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Orchestral sketching in Synfire

Posted

(https://evenant.com/orchestral-sketching-accelerate-your-composing-spee…)

Can this be used too in Synfire?

In Synfire i noticed when recording, the recorded notes are not immediately drawed and following the ruler
In Cubase i can see the recorded notes, during the recording session. 
Or do i have a  wrong option here in Synfire that the notes are not directly displayed during recording? 

 


Fri, 2020-10-23 - 09:02 Permalink

Havent watched the whole course but I would say the ideas shown in the previews can definately be used in synfire, but you have the advantage of using synfire's musical knowlegde to ensure what you play in results in something musical and also synfire's power when going from a sketch to a full piece.
The notes are recorded in real time but arent displayed on the screen as you are viewing a figure. You are recording a take which then gets analysed for musical content before creating a figure and displaying it on the screen. Havent tried viewing the take during recording but maybe that might be more realtime. Anyway Im sure you dont play the keyboard by watching which notes you play in a daw?

Check out (https://users.cognitone.com/tutorial/compose-piano-theme) and also the input tutorial (https://users.cognitone.com/tutorial/recording) for some more ideas.

 

Fri, 2020-10-23 - 11:55 Permalink

Thanks
Yes, the piano video shows that the notes played are not directly notated during recording and what for instance is the case in Cubase or other DAW
I could be helpful to see the notes what direction you are going with your playing ?
But i think it doesn't matter : once you recorded something it can be used as a reference 

 

Mon, 2020-10-26 - 15:54 Permalink

I looked at the video but what i do differs from that.
I am recording a short pianotake with melody and chords together in one take 
What symbol type to aspect ? : i get horizontal  symbols now
Confusing in another take i got two symboltypes together

Is this discussed in another videoIn short: what is the beginsituation fro recording ? too ? ..under the title  "recording" ( is there a cognitone wiki about this ?)      

In short : what is the beginsituation for recording in Synfire? 
Well, at recording synfire does figure recognition of course
Confusing thing are the chords because there labelled as arpeggios ( what is correct , because the notes from the chord are detected as not starting at the same time position)
Ok, i quess my question is solved now and getting chord symbols in the take is impossible by recording by hand  i think
 

Mon, 2020-10-26 - 16:29 Permalink

Have another look at the (https://users.cognitone.com/tutorial/recording) page. You don't record figures and synfire doesnt do figure recognition on the recording till youve stopped recording. Once you have a take you can change how synfire interprets the take to produce figures just the same as if you'd imported some midi. So change the interpretation and tell synfire its chords and it will do its best to produce chord figures. Tell it its the bass and monophonic and the figures will be in the lower register and monophonic. You can also tell it how close notes have to be to recognised as a chord,as well as quantatise the take. It is also possible to mark a part of a sequence and record just that bit to correct a mistake part way through or even overdub parts.

Recording is just the same as importing midi, or using the pencil tool and drawing midi notes. It is just a way of getting midi into synfire, from there on you are free to play with the interpretation, chord progressions, harmoniser, etc regardless of how those takes got there.

 

Mon, 2020-10-26 - 18:40 Permalink

Thanks!
You pointed out exactly the beginsituation for recording :  basic information that is needed to know for recording.  
Recording and drawing figures and importing midi all are tools for figure production. 
Also harvesting a midi can be used as figure source.

Note: my piano sketch (melody and chords)  shows arpeggio symbols and i think that the figure recognition choice for this sketch no other symbols gives ?
The pianosketch is analysed default by Synfire and i leave it this way then.   

I think it should be a good idea ? to open a wiki page where user can post questions about how to handle Synfire ? 
     

  

Mon, 2020-10-26 - 19:49 Permalink

My keyboard skills are pretty basic but I can offer some tips I've used:

Set the harmony parameter (chord progression) to just C, as this simplifies the keyboard playing.

Remember the figure recognition will use the harmony so stick to the C scale when playing.

You can use the quantisation feature to fix bad timing but an alternative, record a separate track and record from the keyboard, use one key to record the rythem then drag that to one of the timing paramters of the original track. You can also use this technique to make changes to velocity etc

You can group notes in the take to influence the figure regcognition.

Select the best sounding bits and drag them into a library so you can use them throughout the tune on different instruments or any other tune for that matter.

 

As to the wiki, I think any registered users can create or edit a page on there. There is one that sounds like its what you are after although not too much content on it at the moment, (https://users.cognitone.com/wiki/syllabus)

Lastly you might be doing something wrong when interpreting the take into a figure if you get the same figures each time you change the interpretation. For instance if you select monophonic bass, the figure should switch to a bass symbol and only have 1 note playing at a time. Auto chord will replace your figures with an autochord that follows your harmony, etc.

Mon, 2020-10-26 - 20:14 Permalink

Thanks

Yes, the syllabus Wiki is the place for recording info

1) You can use the quantisation feature to fix bad timing but an alternative, record a separate track and record from the keyboard, use one key to record the rythem then drag that to one of the timing paramters of the original track. You can also use this technique to make changes to velocity etc

2) You can group notes in the take to influence the figure regcognition.

Remaining points 1 and 2  need some more explanation as you explained them , unfortenaly
 

Mon, 2020-10-26 - 20:53 Permalink

I recorded a small piano phrase and the info about figure recognition inthe manual explains not all
( it is a old picture there in the manual : the preset can be set on auto: auto detect )
No recommedation to keep the autodetected figure recognition for the recording? 
 

In this case of the piano sketch  its recognised as sustain chords ( with arpeggiod chords): it sounds as intended 
I like to know all other figure recognition presets where they exactly musical for standing?

-static is known
-monophonic (melodic) : is single melody track
- polyphonic ( mainly melodic) : are multiple melody tracks
- polyphonic ( mainly rhytmic) : ? are multiple chord tracks mixed with some melody
- polyphonic ( mainly rhytmic w/bass) : ? no idea
- keyboards (rhytmic) : piano chords ?
- sustained chords :  ? long lasting chords with melody ( like with my piano sketch)
-  bass simple ? : one pitch 
- bass melodic 

Chancing the pianosketch( sustained chords-autodetect) into another figure recognition  preset makes that the pianosketch is not sounding well anymore 
So hands off from these presets

 

Mon, 2020-10-26 - 21:19 Permalink

My keyboard skills are also basic too and it is now that i try to compose with a pianosketch.
All past years i did nothing with recording, so  who knows i can make a interesting piece of music ?
I am curious what the new workflow will be in the upcoming new version of  Synfire.