Loop container

+1

jbone ... you've got a lot of great ideas. Keep 'em comin.'

Well, containers are already loops.

You simply need to extend their size and all content inside will loop for that duration.

Hi Jbone:

I'm losing you here.  to me is sounds like you're proprosing to set the time line to 'infinite', by looping the container. If you've already built other containers into the arrangement (and most of us do)..that makes another 'kettle of fish' to deal with.  Perhaps I'm misunderstanding..

Just for clarification.. Say I have a container 8 bars long.  The drum part is 8 bars, the bass part is 4 bars long, the guitar is 3 bars long, Then I extend the container to 32 bars..  So the bass part is going to repeat every 4 bars (taking into account the chord structure), And the Guitar is going to loop every three bars, (according to chord structure).  

So the starting relationship of bass to guitar will come into sync again every 12 bars?  right?

You don't need the surrounding of the loop ?

What i do is to loop a container  with a extra lenght of both sides of  the loop (overlapping) and drop in realtime a container in the actual container loop  ( i chance during the running of synfire: containers ) ( it is running around my brain it is...(song) )

Got It !!!   That's a good idea

To make looping  focussed on styles importing from Yamaha , etc  for songconstructing experimenting
I name something.. the right order (workflow)  is up to you

1. import style
2. make a pack container from the rootcontainer
3. drag copies of stylesblocks ( CTRL + drag to loop in real time : Synfire is running ) ( intro A, fill in , etc) under the packcontainer  while a loop is playing
4. you can extend the loop with Shift ( left or right ? ) if you like while Synfire is running, but the new loop is not extended?
5. Construct song sections
6. construct chord containers
7. use the embedded  library to collect interesting phrases from the style, later you can transfer it to the mainlibrary 

+1

Would be a useful feature. But more than this I'm missing some other features in this regard:

• An On/Off-switch for the loop (at the transport buttons)
• The possibility to drag the left and right edges of the selected loop along the timeline
• The possibility to define a loop length by clicking at the positions for the left and right edge of the loop region. (ok, I just realized that this already works for the right edge with the shift key)
• The possibility to drag the looped region along the timline.
• Changing the loop-length during playback.

Most DAW's, like Cubase (see GIF), do have those features and I think, they would be useful for Synfire too.

I think that's different, Andre.

Ok, I understand.

I rarely ever used loops, except when setting up a mix or looking for routing bugs (so I have a constant audio source playing). What are the particular use cases for such loops in the context of composition? If I knew more of them, I could better estimate how to improve the timeline. 

It's the special nature of working with Synfire that you can not always predict the effect of parameter changes. You have to listen to it. So of course it would be a great improvement if you could let the music play continuously during all the work and if you could adjust the currently played region with powerful looping features, without having to constantly press start and stop.

Currently SFP always has to calculate what it is going to do before it plays, because of the number of variables, and the interactions of them... It cannot be real time.

Perhaps a looping feature could be introduced, and when Synfire sensed a parameter change, it could implement that in the next loop.. Might be a tall programming order.. 

I understood J-Bone and gave him a +1.

And, I understand you, too, Jürgen!

+1

Not really a problem in my view, Mark.

I do my phrasing. I play the loop. I make a change. Synfire stops momentarily to process my change, then automatically starts looping again.

I didn't like the change. I hit Control + Z (Undo). It stops for a moment to go back to what I had before and then starts looping automatically.

It's the SFP/E energizer bunny ... it just keeps going, and going and going.

This is 'what you do is what your hear.'

I think it would be very powerful ... and I think the container is the logical unit for looping. Maybe you could use a key switch to loop multiple containers along th time line and then use your 'loop' key switch to have that combination play looped from left to right on the arranger view?

Edit: OK ... I see one issue. I must stop while you make the phrase changes. So, then you just hit the 'loop' key combo again. If you are in the editor, it should know that that is the targeted container.

What I have learned from Andre from an earlier post, is that it is already possible to make parameter changes during playing a loop. The changes then come into effect at the next crossing of the starting point of the loop (I'm not sure, if i had tested that, though). So, there is probably no need to change anything at the general concept of Synfire to implement this improvements.

Great!

What I have learned from Andre from an earlier post, is that it is already possible to make parameter changes during playing a loop.

Yes, true.

The only reason it stops currently is because the tool requests playback of a segment when the user makes a new selection. This could probably be turned off while the transport is running ...

This is exactly the sort of fine tuning that takes years of practical experience and user feedback to get finally right.

I often make use of looping when recording a new track.. In Logic Pro, I check the feature in recording settings, 'mute track and auto create new track'.  This allows me to continously record new takes without stopping.  I might record 5 - 6 tracks, then cut out certain sections, to create the perfect take.  

I remember WAY back when  Emagic put this feature into Logic.. Not only does it greatly speed up the creative process, you can A-B new ideas.. It also has the psychological impact, of you having more control, over the software, like all other aspects of our life, you are  acting in 'real time'.

 My earliest computer music experiments, At Umass Boston, required that you write out you ideas either in computer Basic or Fortan.  Submit it for 'batch processing.  Sending the data accross the state of  Massachusett to Amhearst, on special hi speed telepone 'data' lines where the mainframe was..  Once the job was done the results were sent back to you.  Later you would work at a 'terminal' (special computer keybooard with extra keys' and a box of 15 inch wide computer pring out paper.  It really was like a teletype affair. .  It boiled down to a matter of a number of seconds  generally under a minute.. Then of course you had to peruse over inch thick paper ream to find where you went astray, make corrections and recompile, and send again.. of course there was no computer keyboard,,

Later that year we got a custom build MOOG with Bob Moogs first 4 x 128 setp digital sequencer, again you had to toggle in a series of switches, and hit enter..  This was volitle memory, so you could not shut machiine off, otherwise you lost your work.. I also bought an ARP 2600 and Aries modular synth at this time. There wer no presets, and because all the analog circuitry was susceptible to humitiy and temperature.  You could never get the exact same patch again. only a close approximation, Those keyboards only  put out 1 voltage for one voice (Arp 2600 you could modify the circuit board  as a special Mod. to get two voices... You would have laboriously create 3 or more tracks and record to multitrack to get polyphony.. 

We've come a LONG way since late 60's.  

Later my musical partner Roger Powell  (brilliant keyboard player for both ARP, MOOG synthq. stints with Todd Rundgren, David Bowie.  senior programmer at Apple for many years. We bought an Imsai 8080 computer.  It was just a rackmount. You had to write out the program in hex, program in hex.. Togglle it into the Imsai by a serious of 16 toggle switchs, then hit send.. It would compile quickly and then send data out to DACs (Digital to Analog converters) to change the 16 bass  number system to analog voltages, which would drive oscillators, VCfs, Vco's and trigger ADRS envelops..  That really was making electronic music 'old school styles'. 

I never tried theloop recording in SFP..  It is indeed very helpful.. Sometimes it takes you several loop arounds to get into the 'right zone'.

This thread is two years old. Any chance we can get a ctrl+L to loop a container instead of having to draw the length of container?

+1