Posted
Hi,
Thanks a lot for recently resolving some issues we face during editing. I spend most of my time with Synfire editing figures manually, so these updates are much appreciated.
In this context, I thought it might be helpful if I share some other issue I have repeatedly. Perhaps it is just me misunderstanding Synfire or not being aware of some settings, but perhaps this is another bug.
It would be a bit difficult to explain my issue in writing, therefore I am sharing with this message a link to a video demonstrating the issue I face.
For completeness, as I did not address this in the video: I also tried allowing for that chord minor seconds (a b9 introduces exactly that), but it seemingly made not difference.
Mi., 19.02.2025 - 13:19 Permalink
BTW: At the end of the video, the chords in the progression tab and the global parameter suddenly turn grey. Any reason for that?
Thanks!
EDIT: To kind of answer my own question: this behaviour is expected if the harmony parameter is part of a super or child container, and not the currently selected container. Perhaps this was the case, perhaps not, but anyway, after restarting the software the software behaves as expected (i.e. harmonies are grey if the harmony parameter data is part of a different container).
Do., 20.02.2025 - 10:16 Permalink
Thanks for the video.
There may be multiple reasons why a chord is rendered in a wider voicing than expected.
- The obvious is you requested open voicing in the progression or for the segment (not the case here)
- Green chord symbols map to the middle playing range (unless you change that). The playing range may limit the inversions that can be played, forcing yours into this voicing. Since your Interpretation doesn't have Limit Strictly enabled, it's unlikely though.
- Chords are transposed by inversion. So if you transpose a chord segment (anchor not zero), you are actually wrapping it around. That means its vertical position implies a particular inversion. It could be that there's no other way to play this inversion without introducing minor seconds (since you disabled that by allowing dissonance, not likely either).
- The typical pitch of the playing range suggests an inversion that cannot be rendered closely (i.e. not the root position). I suspect this is the case here. If so you can move the typical pitch or select a specific inversion for the segment or in the progression.
- There's a bug that prevents a close voicing with minor seconds even if they are allowed (will check that).
The best way to check chord response to typical pitch is to add a track with auto-chords interpretation. You can immediately see how the typical pitch affects the chords when you move it around.
Automatic chord inversions work most of the time but sometimes you scratch your head and think WTF is happening here. I believe it would be helpful to have a parameter that modulates the typical pitch, such that it's no longer a constant per track.
That gray progression is odd. Will look into it.
Sa., 22.02.2025 - 18:47 Permalink
The ability to adjust the typical pitch mid track would complicate things further i believe. There are way too many variations that effect chord voicing, this would add another. Maybe create a parameter to conform the track to a specifc inversion. This would Override typical pitch, range, and figure...maybe by using custom voicing like we have with guitar strings.
We can enter numbers that would cause the harmony parameterto confirm to, we could create our own voicing and save them. IDK but something to eliminate the variables.
I sometimes find myself spending an hour adjusting several of these trying to get the chord voicing in my head, into the track. As you can imagine, for RnB, chord voicing is extremely important. Often times, i know the exact voicing i want but find it next to impossible to iterate it in Synfire.
I got it....give us the ability to save custom voicing that can be applies with the "autochords" feature. Not like 1st inversion etc but interms of numbers, we could have double 3rd etc or whatever we want.