Posted
Suppose I have 3 containers making up a song, 4 bars each in the sequence XYZ (total of 12 bars). I'm going crazy deleting Y. If I "cut" or "clear" Y I still end up with 12 bars, with the Y container deleted, but bars 5-8 are filled with default C chord. There seems to be no way of cutting such that the container Z slides up next X to give XZ (8 bars). If I move Y to the end, it still leaves this gap. And if I now try to slide Z to bar 5, it duplicates (!) Z so I end up with XZZ ! I know containers operate differently from DAW tracks, but can you explain how to do the above? I'm guessing that this has to do with that the overall container is "Song" and containers within this cannot alter the size of that container. But then how can you stretch or shrink the containing container??? In the actual case I am trying I have sequence something like XYZXYZ so that the second Y is just a copy of the first, and I want to end up with XYZXZ. So perhaps this funny behavior has something to do with that the Y I want to cut is a copy? But it still doesn't make sense, and how does one do it.
Mon, 2010-05-31 - 21:06 Permalink
You can stretch the root container by dragging its right border.
If you want a seamless series of child containers, you would need to close any gaps by moving the other containers. This works similar to regions in Logic.
Did you try using an alias? If you make an alias of a container, you can move it elsewhere and it plays just what is in the original container. Great for sections that repeat.
There is also a Container >> Make Room function you can use to add extra space inside a container by moving all child containers to the right.
By concept, containers are sort of non-destructive and partial changes to the parent container's contents.
Tue, 2010-06-01 - 04:25 Permalink
[quote]There is also a Container >> Make Room function you can use to add extra space inside a container by moving all child containers to the right.
I feel that there should be an analogous "close gap" function between 2 containers that would close the gap between 2 child containers by shrinking the length of the parent container. Otherwise there is no easy way to close the gap if it is one child container in a long series that make up a song.
E.g. you may have a part, say 4 bars in a 200 bar song, that you now want to eliminate. You're going to have to move all the trailing containers (maybe 20 or 30 of them!) by hand to close the gap.
I did find a workaround. Group all the trailing containers. Move that new container, and then ungroup. This is not clean, but it is way less time consuming.
If the reason for not having such a function is that what to do about a grandparent's length or that there is a decision about whether to move to right or left, then the answer would be to make "Close Gap" whatever is consistent with the Make Room function.
Perhaps next version? :D
PS yes I think the make alias is cool, and just right. And you even allow it be made physical if needed. Nice.
Tue, 2010-06-01 - 09:03 Permalink
Yeah. That close gap function could just move all immediate children of the current container that are positioned right of the selected span to the left. Very straightforward.
Did you know you can select multiple containers and move them around with the arrow keys?
In HN2, containers are limited to a linear, flat and gapless sequence of sections. In Synfire however, you can do more powerful things with containers. They are a very cool tool for non-destructive prototyping.
Tue, 2010-06-01 - 18:08 Permalink
I too am feeling stupid, help!!
How do i move the default container to the right to make room for a new one to its left? I keep ending up with the new container underneath the left hand side of the 1st container?
Can anyone explain the key sequences i need to follow to do this?
thanks
Tue, 2010-06-01 - 18:27 Permalink
You can't move the root container, but you can move its children to the right using the Make Room function and put a new container in front of them.
You can also copy the root container and paste it elsewhere inside itself. That will also copy its children. You can remove these duplicated children after the copy. If you ever copy the root container, you end up with a copy of each of its phrases, so you should decide whether to keep them in the root, or the copied root, unless you really want to keep them at both places.
Fri, 2010-06-04 - 23:46 Permalink
[quote]There is also a Container >> Make Room function you can use to add extra space inside a container by moving all child containers to the right.
I feel that there should be an analogous "close gap" function between 2 containers that would close the gap between 2 child containers by shrinking the length of the parent container. Otherwise there is no easy way to close the gap if it is one child container in a long series that make up a song.
E.g. you may have a part, say 4 bars in a 200 bar song, that you now want to eliminate. You're going to have to move all the trailing containers (maybe 20 or 30 of them!) by hand to close the gap.
I did find a workaround. Group all the trailing containers. Move that new container, and then ungroup. This is not clean, but it is way less time consuming.
If the reason for not having such a function is that what to do about a grandparent's length or that there is a decision about whether to move to right or left, then the answer would be to make "Close Gap" whatever is consistent with the Make Room function.
Perhaps next version? :D
PS yes I think the make alias is cool, and just right. And you even allow it be made physical if needed. Nice.
