May André in all his wisdom raise the sacred Synfire 2 to the greatest heights.
So that his followers may sound their heavenly music from to eternity.
Glory to André.
Note: it s fun to write on this way, don't take it too seriously
This debate doesn't belong here. Please! There are better platforms for this. There is no easy way to move off-topic posts to another thread and I have no time to tinker with the forum software now, so they will probably have to be deleted.
Please always open a new thread if you want to start an off-topic discussion.
Being transparent about my health status in passing was merely to reassure everyone that Cognitone is fine and not at risk. This is what every responsible business owner is probably expected to do. That this triggered a heated debate only reveals how thin-skinned humans become in stressful times and how forcefully it can spiral into divisive issues.
Our removal of the off-topic posts is not meant to suppress or censor anything. There is an important discussion to be had for sure, to get at the bottom of what causes all this upheaval and restore some trust in humankind, but this is just not the right place.
Will you allow Synfire 2 iLok cloud activation?
We will enable cloud activation for the first generation of licenses to see how many users actually use it. It costs us money even if no one uses it, so we'll have to wait and see. As far as I understand, a license retains its cloud capability indefinitely.
I've had the ilok dongle for a long time, but I also have many thing registered via their cloud. It's nice to have that flexibility but I don't know ilok's pricing structure...
You might want to have a look at the current state of the documentation at docs.cognitone.com. It is yet incomplete and English only. Check out the search function and maybe make yourself a bit familiar with the new features. It is the same content that will also be available in Synfire interactively.
Meanwhile an anecdote for the IT people among you:
The past several days I was haunted by a bug from hell that kept a much needed compiler from working. The crash site was impossible to identify, because all I could see in the debugger was machine code and no stack (JIT-compiled code). Sleeplessly poking around in CPU registers and assembly language, I tried to fix what seemed like a bug in the virtual machine. Hardcore stuff that is actually out of my league. The hoops I had to jump through were mind boggling and wearing me down. When desperation reached a climax on the fourth day, I resorted to a Hänsel and Gretel trick to locate the crash site. Then it dawned on me. It was all a mistake of my own: Forgot to uncomment a line of code during testing. Ouch! Probably the most embarassing mistake ever. As a face-saving measure, I will blame it on brain fog and move forward ;-)
Now you've got the T-shirt (as we say in the uk) hopefully you can move on with renewed optimism, but if we ever meet up we might look like brothers or at least cousins now in our identical T-shirts ;)
Please make sure you do not push yourself too hard under the pressue increasing due to the deadline you set yourself and your promises to the community.
While it's great to share the docs, being on day 13 of covid, I can say it's a ****, so please do look after yourself Andre. The brain fog is real and debilitating.
Yes, sometimes when the bug is hard to find, it's a good idea to simply read-proof the code: this will take a long time and it requires a lot of focus, but it can prevent an everlasting debugging that may even not work.
Hi Andre, glad to see things are moving along nicely and thanks for the Synfire 2 manual link. I took a quick breeze through and didn't see anything about triggering pallette chords from an external controller.
The progression visuals are helpful of course but what would really be cool is being able to map pallette chords to controller keys or pads; it would make writing chords progressions more fun and allow users to more creative freedom.
If this has already been implemented, thank you and my apologies for not seeing it.
At least you already can already play progressions in the palette with the mouse. As you usually want to play only one chord at the time, this is not too bad, I feel. Also, I feel that with a large palette a 2D arrangement with labeled chords makes more sense for me than mapping it to a 1D row of keys. How many different chords do you want to be able to map to keys?
Only found one . Factories with search "Synfire 2.0" The Factories will be available for Pro only. So I have to update from light to Pro . What will be the price ?
Sorry Fent, that's total nonsense.
you don't have be a performer to make music.
I volunteered once to support someone with profound physical disabilities compose some amazing music for a choir, who had to use a mouse for that. Synfire is great in that it helps with that kind of thing.
I really hope that 2.0 can wait and you can fix those bad exporting bugs (including actually wrong notes) in the current version, because currently Synfire is almost unusable in a workflow that includes different music software.
I understand Fent. I'm originally a singer/vocalist and find it impossible to compose a lead melody without using my voice. Some other parts come easier when born from theory and put to live with the mouse. And rhythm literally requires your body to be involved in some way. There's no single approach to music.
Mapping keys to chords is useful when you improvise melodies on a MIDI keyboard any want to find the best sequence of chords, just like you would do with a guitar. The issue is you can't map more than eight or so chords at a time before it gets confusing. And when you want different chords, you need to grab the mouse again anyway. It is not implemented yet. I see it as a feature for the next HN3 plug-in, because it lives in the DAW and is better suited for live performance. If eight chords are enough and latency is not a problem, let me know.
The "Pro only" notes for the new features are not yet final. That's why we have a pre-release. Because Pro is an easy decision - it includes everything.
Bugs will be fixed in the new version, which is due very soon.
BTW: Everyone can update Sprike to 1.7.1 now. It's M1 native and notarized. It's needed to run the new arrangement examples.
Factories will only be available in the Pro version?! I was really looking forward for it... For us Express users, will it be anything more than just a better interface? No new features?
The "Pro only" notes for the new features are not yet final. That's why we have a pre-release. Because Pro is an easy decision - it includes everything.
Fingers crossed factories will be available in Express, that's all I want for Christmas!
We're now finished with only annoying details left to be fixed that came up late. Petty stuff, but needs to be addressed.
An example, just so you get an idea: If a user opens an example library and adds phrases to it (now easier than ever), the next update will silently replace all example files and their work will be gone! I don't know about you, but if someone silently deleted my work, I'd be pretty upset.
To avoid that, some write protection, warning message, or backup mechanism needs to be put in place. Similar questions arose regarding the migration of existing installations. We installed Synfire like a thousand times already, resetting macOS and Windows VMs (VMWare) every couple minutes. It'll probably burn through at least one SSD ...
I'm telling you this only because the plan was to get the pre-release out before the weekend. It will now be a few more days.
Compared a MacBook Air 2020 M1 with an iMac 2020 i9 Intel. The iMac is pretty fast and maxed out. This is no objective benchmark however, just the perceived performance.
The only importance is we now finally have M1 support. Being at the mercy of a third party, waiting to update their tools is always a nightmare. They did a great job though. And that's all that counts.
We installed Synfire like a thousand times already,
If you decide to do a pre-pre-release before the weekend, I'm sure you'll find volunteers here to double-check the robustness of the installation process. :)
I hear you, but myself I try not to be too much hyped at this stage, because I do not really know at this stage from what I could read so far how much I can shape those KIM figures into what I personally want to do musically.
For example, for me rhythmic flexibility is important. It seems, according to what Andre shared so far that there is quite some flexibility indeed. E.g., it seems that the rhythm can in principle be overwritten freely with a Step parameter factory, if I understand the documentation correctly. It seems that a Step parameter factory can also use some manually written rhythm (and for rhythmic elements like tuplets beyond triplets this currently is the only way), but I have no idea yet how the framework of factories then uses those given rhythms. E.g., are inherit accents (e.g., durational accents) taken into account by its underlying rules? Similarily, sliders for factory spans seemingly can control how long musical ideas last, but will it be possible to generate ideas that are, say, 3 or 5 eighths notes or beats long?
These are just examples of what I am looking for myself, you guys will have different musical goals.
Of course, it is virtually impossible to cater for all musical needs and at the same time have a reasonably simple user interface. Also, luckily we (i) can still write figures completely by hand, and (ii) will seemingly be able to freely edit manually results of figures.
So, myself I try not to be too much hyped at this stage -- but indeed it is difficult and I hear you and feel with you. ;-)
PS: I might end up generating pretty short figures with factories (e.g., just a beat long), and then arrange such beat ideas manually myself into larger units. I am surely looking forward to this release.
And at a (much) later stage, perhaps we even get access to the underlying KIM language.
>I might end up generating pretty short figures with factories (e.g., just a beat long)
Have you tried Songwish Remidi 2? its a midi sampler. Around 10 years ago I figured out that I needed some way to improvise short phrases into SFP for jazz/fusion/insane edm ideas I was trying. As a drummer I ended up playing a edrum kit into SFP with midi then altering the static pitches into horizontal vertical and chord notes. With a midi sampler this can all be accomplished on the fly giving me the improvisiation I am looking for. Remidi comes with tons of Jazz and Classical phrases and I am looking to sculpt my own with KIM. Ultimately I am hoping KIM will evolve to understand phrases and make new musical material based on my ideas that I have played.
So, myself I try not to be too much hyped at this stage -- but indeed it is difficult and I hear you and feel with you. ;-)
Same, at least until we know what features will end up in Express! I'm really hoping for factories. Reason Studios have something similar with their player-devices and those are a ton of fun to play around with. Factories seems to be the next level!
Comments
Tue, 2022-03-15 - 09:51 Permalink
May André in all his wisdom raise the sacred Synfire 2 to the greatest heights.
So that his followers may sound their heavenly music from to eternity.
Glory to André.
Note: it s fun to write on this way, don't take it too seriously
Tue, 2022-03-15 - 20:07 Permalink
(Several off-topic posts removed)
Thu, 2022-03-17 - 19:25 Permalink
This debate doesn't belong here. Please! There are better platforms for this. There is no easy way to move off-topic posts to another thread and I have no time to tinker with the forum software now, so they will probably have to be deleted.
Please always open a new thread if you want to start an off-topic discussion.
Thu, 2022-03-17 - 23:16 Permalink
Let's get back to Synfire 2.0 preview!
Andre please post someting exciting about Synfire 2!
Thu, 2022-03-17 - 23:36 Permalink
Andre, Vienna Symphonic Library has moved to iLok today and is allowing iLok cloud activation. Steinberg is also going dongle free.
Will you allow Synfire 2 iLok cloud activation?
Fri, 2022-03-18 - 10:10 Permalink
Being transparent about my health status in passing was merely to reassure everyone that Cognitone is fine and not at risk. This is what every responsible business owner is probably expected to do. That this triggered a heated debate only reveals how thin-skinned humans become in stressful times and how forcefully it can spiral into divisive issues.
Our removal of the off-topic posts is not meant to suppress or censor anything. There is an important discussion to be had for sure, to get at the bottom of what causes all this upheaval and restore some trust in humankind, but this is just not the right place.
We will enable cloud activation for the first generation of licenses to see how many users actually use it. It costs us money even if no one uses it, so we'll have to wait and see. As far as I understand, a license retains its cloud capability indefinitely.
Tue, 2022-03-22 - 22:52 Permalink
When will we receive Synfire2?
And how would be informed of its availability, please, Andre?
Wed, 2022-03-23 - 07:19 Permalink
I've had the ilok dongle for a long time, but I also have many thing registered via their cloud. It's nice to have that flexibility but I don't know ilok's pricing structure...
Tue, 2022-04-05 - 06:32 Permalink
Andre definitely appreciate your candor and reassurance! Very excited to try the cloud license personally.
Tue, 2022-04-05 - 19:58 Permalink
When availability, please, Andre?
Wed, 2022-04-06 - 22:50 Permalink
Soon. Very soon.
You might want to have a look at the current state of the documentation at docs.cognitone.com. It is yet incomplete and English only. Check out the search function and maybe make yourself a bit familiar with the new features. It is the same content that will also be available in Synfire interactively.
Meanwhile an anecdote for the IT people among you:
The past several days I was haunted by a bug from hell that kept a much needed compiler from working. The crash site was impossible to identify, because all I could see in the debugger was machine code and no stack (JIT-compiled code). Sleeplessly poking around in CPU registers and assembly language, I tried to fix what seemed like a bug in the virtual machine. Hardcore stuff that is actually out of my league. The hoops I had to jump through were mind boggling and wearing me down. When desperation reached a climax on the fourth day, I resorted to a Hänsel and Gretel trick to locate the crash site. Then it dawned on me. It was all a mistake of my own: Forgot to uncomment a line of code during testing. Ouch! Probably the most embarassing mistake ever. As a face-saving measure, I will blame it on brain fog and move forward ;-)
Thu, 2022-04-07 - 02:32 Permalink
Now you've got the T-shirt (as we say in the uk) hopefully you can move on with renewed optimism, but if we ever meet up we might look like brothers or at least cousins now in our identical T-shirts ;)
Thu, 2022-04-07 - 06:31 Permalink
> have a look at .. the documentation
Thanks for that!
Thu, 2022-04-07 - 10:48 Permalink
> Sleeplessly poking around
Please make sure you do not push yourself too hard under the pressue increasing due to the deadline you set yourself and your promises to the community.
Thu, 2022-04-07 - 11:44 Permalink
While it's great to share the docs, being on day 13 of covid, I can say it's a ****, so please do look after yourself Andre. The brain fog is real and debilitating.
Thu, 2022-04-07 - 12:08 Permalink
Thank you for all of your hard work.you are an amazing super hero!
Thu, 2022-04-07 - 12:15 Permalink
> being on day 13 of covid
Get well soon, Ruchir.
Thu, 2022-04-07 - 14:56 Permalink
Yes, sometimes when the bug is hard to find, it's a good idea to simply read-proof the code: this will take a long time and it requires a lot of focus, but it can prevent an everlasting debugging that may even not work.
Thu, 2022-04-07 - 16:08 Permalink
Keep fingers crossed for no further Heisenbugs.
Sat, 2022-04-09 - 13:07 Permalink
Hi Andre, glad to see things are moving along nicely and thanks for the Synfire 2 manual link. I took a quick breeze through and didn't see anything about triggering pallette chords from an external controller.
The progression visuals are helpful of course but what would really be cool is being able to map pallette chords to controller keys or pads; it would make writing chords progressions more fun and allow users to more creative freedom.
If this has already been implemented, thank you and my apologies for not seeing it.
Sat, 2022-04-09 - 14:29 Permalink
At least you already can already play progressions in the palette with the mouse. As you usually want to play only one chord at the time, this is not too bad, I feel. Also, I feel that with a large palette a 2D arrangement with labeled chords makes more sense for me than mapping it to a 1D row of keys. How many different chords do you want to be able to map to keys?
Just my two Euro cents...
Sun, 2022-04-10 - 13:00 Permalink
Hi,
Only found one . Factories with search "Synfire 2.0" The Factories will be available for Pro only. So I have to update from light to Pro . What will be the price ?
a
Sun, 2022-04-10 - 13:34 Permalink
Try performing your music instead of programming it sometime. Using a mouse to write ANY music is souless and boring as shit.
Just a producer's 2 cents.
Sun, 2022-04-10 - 13:45 Permalink
Sorry Fent, that's total nonsense.
you don't have be a performer to make music.
I volunteered once to support someone with profound physical disabilities compose some amazing music for a choir, who had to use a mouse for that. Synfire is great in that it helps with that kind of thing.
Sun, 2022-04-10 - 14:08 Permalink
Also, it may be boring and hard to do, but it can be far from soulless; you need skills bro.
Sun, 2022-04-10 - 14:28 Permalink
I really hope that 2.0 can wait and you can fix those bad exporting bugs (including actually wrong notes) in the current version, because currently Synfire is almost unusable in a workflow that includes different music software.
Sun, 2022-04-10 - 16:33 Permalink
I understand Fent. I'm originally a singer/vocalist and find it impossible to compose a lead melody without using my voice. Some other parts come easier when born from theory and put to live with the mouse. And rhythm literally requires your body to be involved in some way. There's no single approach to music.
Mapping keys to chords is useful when you improvise melodies on a MIDI keyboard any want to find the best sequence of chords, just like you would do with a guitar. The issue is you can't map more than eight or so chords at a time before it gets confusing. And when you want different chords, you need to grab the mouse again anyway. It is not implemented yet. I see it as a feature for the next HN3 plug-in, because it lives in the DAW and is better suited for live performance. If eight chords are enough and latency is not a problem, let me know.
The "Pro only" notes for the new features are not yet final. That's why we have a pre-release. Because Pro is an easy decision - it includes everything.
Bugs will be fixed in the new version, which is due very soon.
BTW: Everyone can update Sprike to 1.7.1 now. It's M1 native and notarized. It's needed to run the new arrangement examples.
Sun, 2022-04-10 - 16:33 Permalink
Factories will only be available in the Pro version?! I was really looking forward for it... For us Express users, will it be anything more than just a better interface? No new features?
Sun, 2022-04-10 - 17:44 Permalink
Thank you, great to hear.
Mon, 2022-04-11 - 15:27 Permalink
Fingers crossed factories will be available in Express, that's all I want for Christmas!
Mon, 2022-04-11 - 18:36 Permalink
Xmas???? Oh no ,no no no NOOOOOOO!
LOL :))
Mon, 2022-04-11 - 21:41 Permalink
We fixed a broken download link for Sprike on Windows. Sorry for the hassle. Please try again.
Mon, 2022-04-11 - 23:26 Permalink
Andre, sorry, I am a bit confused by your broken download link comment in this thread!
Have you released the SYNFIRE 2.0 pre-release?
Tue, 2022-04-12 - 00:57 Permalink
smr
A few posts ago Andre wrote: "BTW: Everyone can update Sprike to 1.7.1 now. It's M1 native and notarized. It's needed to run the new arrangement examples." (https://users.cognitone.com/comment/18978#comment-18978)
The link in the post points to the freeware download page at (https://www.cognitone.com/downloads/index.stml?p) where you'll find the fixed Sprike Windows download link.
Tue, 2022-04-12 - 16:39 Permalink
We're now finished with only annoying details left to be fixed that came up late. Petty stuff, but needs to be addressed.
An example, just so you get an idea: If a user opens an example library and adds phrases to it (now easier than ever), the next update will silently replace all example files and their work will be gone! I don't know about you, but if someone silently deleted my work, I'd be pretty upset.
To avoid that, some write protection, warning message, or backup mechanism needs to be put in place. Similar questions arose regarding the migration of existing installations. We installed Synfire like a thousand times already, resetting macOS and Windows VMs (VMWare) every couple minutes. It'll probably burn through at least one SSD ...
I'm telling you this only because the plan was to get the pre-release out before the weekend. It will now be a few more days.
The M1 version, by the way, is faster than Intel.
Tue, 2022-04-12 - 16:54 Permalink
No, no. I'm sure I speak on behalf of everyone here by saying that aren't ready yet for Synfire 2. It's too soon and we are not worthy. ;)
Tue, 2022-04-12 - 16:56 Permalink
Just a quick question on the m1 support. When you say it is faster, what spec machines are you comparing?
Tue, 2022-04-12 - 17:57 Permalink
Compared a MacBook Air 2020 M1 with an iMac 2020 i9 Intel. The iMac is pretty fast and maxed out. This is no objective benchmark however, just the perceived performance.
The only importance is we now finally have M1 support. Being at the mercy of a third party, waiting to update their tools is always a nightmare. They did a great job though. And that's all that counts.
Tue, 2022-04-12 - 18:35 Permalink
Tue, 2022-04-12 - 19:25 Permalink
If you decide to do a pre-pre-release before the weekend, I'm sure you'll find volunteers here to double-check the robustness of the installation process. :)
Wed, 2022-04-13 - 03:18 Permalink
ah man im so hyped
Wed, 2022-04-13 - 09:19 Permalink
I'm all in for a pre-release.
Wed, 2022-04-13 - 11:57 Permalink
> It's too soon and we are not worthy. ;)
Amen to that. In my private project planning Synfire 2 integration is due just after Xmas -- Xmas '23. ;-)
Thu, 2022-04-14 - 03:54 Permalink
I'm checking this thread and the website more often than I am crypto prices
Fri, 2022-04-15 - 01:11 Permalink
my dreams last night were all about synfire 2
Fri, 2022-04-15 - 04:34 Permalink
Feel you. I made my desktop background the Kim factory view that Andre posted. https://users.cognitone.com/files/forum/1102/applibraryopen.png
Fri, 2022-04-15 - 06:38 Permalink
> dreams / desktop background
I hear you, but myself I try not to be too much hyped at this stage, because I do not really know at this stage from what I could read so far how much I can shape those KIM figures into what I personally want to do musically.
For example, for me rhythmic flexibility is important. It seems, according to what Andre shared so far that there is quite some flexibility indeed. E.g., it seems that the rhythm can in principle be overwritten freely with a Step parameter factory, if I understand the documentation correctly. It seems that a Step parameter factory can also use some manually written rhythm (and for rhythmic elements like tuplets beyond triplets this currently is the only way), but I have no idea yet how the framework of factories then uses those given rhythms. E.g., are inherit accents (e.g., durational accents) taken into account by its underlying rules? Similarily, sliders for factory spans seemingly can control how long musical ideas last, but will it be possible to generate ideas that are, say, 3 or 5 eighths notes or beats long?
These are just examples of what I am looking for myself, you guys will have different musical goals.
Of course, it is virtually impossible to cater for all musical needs and at the same time have a reasonably simple user interface. Also, luckily we (i) can still write figures completely by hand, and (ii) will seemingly be able to freely edit manually results of figures.
So, myself I try not to be too much hyped at this stage -- but indeed it is difficult and I hear you and feel with you. ;-)
PS: I might end up generating pretty short figures with factories (e.g., just a beat long), and then arrange such beat ideas manually myself into larger units. I am surely looking forward to this release.
And at a (much) later stage, perhaps we even get access to the underlying KIM language.
Fri, 2022-04-15 - 07:59 Permalink
>I might end up generating pretty short figures with factories (e.g., just a beat long)
Have you tried Songwish Remidi 2? its a midi sampler. Around 10 years ago I figured out that I needed some way to improvise short phrases into SFP for jazz/fusion/insane edm ideas I was trying. As a drummer I ended up playing a edrum kit into SFP with midi then altering the static pitches into horizontal vertical and chord notes. With a midi sampler this can all be accomplished on the fly giving me the improvisiation I am looking for. Remidi comes with tons of Jazz and Classical phrases and I am looking to sculpt my own with KIM. Ultimately I am hoping KIM will evolve to understand phrases and make new musical material based on my ideas that I have played.
Fri, 2022-04-15 - 08:54 Permalink
Same, at least until we know what features will end up in Express! I'm really hoping for factories. Reason Studios have something similar with their player-devices and those are a ton of fun to play around with. Factories seems to be the next level!
Fri, 2022-04-15 - 18:41 Permalink
> Have you tried Songwish Remidi 2?
Thanks, will check that out. Does that also support rendering MIDI snippets in changing harmonies, a bit like Synfire?
EDIT: Scratch that, you said you record MIDI
> into SFP ... then altering the static pitches into horizontal vertical and chord notes.
I actually used Opusmodus a lot, but that is a completely different beast (even more flexiblity, but a slower workflow).
Best,
Torsten