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Working just in Synfire (without a DAW) is actually very good (containers, libraries, rack modules, really stable). I can see why its recommend as the starting point for a new composition. Everything just works and synchronization is tight.
As an electronic music producer there are a couple of things missing:
- So much of the movement in the piece comes from control modulation. E.g. automating the Decay parameter / Filter cutoff while the figure plays.
Now Synfire has controller lanes to do this but only with specific controller values. I would reckon that 50% of today's vsts (or less) dont have midi learn and so can never be automated.
Plus as Synfire doesnt 'listen' to controller messages as a control is moved, its very hard to set this up even for synths which have any kind of midi control (e.g. Omnisphere)
Could we have a list of automatable parameters exported from the VST. The important ones are always at the top of the list (in a good VST) and wouldnt add hardly anything to the complexity of Synfire.
I get it the Orchestral libraries make this easier but to address more genres just using Synfire it really, really needs a better parameter modulation solution.
- I appreciate that Synfire is not a replacement DAW thats not its strength and focus. But please allow an additional FX slot. One only doesn't allow to test out classic FX setups (e.g. delay folllowed by distortion etc) unless the one plugin supports it.
I know that BlueCat has a really excellent chainer but its a 100 Euro addon.
Fr., 16.09.2022 - 12:06 Permalink
> Could we have a list of automatable parameters exported from the VST.
I understand where you are coming from: controlling a plugin via VST automation parameters in a DAW is more convenient than doing that via MIDI CC. As long as you would do your whole composition & mix with Synfire, this might be an option (though, I have no idea how complex this would be to add to Synfire).
However, for electronic music I assume in the end you want to continue working in a DAW (Synfire is not designed for mixing etc). If you want to export your piece to MIDI, then also exporting the MIDI CC messages is rather straight forward, but the VST automation parameters are not part of the MIDI protocol, so that might get pretty tricky.
Fr., 16.09.2022 - 21:16 Permalink
Hi Tanders,
Nice to meet you. I think youre right and thanks for putting it down in words. Working a bit further today I came to the same conclusion. Embedded in the Midi file is much more portable.
I spent some time (too much ;) trying to assign custom controllers to CC's in Arturia Analog Lab. Setting a specific CC to a instrument parameter in Analog Lab and then setting the same at a custom controller in Synfire. I checked all were on the same midi channel. I just couldnt get it to work. Then I broke something with instrument setup and nothing would go anymore.
What I would be happy to do, is get my ideas to the audio clip level in Synfire by rendering within Synfire. Then moving to the DAW for expansion, mixing, mastering etc. Just like people who exclusively use loop libraries but in this case the loops would be mine. I think a lot of electronic producers would be looking for this workflow!
Anytime I change my mind or need something else I would go back to Synfire, modify and re-render. Making Synfire the root source of audio for my DAW project.
Editing of controller info, velocity etc is done so nicely in Synfire's new interface it perfect for drawing a filter cutoff, decay on AMP on a line. The fact that its easily there across multiple tracks to gel them together is great, its sad that I have to leave that behind and do it later (if I remeber the idea at all)
Rather than creating I start to feel like a computer technichen. The rest of Synfire is really geared to creativity in a very musical way. Its a shame that this instrument part is so difficult but I guess its always worth working at.
Anyone had luck in using Analog Lab with custom controllers?
So., 18.09.2022 - 17:52 Permalink
Thanks for the feedback and suggestions. Totally agree and added this to our wishlist.
It's a challenge however to implement this given how Synfire operates at the moment, i.e. the audio processing is separated from the user interface and all communication goes through a network connection. Within the same process, this would be pretty standard.
Extending the network protocol to include extensive communication between the plug-in and Synfire UI is hard (like, asking the plug-in for its list of parameters and sending that to Synfire, and Synfire sending values back to the plug-in). This also needs to be re-negotiated every time a plug-in is loaded. That is, parameters in Synfire need to appear and disappear depending on that.
This can be done, but we don't have the capacity at the time to include this with 2.0 already.
So., 18.09.2022 - 17:55 Permalink
Regarding a PDF manual, that's basically not a problem. We just couldn't yet figure out how to get the all the icons included with the PDF properly. That's a technical problem that should be solvable.
The online manual is much easier to search, albeit there's no straightforward way to read it from beginning to end.
So., 18.09.2022 - 22:23 Permalink
I've been working in Synfire only, with Arturia plugins (which have defined cc's for the most important parameters) and been able to make super great modulations which really bring the phrase alive.
Being able to save the controller setup as a rack I can recall that at any time is a timesaver. As tanders mentioned it's fully portable when going to the daw. Synfire has a good solution as is.
The more I digging in the more I can see the well thought out decisions and also the power of Synfire (save as preset, save as template, change the interpretation based on symbol types, edit the preview instrument, link to current track which plays the imported midi figure along with harmony defined in the arrangement to name a few ;)
Thanks for all of this! Synfire 1 didn't quite gel but Synfire 2 is very convincing as a composition environment