Posted
Hello Synfire peeps.
I've recently discovered Synfire and I can explain my excitement as is seems to fill in so many of my weaknesses in music production. Big thanks to the devs first!
So, I hope this is the right place to ask silly novice questions because I have many, but here's one to start.
Has anyone any tips, tricks or advice on importing midi that is not synced to a metronome? I have tried importing files from transformer .a.i. but they are not in sync. I understand that this normal as they ore not supposed to be mechanical sounding and should have human feel including tempo and pacing. The issue I'm having is chopping out phrases and keeping them a rounded measure without manually editing the note positions.
I have gone through the full online manual so forgive me if this is something that hasn't clicked yet.
Niall
Sat, 2023-07-08 - 21:20 Permalink
Timing doesn't need to be 100% perfect, but it should correspond to the metric grid overall. This is required not only for harmonic analysis, but also for later re-use. A free-wheeling phrase would be difficult to fit into new arrangements.
Your best option is to load the free-wheeling MIDI into a DAW and scale tempo and time signature such that the performance meets the grid. Then export this as MIDI file and import into Synfire.
Sun, 2023-07-09 - 08:56 Permalink
Yes, this was my initial idea but was hoping to stay out of the DAW as much as possible for now.
Abletons auto warping feature would be efficient but would drag everything onto the static grid unfortunately, and it only works for audio, not midi.
Pro/Slo-Tools does have a tempo mapping feature and Reaper does an even petter job of this. Tempo mapping automates the tempo by move the grid onto the (tempo varying) source material keeping the human touch intact.
So, I'm not sure a tempo map like this is written into a midi file?
Or is it possible to sync synfires tempo from Slo-Tools or Reaper?
Either of these would resolve my issue. I do think tempo mapping inside Synfire would be super. Playing around with tempo variations like this is a real prototyping element.
Thanks so much guys!
Niall
Sun, 2023-07-09 - 15:06 Permalink
So, I'm not sure a tempo map like this is written into a midi file?
Once MIDI notes have been stretched to match the grid, the tempo map is no longer needed. It could be used to resemble the original wobbly performance, but that's what you wanted to eliminate in the first place in order to make the imported phrase re-usable.
The GUI for a stretch-to-grid feature is not trivial. Synfire is not prepared for this (yet).
Sun, 2023-07-09 - 15:48 Permalink
The GUI for a stretch-to-grid feature is not trivial. Synfire is not prepared for this (yet).
I would be happy if there was a feature where stretching or compressing a container would be followed by the phrases in it.
This would be useful for several situations and it would also allow a workflow within Synfire for the above mentioned problem: One could then place a container (by ear) under each bar of such a free-flowing midi import. Some containers are longer, some shorter, depending on the music. Then the individual bars of the music are copied into its individual containers by snapshots. Then the containers are all brought to the same length, whereby the phrases in it would have to follow the individual stretching factors. Done.
But unfortunately this is not possible.
Sun, 2023-07-09 - 20:14 Permalink
Ah wow, indeed that works. Didn't even know that you can do that with the span tool. Great.
But still, for the above task it would be easier with containers. Because once you have placed all these containers and snapshotted the phrases you could simply select all containers and define a common (equal) container length for them at the inspector. With the Span tool, this would be a fiddly job. Then I would actually prefer to do it in the DAW.
But I don't want to complain. I have learned enough for today. :)