I probably did not get the best out of it, however any tunes made with synfire sounded a lot better than any that I'd made with Ableton before getting Synfire. It is a big learning curve to adapt to the synfire workflow especially if you come from a DAW background and I gave up using it a couple of times, always going back to it once I'd listened to any tune made without it. Whilst using synfire, over the years, has taught me some musical theory which has improved my use of Synfire, I'm still no way near an expert.

Synfire is an expensive product, it should run fine on your hardware. It isn't as realtime as using a DAW so the lack of a 'professional' audio interface should be less of a problem. The supplied synth isn't brilliant but it would be good enough to start creating songs, you don't have a daw so you would have to use synfire to record your output. Although it has a mixer that supports effects its functionality isnt as flexible as a DAW but again would be good enough to start with. There are many free sound and effects plugins available on the internet ( or buy a copy of Computer Music magazine if it's available where you live as it comes with a dvd of free synths and plugins). I use ableton live to 'polish and finish' my songs with a couple of hardware synths (Virus and Spectralis) and Omnisphere (software synth). I'd highly recommend Omnisphere, having listened to your link it would be a good fit with that style of music and you get a lot of fabulous sounds for relatively little money. I don't regret purchasing Synfire or Omnisphere (or my hardware synths).

if you want to check out some of my tunes. I'd add though that I've destroyed my hearing so my mixdown skills are pretty limited so as my creation skills improved (with synfire) my ability to mix my tunes got worse.

Wed, 2019-05-08 - 14:11 Permalink

ThX you so much for your input AWESOME! Really appreciated. Wow you got some cool stuff THX.

 

Thu, 2019-06-13 - 00:56 Permalink

Hey man, regarding latency and stuff on a Windows box, it's all about your soundcard. Your specs are great.  I saw your system specs but didn't see anything about an audio interface.

When you use standard Windows drivers, the system uses big audio buffers. The bigger the buffer, the lighter the load on the system. Since most non-pros only listen to music, it doesn't matter if it takes half a second for the sound to actually hit your ears.

With music making however, when you hit a key on your midi keyboard, you expect to hear some sound right away.  

Unless you want to invest in a sound card, such as a Focusrite Solo or something, then you can use a piece of FREE software called ASIO4ALL.  It is a special sound driver that allows you to use smaller buffers, so that the latency is much shorter.

Bottom line is Synfire, for regular compositions with under ten tracks won't choke your system up and if you have an audio interface geared towards musicians, latency won't be a problem.  You will need to let Synfire know about which sound card you want to use, and then you get to pick how big those buffers are in order to tweak your experience.

Anyways, good luck man!