New Sound Selection Wizard

Hi Andre, 

the new wizard looks great, but will it still let me use sounds that do not have presets or device definitions without having to create new device definitions all the time?

Currently I dont tend to use device definitions. I load a vst in a drone or use midi drones ( for native ableton instruments and external synths); set the sound category then give the instrument a name. I add additional sounds for multitimbral synths the same way but on different channels, catorgise them and name them. Lastly I go into the daw or hardware synth and create a sounds, either from scratch or by modifing an existing patch. I never save these sounds in the vst as new patches, nor create/save a device definition, but the settings get saved with the daw (I presume) and are always loaded when the project is reloaded. Hopefully this workflow can continue with the new wizard? 

This is exactly how it works. Set a channel and category and you're done. Maybe edit playing ranges. You can also setup synth programs (patches) this way and add more patches later as your project grows.

The wole point is to not care about a device definition, as it's maintained in the background. The DD is of interest only if you want to reuse it and take the effort of setting one up for good.

The wizard also makes things easier with devices and presets you already have, because you need no more switch to the rack view to build a song.

Awesome if it works as intented..thanks

The wizard looks excellent and I'm sure will help people new to Synfire/HN get to grips with that part of the program.

One question. Do we still need to go to the rack to configure a drone as a midi drone? I hated when that change was introduced, there used to be a check box on the sound inspector on the right which was a lot more accessible, so I'd love to see that back in as an option in the wizard. Not talking about virtual midi or physical midi devices, just the drone as a midi drone.

Since you need to create the drones in the DAW manually before you can use them, there is no way for the wizard to do that for you. It would be possible to set a drone's status right before using it with the wizard for the first time. I'll check if that makes sense. Good point.

On a related note ...

I'm sure will help people new to Synfire/HN get to grips with that part of the program.

That part of the program, figuring out how to get an instrument play a sound, is what we receive the most support requests for. Today users are used to all-inclusive DAWs that come with gigabytes of sounds ready to use by the click of a button. Since we don't have that (yet), making the integration with external sounds as easy as possible is a top issue. The wizard is a big step toward that.

BTW it's not only for new users. Even I myself love to use it, as it takes away much distraction.

having had a play with the wizard in my setup, I'm a bit confused. 

Firstly all my sounds are held in my DAW

Some are contained within a drone loaded from Synfire (via the wizard)

Others are connected via midi drones.

Trying to add my virus (multi-timbral hardware synth that acts like a vst). It has many banks of presets it holds, but many more on disk as libraries. Previously my workflow was to load the plugin into a drone via the Instrument tab in synfire. I would give the sound a name and category, then switch to Live to the plugin GUI and select or create the sound I wanted as instrument 1. Id then add another instrument track and tell it to use the same drone, but 'channel 2'. Id repeat the naming, catgorisation and sound selection. This would repeat for upto 16 sounds (hardly ever went over 5 due to note stealing). I'd save both live and synfire projects. Loading them back in later would restore all the sounds as I had them programmed.

Now when I try using the wizard, Im selecting the option for a device in the daw, and setting it to muli-timbral. However synfire insists on selecting the patch program, loosing any edits Ive made to the sound in live. The only way round this appears to be to manually set the patch number to NONE. Ive also changed it to preset/patch (forgot the exact name) not sure if this is needed or not.

If I am using the wizard the way it has been intended, can you change the default to NONE and patch/preset so that you done overrite whatever is set in the pluggin? I presume using a softsynth will also be affected this way. 

Just use sampler (multi channel) instead of multi-timbral (expects sound selection by program change messages). That will treat each channel as a fixed entity, leaving all control to the plug-in.

To add more channels, go the "extend existing module" route.

cheers thanks