Posted
I have been astounded by how Andre has with his keen mind, clear insight, musicology knowledge and unmatched programming skills to be able to conceive of and create the best ever compositional tool by deconstructing composition into it's constituent canonical parts. Having solved many of the issues in this domain, he has now turned his attention to the accompanying "hell world" of instrument selection. And again he has come up with an elegant solution in this area.
I just feel that if you could add another tab to instrument categories that allows use of meta categories instead of general midi instrument categories would be even more powerful and straight forward for users.
For example meta categories such as:
Synth
Keys
Pad
Percussion
Bass
Strings
FX
Lead
Sampler
Pluck
Chord
etc
I understand that the midi categories are used to amongst other things automatically apply playing ranges etc.
I also understand that most synth plugins can do any of these instrument categories, i just allways find myself struggling to choose one of the general midi "patches" that is mandated when adding new instruments.
I know that you can name the instrument after creating it.
Fri, 2011-11-25 - 09:34 Permalink
Wow, thanks so much for the beautiful flowers :-D
Instrument categorization was initially modelled after the GM categories, but only roughly and it is by no means limited to that. I vaguely remember another more academical instrument taxomony that I also consulted back then.
While traditional and physical instruments are easily categorized, doing this with synths and electronics is a totally different story. IMO, Native Instruments have done a good job with their KORE system, which, to my knowledge, is no longer available. Their system was not hierarchical. It combined multiple attributes.
The Synfire instrument categories are not supposed to be a scientific taxonomy. It makes not much sense to overdo this feature. They only need to serve two purposes:
- Help the user to find sounds
- Help Synfire to render music (default pitch range, polyphony, role, preview phrase, interpretation, etc)
The KORE system was only used for 1, btw.
I just allways find myself struggling to choose one of the general midi "patches" that is mandated when adding new instruments.
There are a couple "Synth" categories next to the traditional instruments: Synth Bass, Synth Strings, Synth Brass) for electronic sounds that resemble these instruments or typically take that specific role in an arrangement.
For purely electronic sounds, just use Synth and its subcategories and you're done. These sounds rarely have any pitch limitations and in this case the categorization is just for you to find them. As you certainly won't add all the thousands of electronic sounds you might have to Synfire anyway, why bother with categorizing them?
Anyways, I agree the category tree could be revised and refined.
Fri, 2011-11-25 - 11:21 Permalink
Let's not beat around the bush here, there's no other software that can touch SFP. It's not only best of breed it's in a class of it's own.
After you are done with the mundane housekeeping stuff i am waiting with baited breath to see where you take it.
I noticed how you are using AI techniques for the MIDI import. These type of techniques applied to other functions would be very interesting indeed. Sort of like it becomes a super intelligent helper.
In one of yours posts a long time ago you said something along the lines of SFP is a serious tool for professionals at a serious price and had to defend your vision against the naysayers clamouring about adding audio tracks or something. You have even done that now with the audio engine and DAW integration. Makes MIDI, audio routing and rewire look so last century.
In that post you maybe came across as a little elitist but obviously it helps to understand the concepts involved when using the software. What struck me was even if a user understood nothing about composition but could afford SFP that it would be a great way to learn it.