A better Pauze system

its really simple, you cant get much simpler. There is one pause parameter per instrument per container. The parameter can be on or off. You can alter it over time using a sequence (parameter figure) and like any sequence (figure) it can repeat (loop) for the duration of the container.

In addition you can pause a complete instrument by clicking one of the icons near the instrument name.

Like all parameters, the one in the lowest container at any time 'wins'.

It works the same way as all parameters that can vary over time, using a sequence (although only has 2 values)

Forgot to add, when an instrument is paused, it doesnt play (although as mentioned above, the pause can be overridden in a deeper container)

Think of the parameter as a gate or 'silence', it doesnt pause the figures, they keep running (looping) it just controls whether their instrument sounds (generates midi).

As is works at the moment, i use it all the time and it really is simple, much more simple to use than describe. 

sorry Jan,

didnt mean to put you off, if you have a suggestion for a better way of working, perhaps you should post it?

Im probably not the best person to explain this as I tend to use synfire to try make the best original music I can, I go with what sounds good to me rather than worry about music theory. I let synfire take care of all the music theory and just concentrate on what sounds good... However...

I do like to understand other peoples workflows, I watch and read everything anyone shares about synfire in case I can learn 'how to do something' or a simpler way to achieve something i find difficult.

So this is how I try to 'get my head around' someone elses file....

Firstly play the song and listen. Then look at the containers and how they are layed out. Is there some heiracrhical structure? if so then there are probably parameters or figures that are going to be overridden by the containers lower down. Are there alias containers easy to spot repeats although a common practice is to use an alias container but then alter part of the repeated container by having a sub container for part of it...

Then pick a time frame from listening to the song that i want to know how it was achieved, in your case the intro. So concentrate on the containers that make up the time frame of the intro.

The pause parameter is a key parameter as it silences instruments so see if there are any of pause sequences in the containers. Click on the pause parameter and the containers that have the pause parameter that is in effect are highlighted with a green bar. Concentrate on them, from the pause sequence you can see which instruments get silenced and when.

The chord progressions in each container are important as so much of the output depends on them, so note which containers have a harmony parameter. Again use the green hightlight whilst selecting the harmony parameter to locate the relevant containers.

Next look at the figures, again look at the green bar highlight to find whicj containers hold the 'live' figures. As an example from this you can see things like containers with fills at the ends of 8 bar sequences that override the normal drum pattern from a parent container (at least in my tunes). Pauses will often silence figures in parent parameters ( i use both drum fill containers and pause containers on my drum lines to good effect, especially with aliases)

Lastly things like bends, modulation and even rythem/step parameters can be seen and compared with what it sounds like. This might explain why certain notes do not play as they appear in the figure sequence.

The pause parameter is the same as every parameter that can hold a sequence. If you can work out how figures work in nested containers, then you should be able to understand pauses, they work exactly the same.

sorry for the extra post, but another technic i use is to listen to someones synfire project, then temporarily delete something, have another listen and compare the results of the deletion. A quick undo, puts the deleted paramter back and you can go on to delete something else to see what effect that has.

Jan,

Ive made a video which shows a way of generating a simple overview of a song (or any part of a song), I did discover an issue with the pause parameter whilst making the video so included a simple workaround too.

(https://users.cognitone.com/content/how-grab-overview-synfire-project)

Hope that helps with your issue regarding both how the pause parameter works and also how to simplify a project so you can easily see whats going on.

yes and yes

one thing that isnt pointed out in the video but i use it all the time, is the button to the left in the last group. Forget what it is called but it shows in the arrangement view which ever parameter you click on. So you can click on the figure parameter and see the figure motif, then click on the pause and see the pause values, etc.

'My workflow for mutes' is the same workflow I use for every parameter, harmony, figures, pan, pause, etc. Set the overall values in the root, then override them in a sub container (such as intro) then override them again in another subcontainer. That is pretty fundermental to the way synfire works. Thats why i took the time at the start of the video to go through the little project to show how the different containers work. pause is slightly different in that its impact is major, instead of altering which notes play and when, it just silences the instrument completely whilst the pause parameter is 0.

By the way, watch the video (again), then try it yourself with the rikko project.

jan,

Ive added an extra bit to the end of the video which shows how to simplify things even further. Hopefully this will show how to achieve the birds eye view you are looking for.

the video shows how to get an overview of every parameter. Make sure you have every instrument you are interested in maximised and click the first button in the last group as shown in the video. Click on pauses to see the effective pause parameter for the whole song. Click on harmony to see the harmony for the whole song, click on figure to see the effective figure parameter for the whole song. This is all shown in a new window so you can click between the new arrangement and the original to see what the output is and work out how that is achieved. 

because you said this wasnt good enough, I added the bit showing the use of the freeze parameter. That removes the pauses and other parameters and effectively shows what a daw would show. The freezing is done on the new window created by the make arrangement function so you are still free to compare with the original.

comment removed because it was tooo tooo long.

Just keep watching the videos, especially the ones about workflow, attempt the same things in the videos yourself and at some point you will 'get it'. Once you 'get' the underlying fundementals then bit becomes easy to compose original works. Then you will realise how synfire differs from a daw, and how powerful those differences are when it comes to composition.

Keep an eye on the forums for the details of the upcoming workshops and try attend one near you. Im sure being able to meet and chat with other synfire users face to face will help tremendously.