Pre-Release Feedback: Factories

Are factories just set for piano type sounds, or can you preserve the sound of the library item its transforming?

They don't, at least not with instruments assigned to the library rack rather than arrangement rack. Whenever I click the generate button, it creates a new library entry which defaults to the piano. Maybe it's picking from the arrangement rack?

I have a feature request for factory phrases.

Please make Synfire stop playback when switching to the Factory tab for the first time (when it says "Loading KIM Factories" displaying a progress bar). The KIM load process is very CPU-heavy leading to Synfire not being able to calculate/process more MIDI data when loading KIM. After KIM is loaded, Synfire spits out all remaining MIDI notes at once. This sounds horrible.

Another feature I'd like to see is more copy/paste functions in factory phrases. I wish I could copy the settings of Units between Question and Answer in the Q/A factory. Currently the only icon in Units is a pair of dice for randomization. Same goes for Segments. Step and Flow already have the copy/paste feature.

A question for those who delved deeper than me into Factories: Did anyone here succeed in creating 90s House piano patterns with Factories? A competitor of Synfire has a specialized generator for those patterns. I attached a reference video to what such a pattern sounds like.

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"Likewise, the output of a  Counterpoint Factory is not limited to organs or piano. Many counterpoint phrases sound fantastic when distributed over multiple instruments, or played with a guitar." This is exactly what I was thinking  yesterday.   While generating  phrases  I  had a idea   about  adding a feature where you can define  a rhythm  and then have KIM   generate  phrases   with chords and  intervals  that can  follow the rhythm  or not depending on the value the user defines.   

Yes, I mean phrase pools. I don't have them locked. The generated phrases seem to go to a new phrase pool with default Global piano. I'll keep checking though. Maybe I'm missing something.

That's ok as a workaround for now. In time, can I suggest the generator copied the sound assignment from the original phrase pool it's working on when creating the new phrase pool. Thx.

We would like to hear about your experiences with Factories.

Impressive stuff with a crazy number of options. Even with zero effort I've already came up with something musical and human-like.

Is there a way to ensure that any new factory / phrase starts with something different than C Major? I can change it manually and apply it to the whole pool via "Copy harmony to all phrases", but:

• I have to do it every single time
• It's not possible to do it in advance before creating a figure.

In search for a workaround I also saw in the preferences that you can set the default scale set, but:

• You can't choose the root
• You can't choose the horizontal scale

Basically, I would like either a default chord progression or at least a default chord (comprised of horiz,vertical,root,and inversion).

Because factories are not like when importing MIDI so you already had the original harmony, here you always start with C major and it's annoying.

Hi scriabiner,

Maybe this will answer part of your inquiry.

It is possible to create a chord progression first before you start working with the Factories. Drag and drop the chord progession that you desire to the Harmony outlet on the Arrangement page. This will set the Harmony for any and all phrases that you create with KIM. To make sure that this does not change when you create a new phrase pool, click the "link" icon which will turn green. From this point forward, any and all phrases will follow the Harmony and Tempo on the Arrangement page. And when you're ready to change to a new progression, just drag and drop a new progression into the Harmony outlet.

I've attached a photo example with the link icon clicked on and highlighted green. I was having a similar situation and this was the best solution I could find. Hope this helps to resolve some of your issues.

BTW, cool username. Scriabin is one of my favorite composers.

Not a bug, but an observation. Most recent Mac OS: the line height/density in dropdowns in factories seems a bit different from rest of UI. 
 

Overall I find the UI very pleasing and quite intuitive, only this aspect looked a bit unpolished.

click the "link" icon which will turn green.

That's what I needed, thanks.

In Preferences you have a Preview outlet. Paste any progression there to use as the default for generated phrases.

Thats' cool too. I was focusing on the default "scale set" and I missed that one.

I know, I know. I expected to find examples in the library panel on the left like in V1, but it's probably more correct like this, so once you're done with the examples you only have your stuff.
However, if I e.g. create new progressions, it would be comfortable to open them like V1, with the popup menu; there's only "Last usef files now", which is not bad anyway. I guess it's just different.

Nonsense sentence in the help:

All numbers entered here control moves in the vertical direction

Moreover

edit - just read the help more carefully

Also note that right-click on any Harmony or Preview outlet gives you a menu of templates that you can extend with your own progressions.

How though?????

I tried to do "Show file in explorer" to see where the library was located and I get "The file ...\Documents\Synfire\Config\Parameters\Preview cound (sic) not be found". In fact I don't have the folder "Parameters" at all.

On any parameter outlet, do right-click Save Template... 

Grayed out option for me. In every parameter.

I'll try a re-install, even though I already re-installed for build49 so I don't know...

I did uninstall + re-install, still same behavior.
"Save template" is grayed out.

And I still get that error if I do "Show file in explorer" for preview harmonies, because it searches them in the user's Config folder instead of the Installation path where they actually are.

Oh, ok, I got it. I was trying to save a "Harmony" parameter from the arrangement, but you can only save it from the progression tab. Which doesn't make much sense to me but ok.

So, in a figure in a pool I load a template for the Interpretation parameter. It gets yellow which means it applies to the whole pool. Up to this point all good. However I cannot edit the interpretation parameter in more details. I can only apply templates. Is this on purpose?

I did but everything was grayed out; now it works though, I realize that probably I just had the pool locked, sorry.