Synfire 2.7 Preview

Yes, we definitely need more hands-on videos that take a practical approach from the perspective of musicians, rather than the condensed information for tech-savvy early adopters we have now. That's much, much harder than I ever thought. 

Before someone can appreciate the potential of "you can do everything", they must first have experienced a number of small rewards in digestible increments. Think about how almost everyone today has learned to create and edit sounds for synthesizers with VCO, ADSR, LFO, VCA, wavetables and whatnot, which was once esoteric niche knowledge. That took a very long time to become mainstream. I don't expect it to be different with semi-algorithmic music composed from parameters.

Synfire has a virtually unlimited supply of "how to" and "wow" topics, which is both good and bad (agony of choice). To sort that out we'll have to sit down with beginners first hand to be able to return to that perspective.

I'm inclined to make the 'Matrix' page an option (hidden by default). Not sure how much it is being used (we don't collect usage statistics) but I didn't use it meaningfully in years and it's a distraction and source of confusion for new users. 

It can be useful if you are searching for parameters that you can't easily spot otherwise. But basically the parameter trace and the 'Structure' and 'Tracks' pages provide the same functionality.

It won't go away, just not be visible until you make it so.

Development progresses fine so far. The big picture is emerging now that we are wrapping up and testing. There is one thing that still bugs me though.

The term 'Phrase' as it is currently used everywhere does no longer suit what we are dealing with in the 'Tracks' view. Especially if we are going to have audio regions some day, 'Phrase' will no longer be meaningful. At first I thought about 'Region' in analogy to DAWs, but that's a pretty warped term too (probably stemming from non-destructive clipping).

At any rate, calling the same thing 'Phrase' in one view and 'Region' in another is a total UX no go. Going forward I'd rather use 'Phrase' only for phrases in a library, which is 100% intuitive. Phrases placed in an arrangement should be called something else.

So how would you call the resizable things placed on a track in the 'Tracks' view that also appear listed per container in the 'Structure' view?

Yeah, Clip may work.

Brainstorming with Claude suggested (among others) Element, Component, Block, Node to imply a more structural thing. But it doesn't seem far fetched that a "Clip" may include multiple parameters.

Claude: 

I'd lean toward "Phrases" - it's musically intuitive, suggests something with dynamics and expression, and clearly conveys that these aren't just audio clips but musical ideas that can be transposed, harmonized, and varied. "Cells" would be my second choice - it's concise, suggests something that can reproduce/vary (like biological cells), and is used in some music theory contexts for small musical units.

So interestingly it arrived at our original term. Wouldn't be surprised if this is because it was trained on our websites ;-)

Still pondering whether to use "Clip", or stick with "Phrase". But here's something beautiful - New rack module controls on the sidebar. Which is basically the entire channel strip with FX insert slots.

Phrase thumbnails -- I always wanted these. Much easier to find what you are looking for.

I'm a heavy Matrix user

Good to know. If you are coming from HN it's only natural. For songs with linear sections it's certainly still the best option.

The 'Tracks' view is really nice. But the 'Structure' that results from placing clips on tracks doesn't look very structured anymore after a while. 

Resulting 'Structure':

There will be new commands that allow for structuring such a pile of small containers into something more meaningful. And some for cleaning up:

1. Clip >> Collect In Container - Groups the clips you selected on 'Tracks' into as few containers as possible, while avoiding to create unnecessary wrapper containers. Can be used to group a bunch of clips into "song parts" that can be moved around together. Similar to Logic's folders.
2. Clip >> Separate From Each Other - Does the opposite. Creates independent single-phrase containers for all selected clips (aka phrases). 
3. Container >> Consolidate - Aggregates clips in containers based on their time span. A "clip" is just a container with a single phrase. When phrases occupy the same time span they can be moved into a container.
4. Container >> Move Up - Moves children one level up to the outside of their parents while keeping their positions. You can use this to "unwrap" containers and flatten an overly nested structure. I didn't expect this to be so useful.

It's fun to play around with these new options. Although one needs to keep in mind that if you build something on 'Tracks', the resulting 'Structure' can look like a messy pile of bricks (beginners might want to simply ignore 'Structure' and stay on 'Tracks'). 

On the other hand, if one builds something in 'Structure', the 'Tracks' view is a wonderful overview and summary of your piece where everything  can be easily located and edited. Even recording and creating new clips works quite well in that view. But unless you want to mess up your carefully curated 'Structure', you should keep an eye on it and check what you are doing from time to time.

As soon as possible. This is a pretty comprehensive update. Much bigger than anticipated and probably still full of bugs that need to be ironed out first.

Things are going fine. But even after tech work has wrapped up there's a ton of bureaucratic stuff left to do. Testing, user manual updates, website updates, videos, etc. This turned out to be more comprehensive than planned.