How to use the morphing feature?

Posted Fri, 2013-04-26 - 15:19

I've scanned the manual, but it tells me what morphing is, and the parameters of its use, but nothing about how to use it.

Can anyone give me a brief explanation?

Say I have one container with a piano part, then after that another container with a different piano part, how would I go about morphing between the two?

shivaloca

Fri, 2013-04-26 - 18:31 Permalink

Hi Ken

1-Launch Synfire

2-File-Open... Comand+O In the Windows that appear navigate to Synfire Pro Folder-Examples-Arrangememnts and open Morphing Piano.cognac

Morphing is like a Crossfade between two files

In my opinion is better to convert to audio your piano midi files and import them in your favorite Daw and apply Crossfader.

I use Ableton Live and they have more control in the croosfade than Synfire,Ableton has Curves to draw different drawings

Best Regards

KenDK

Fri, 2013-04-26 - 20:09 Permalink

Yeah I looked at that, but it's just a jumble of notes on a single track so I couldn't make anything of that.

I'm more looking for examples that just tells you: "do this, then that, and you'll get this result" very simple and easy to understand. The examples are to complex to understand because there's way to many notes going on, so you can't make heads or tails of anything and hear when the crossfade is happening and what is going on.

I could do it in my DAW, but not without spending to much time messing with automation as I believe the morphing also blends parameter changes, doing it in the DAW would then be fixed and any changes to be done and you'd have to redraw crossfades and automation all over again.

I tried recording 2 parts each in its own container, putting them after eachother, and also below each other and selecting the various morphing templates, but no matter what I've tried I can't hear any crossfading or morphing going on, it sounds the same if morping is on or off.

We really need some good clear videos to show the more advanced features. I'm very stubborn and I won't give up for anything, just my nature, so I'll keep at it until I understand. But I think many users would just give up and skip those features, which would be a shame.

Prado

Fri, 2013-04-26 - 21:13 Permalink

I only have Express ... so I haven't delved into Morphing.

However, my understanding is that it would be quite different than cross fading audio. In cross-faded audio the cake is already mixed in both existing tracks. you are just sliding the gain across them to transitioin/ blend from one to the other.

I think morphing attempts to take the harmonic content from each phrase and intelligently create a proper harmonic bridge from one to the other.

I'm not sure how well it performs this task, but in theory this would be a very powerful compositional tool.

juergen

Fri, 2013-04-26 - 23:06 Permalink

I made a short video to demonstrate, what "Morphing" basically does:

KenDK

Sat, 2013-04-27 - 07:57 Permalink

I could have sworn I tried it like that last night, going to try it again after I get some coffee in me :D

Thanks for the vid juergen.

KenDK

Sat, 2013-04-27 - 10:40 Permalink

Alright, got that down now after Juergen's video.

Very cool, and it's not like a straight audio crossfade, it actually morphs notes and parameters intelligently. With a staight audio crossfade you could have 2 parts that totally didn't fit together and it would sound horrible. (Like a bad radio DJ crossfading 2 songs in different keys, we have a free station here in DK that does that all the time, makes the hairs on my neck stand up haha)

I think videos like these are what we need, doesn't have to be elaborate works of art with professional intros that took a day to render, just "hi this is what we are talking about, here's how you do it.. goodbye" staight to the point 5 min. videos of the various parts.

That way the devs can churn out a vid a day no problem.