Posted
The reason I'm asking is I have a couple libraries like LA Scoring strings that has advanced legato and glissando control among lots of other things like aleatoric effects or how tight Spicato and Staccato timing is, with a ton of CC parameters to control the effects you want to achieve, so even though it's still the same patch located on the same channel, the CC settings can make them sound completely different.
So I had the idea that it would be cool to be able to add the same sound on the same MIDI channel with different names and set each to different CC defaults for setting up things like Legato and Glissando speeds.
It can take a while to setup and get it "just right" for a given tempo or feel so it'd be nice if it was possible.
Tue, 2013-05-07 - 08:23 Permalink
Why not? In a fixed MIDI setup with Synfire, you only need to worry that you have selected the correct instrument (the one that Synfire is expecting) for that port and channel in your DAW or free standing VSTi. If you want to place 16 grand pianos on all the channels in a single MIDI port, Synfire doesn't care. Synfire only needs to know that that device is playing a piano on Channel 1, for example.
The only 'downside' I see is that you tie up a lot of channels to achieve what you normally could do more effectively on a single MIDI track within your DAW with articulation key swithching or CC automation.
Prado
Tue, 2013-05-07 - 09:01 Permalink
Oh I see now, I can still pick a channel that's already used when adding a new sound, duh :oops:
I thought I couldn't do that, since on the left in the Device Description editor there's a list of channels that says "freely available channels" and the ones already used are unchecked, so I thought that meant they could not be used.
To be clear, what I want to do is add say 4 copies of say LA Scoring strings Cellos all on channel 1, but each one has different custom CC to set them up for fast legato lines, slow and medium glissando etc.. and then give each a name like "LASS Cellos - Fast Legato", "LASS Cellos - Slow Legato" etc.. they are all the same channel but the CCs sets them up differently.
Tue, 2013-05-07 - 09:13 Permalink
Look into "Articulations" for sound switches triggered by key switches or CC commands. If I understand correctly, that sounds like what you are looking for. You would need a single sound only and address different variants with articulations (the latter are assigned to Figure segments in the Phrase Editor).
Tue, 2013-05-07 - 09:34 Permalink
They are not articulations per se, the instruments already have articulations for keyswitches (Saves me so much headache trying to remember them all)
It's more that libraries like LA Scoring Strings or SampleModelling brass stuff has so many CC parameters apart from just articulations like Legato, Sordino, Spiccato, Staccatos etc..
For example the Legato patches has a speed parameter for both legato and glissandos which are not articulations but a way of controlling how fast Legato transitions are, so for a slow tempo piece you'd set them up to play so one key can slide into the next without overlapping or being to slow, but it takes a long time to tweak for various tempos to be perfect.
Or the Short articulations like Staccato or Spiccatos has tigthtness parameters controlling how sloppy you want them to play, for very fast lines you can speed up both the main samples but also the release samples.
So what I wanted to do is add the same sound on the same channel several times, but the CC defaults for each sound is different, setting them up for different tempos and playing styles.
Nice to meet you Andre, I'm am totally in love with Synfire :admire:
Wed, 2013-05-08 - 11:11 Permalink
Custom CCs can do that. Just enable the "Reset" option for the desired CC. This will send its default value every time the sound is selected.
You can define Custom CCs at the device, sound and instrument level:
- Device level: valid for all sounds in the device
- Sound level: valid for all instruments that use it
- Instrument level: valid only for that particular instrument in yor arrangement.
The instrument level may be what you need.