Training ??

I agree with you that there's a lack of professional tutorial videos.  I've been a user for a few years now but I reckon I still only use Synfire to less than half its potential.

Personally, I prefer groove3.com because they offer more of what I'm interested in, and I'm already a subscriber!  I asked them about Synfire a couple of years ago and they said they were aware of it and would monitor customer requests.  I guess there weren't very many!

Cognitone seem to be expending a lot of time on promotional videos at the moment, rather than tutorial videos.  I'm not a business man so I assume they know what they're doing but I think sometimes tutorials can sell a product better because users want to see what it's actually capable of, rather than what it might be able to do.

I have seen many comments on groove3 from people who've bought a product based on one of their tutorials.  Indeed, it applied to me when I watched their Ozone 5 tutorial.  I bought it straight after watching it!

Perhaps it's time for Cognitone to hire someone, train them up, and produce comprehensive tutorial videos.  I expect these could run for very many hours and would be very expensive to produce.  But I would have thought the expense could be recouped with just a few more sales?

Thanks for the links and suggestions. The challange is: only an already trained person can train others. That's a hen-and-egg problem. Also, Synfire doesn't attract an audience of millions of people, like Final Cut Pro, Photoshop and the like. 

The other day I saw a professional training video for Final Cut Pro X. Two guys were standing at a desk with a laptop, talking, making jokes, one asking questions, the other answering them, showing things on screen. It was a nice experience. I instantly thought: This is the way we need to go!

The entire 6 minutes or so were spent on a single task: How to change a particular setting, I don't remember exactly. It was about a single aspect of a specific feature only. That's what made it so relaxed and entertaining.

However, if Synfire was taught at this comfortable pace, it'd take some 200 videos.

Final Cut has a huge advantage in this regard: All users are essentially doing the same thing with that software: Arranging clips they already have. Noone expects Apple to tell them how to tell a story, script a movie, do the lighting, etc. It's not about making a movie, it's about "producing" the movie you already have. Very much like what a DAW does for music.

The learning curve with Synfire is steep, because it revolves around a creative process that starts out of thin air and is different for every individual person. It blurs the line between creativity and technology. Users less often ask how to do something, they more often ask what to do in the first place. They are unclear about what suggestions and decisions the software can make and what's still their own responsibility. Let alone which decisions needed to be made altogether.

I think, before we can start with training videos that focus on particular features and tasks, it is inevitable to have something that gives an idea of the grand scheme of things, plus a few basics. After that, videos on all the features and tasks should come easy. 

That said, communication is a top priority this year.

It is not that complicated, but the manual gives not the core ideas  presented userfriendly..it is written in a programmer style
One video with main features to get a idea were to start and have a oversight.

You can start with a rootcontainer where you can add instruments and draw(pencil tool) a phrase..these days with the racks it is much more userfriendly then it was ever before.
You can also import a midi file into the rootcontainer where the constructed phrase are extracted from the midi
You can also record you own phrase in the rootcontainer with a midi controllerkeyboard 
So 3 ways to get phrases...there are more.. from a existing phrase library you can construct a new phrase or extract a phrase out a existing arrangement ( a instrument track ) .
For a songbuilding you can use a phrase library too

The rootcontainer is the top container ..notice the difference between a container you can add under this rootcontainer and the rootcontainer. ( you can't move a rootcontainer ) 

The rootcontainer is the start of making a song

Paul,

one other thing I encourage you to do is look at the forum section for workshops. This idea has gone a bit quiet of late but I'm hopeful it picks up more maybe as the weather gets worse. Not sure which country you are in, but the idea is to get users together to share ideas and effectively learn from each other with some help from the cognitive people. Put you name down under the relevant section...which will help swell numbers..

Fantastic Andre!

This is my favorite creative tool bar none. Yet, there is so much I am still trying to learn to do with it! i agree totally with all of your comments and look forward to whatever you produce!

Thank you again, and again for Synfire Pro

you and it are the best!!

Well I don't know.

I would start with streamlining basic things like for example getting a compilation

of all available keyboardshortcuts somehwhere out there and

superbasic stuff like that before I would

think about paying for professional training material. 

For example: Synfire is the only app I know out of

every-computer-program-I-have-ever-used-ever

that has *no* list of keyboardshortcuts nowhere.  

How many years now? Seriously?

Just some are mentioned here and there all over the place.

No offense, but that in itself is pretty ridiculous.

Now probably the usual diehard fanboys will jump in

again and find another excuse for stuff like this but to me

oversights like this are just not accetable. Ever.

This is (supposed to be) a pro-level app @ topdollar price. End of discussion.

(Besides that: Synfire has super bad keyboardshortcut implementation anyways.

Mouse-Miles hooray every day all day. Click and drag galore for hours

until my hand hurts, my ankle *and* my clicky-clickedy-click finger.

Hmmm. Not very "workflow" orientated in my book.

And I can go in Logic, Pro Tools and DP for days without 

having any issues at all. Hmmm. And lets not talk about strong keyboard

and macro-action driven DAWS like Metro, Reaper or especially Renoise or I start crying.    

Now think about that for a minute before

everybody is talking work"FLOW " all day, lol... )

tL.

sorry guys for the tone, had a bad day yesterday.

By the way: why are already all the old videos down,

when there are basically no new ones? 

Especially the ones with key-modulation were

some I always like to refer to from time to time?

The new ones are just showcases in my eyes,

nothing really helpful here.

No doubt, the entire keyboard system needs a full rewrite. This is already in the pipeline. I wish we could move forward faster, but there are literally hundreds of tasks pending and each day has only so many hours. 

If you have suggestions as to what keyboard commands you would like to see that are NOT yet available in a menu, feel free to send an email to support at cognitone dot com. We appreciate your input!

Also, I hope, the new click board should reduce much of the need for using menus for figure editing.

A new website is currently in the making, easier to read and navigate and with a much better search function. That's why the videos are being reorganized. 

The recent videos are indeed showcases targeting new site visitors (successfully, by the way). The coming tutorials will be shorter, focussing on individual tasks only. This will help getting them finished ealier.

Understood. Will take that oportunity for sure.

I'll send you over a screenshot tomorrow, my bet is that

you will see immediatly what I mean. 

Also I agree that the clickboard is a nice additon... Especially for people starting out with SF...

But please do not forget the power users that know where everything can be found

and know a lot of shortcuts already and just need ways to get work done faster. ;)

Thanks,

tL.

I work on my music site and I planned a Synfire section.
I love this software.
Perhaps there will also videos.
This will be in French;-)

Très bonne nouvelle, je suis curieux de voir cela!

looking forward 

p.s: which  French speaking country are you from ?

cheers

Je suis de France, tout simplement ;-)

Hi,

I agree. I just bought Synfire Pro now, and it is a hair raising complexitiy.

Please, kindly push Groove3 to make a tutoriak, like "Synfire Pro Explained"

Best regards,

HeJa

Hungary

Hi,

Thank you. I agree. I just sent a note to Lynda to make a Synfire Course.

Without a good tutorial course, it is impossible to use Synfire Pro (I just bought it a few days ago).

Best regards

HeJa

Hungary

What about some people just screenrecording while composing songs with synfire? this would really help if we had like 10 of these. 

I wish it was that simple. Even in the best and most produtive case, composing a song from scratch takes a few hours. Cutting that down to 10 minutes is an extreme challenge, without leaving huge confusing gaps and introducing sudden jumps to an entirely different song (a song can reshape dramatically within a short time).

But most of all, endless listening to the ever same snippets of music, the jerky, unscripted mouse movement, constant back and forth between tabs and windows, without knowing the intent of the user, is so stressful and confusing that nobody wants to watch it.

For a screencast, smooth scripted content is mandatory. It needs to focus around a feature, topic or interest. Mouse movements must be slow and straight. Repeated playing of the same music is to be avoided (costs tons of time), etc. Some 5 minutes of tutorials can take up to 3 days to make.

However, this is not to say there will be no new videos and tuts. A few new ones have already been published and more are coming soon.

As for arranging a song, what's wrong with "Arranging a Song 1" and 2?

"Arranging a Song 1" and 2" is really cool. I was thinking more it terms like this: 

I would not mind having a 2 hour screencast of a good song. Youtube is capable of very long videos. It can be done by users. 

Well, those sessions are fun to make and watch (3 cams!), but one doesn't really get insight into the software they're using, right?

Génial, enfin je trouve des français ^^

cool

I will probably do a tutorial series on Synfire in the near future, along the lines of what I have done for "How to Make Freeform" and "How to Make Chillout" on YouTube. I end up with about 2 hours worth of recorded material split into smaller digestable bites of about 10 minutes.

My process for this is to first make a track start to finish, without recording. Then, I remake the track while recording and cut out all the fiddling with knobs and guesswork and just crank it out. I agree with Andre though, this loses some of the spontaneity of doing a live podcast, but it cuts down the amount of footage tremendously. Most people won't watch you for five hours to complete something, but two hours is much more reasonable.

The other weakness with my tutorials is that sometimes I don't know every facet of what I am working with. I'm by no means a master of any particular thing, I just feel that I'm good enough to teach others (those who can do, those who can't teach!). So, I want to take my time with Synfire and make sure I understand it well enough before I start any recording.