Examples included in Synfire

Yes, most of them were removed from the installation. We found they were not good and mainstream enough to make sense for a broad audience. Posting examples on this site is probably a better way to distribute examples and explain workflows.

As we are at it, if there's anyone who wants to contribute an original composition or song to be included as an example, let us know. One minute or more is fine.

The creator retains all rights, of course. We merely ask for a permission to publish a copy of the arrangement file for education purposes. Others terms can be negotiated.

A demo song for Synfire naturally requires that you limit yourself to the included instrument plug-ins, i.e. Sprike and Soundcase. That would be a bit of a challenge. But perhaps doable. Any other “ordering instructions”? What kind of music style?

Sprike sounds can be customized to a large extent. It's pretty easy to get nice results. We can add all the sounds used in demos to its preset banks. It's also very light weight. You can use up to 15 instances in a song.

Regarding style, that's a hairy question. I've learned that music makers in general are extremely conservative. The pros even more so than hobbyists. Everything that deviates from the proven mainstream is shunned. Of course "mainstream" means vastly different things for each of the hundreds of genres.

Since orchestral is ruled out, lacking the sounds, we have EDM, R&B, Ambient, Jazz, Pop, etc. It's a challenge to make convincing demos for popular music without vocals. 

Piano is probably most "portable" and appreciated across genres. Maybe piano, bass, keyboard and drums? With careful curation and used sparingly, Factories can generate some nice piano phrases for many genres.

Thanks for the input and encouragement. We will see, what can be done. I'm already doing some tests, and yes, you are right, The Sprike synth is not so bad. Of course it need some sound layering to get a decent rich sound, but it seems to be possible. It's a bit of a pity that the knobs can't be automated. I mean, I've already found out that you can automate them when using Sprike in a DAW but in Synfire it would need to be done via MIDI CC and that does not seem to be possible. It reacts only to Volume and Pan.

But never mind, the sounds you can achieve with it are acceptable. 

Maybe piano, bass, keyboard and drums? 

I think it shouldn't be so minimalistic. And it shouldn't sound cheesy. That's why I would also rule out piano. Simply because I can't come up with that "Yamaha Grand Piano" sound, Soundcase has to offer. I mean, you can write as often as you like that Synfire itself doesn't produce any sounds, but when a new potential customer opens a demo song and hears nothing but squawking, he immediately thinks he's dealing with toy software. So I'll probably first be busy with sound design for a few days before I even start composing. 

we have EDM, R&B, Ambient, Jazz, Pop,

So, it should be a Pop, Trance, Jazz fusion. Love it. Challenges are always welcome :)

Will probably take a week or two. Can't work full time on it.

We already have videos that show how simple things can be (Arranging a Song). 

These videos are fine for songwriters and home producers, but the music and simple track layout happens to turn composers away. They get the impression this tool is not for them. We might have to run separate brands and websites to sidestep that prejudice. Marketing loves single-purpose tools ;-)