Posted
Having the ability to color chord progressions, would help a lot in ascertaining what your song is doing.
Please also make a MUCH LARGER COLOR PALETTE. The use of color only enhancs the ability to discern patterns and flow. Sight is the most developed sense, it has more connections to brain than any other sense.
From years with Logic, I rely on coloring to process different objects, chords, regions, even velocity of notes. It makes it much easier to comprehend on what is going on in a piece
Sun, 2012-08-26 - 22:16 Permalink
Coloring the chords manually would be very confusing, because the colors already have an important meaning.
You are probably thinking about coloring containers that include a progression?
Mon, 2012-08-27 - 01:31 Permalink
Looking at 130 measure of chord blocks in an arrangement, is not very intuitive. You need to have a calculator handy figure where to put the next repeating chorus. I have little use for chord colors in pallette, as i'm sure some others here do also.
I'd like for the user to have the means to use colors as he sees fit. You could still leave the chord pallettes alone. Not everyone processes vision the same as others. I've come to realize what a good eye I have, for visual detail, memory. I've bumped into people 40 years later in another town, and could visually process them from childhood and recognize them. I can rapididly descern a repeating color scheme in something, far more easy and fast than relying on my ears. In fact, you don't even have to take the time to listen to it. SFP is a great piece of software, but it needs to become more usuable, and logical for people to make assumptions about. It might be beneficial to understand that different users are going to use it THEIR way, not the programmers intended vision. That's why Photoshop, and most of the DAWs are so popular, each person can configure it to run the way that is logical for them.
I suppose I could create colored containers representing the different chord progressions as a work around. As it is, SFP is not an INTUITIVE program at all. Most people these days, (musicians included) are ADD. ANYTHING Cognitone can do to make program more intuitive is imperatve. That's what I love about Apple, most of their products can be figured out just by playing with them.
Mon, 2012-08-27 - 11:15 Permalink
Coloring chords only to make sections visible is backwards. Coloring selected spans on the timeline would be more appropriate. Although, that's what containers are for.
I absolutely agree with your general thoughts, but ...
Looking at 130 measure of chord blocks in an arrangement, is not very intuitive.
... there should not be no such lengthy progressions in an arrangement at all. Progressions have a verse "scheme" for a reason: They are used per section.
Synfire has plenty means for structuring a song (phrases, containers). It is not a linear MIDI file editor. It is designed for composition, that is, building a song from components that can be changed and replaced (the latter being the actual purpose). My mother is reluctant to using paragraph styles in a word processor. She uses it like a typewriter. Of course this seems intuitive in the beginning. However, as a document grows, she complains how tedious it is to reformat pages.
Your preferred workflow is going back and forth between Logic and Synfire via MIDI file export and import. This flattens your song structure out like a "tape machine" every time. With every import, you are throwing away 80% of the features of Synfire. You are actually starting from scratch again and again, going through the hassle of assigning sounds, etc.
Try to take advantage of Synfire's original features. It is worth the one-time effort of getting used to it! If you can find a workflow that keeps your project mainly in Synfire, you will win a huge deal of productivity and fun.