Posted
Recently we added more tutorials on a range of topics and workflows. There are still a few in the pipeline (Libraries, Factories, Snippets) but the basics should be covered so far. I wonder what topic (or what kind of video) might be missing to help absolute beginners get started.
Questions to Beginners
- Did the tutorials help you get started?
- Which one(s) helped the most?
- How helpful do you think are the song templates? Are you using them?
- Where do you get stuck? What confuses you most?
Questions to Advanced Users
- Did you learn something new from the tutorials?
- Do you remember the most difficult obstacles you were facing during the learning curve?
- Which topics do you want to see addressed in future tutorials? (apart from those already mentioned)
Feedback and suggestions will be much appreciated.
Tue, 2023-10-10 - 11:36 Permalink
I consider myself an "old" beginner. The biggest hurdle for me still is the configuration of the instruments in the stack. I confess I get lost in setting up the description of the instrument and in identifying the best options and in reusing all that meta data...
Tue, 2023-10-10 - 12:04 Permalink
Thanks. Yes, manually setting up device descriptions in advance can be tedious and the device editor on the Sounds page is certainly overwhelming at first. For most popular music however, you rarely need them. You don't even need to visit the rack if you use the Wizard.
Are you using the Wizard often?
Tue, 2023-10-10 - 12:36 Permalink
I find all Cognitone videos helpful....
Whether more videos should follow made by Cognitone that is something they should see for themselves.
Are all videos well divided: setup , operation , application , etc ?
Synfire is complicated software and also in combination with other software makes it even more complicated.
My example which took quite some time ( especially don't rush !), before a working setup could be made with the vienna Ensemble pro server and Synfire.
A video on how containers work in general if this could fill a video ?
Tue, 2023-10-10 - 12:49 Permalink
A video on how containers work in general if this could fill a video ?
Thanks. This is worth considering.
Containers are mentioned and explained to some extent in some videos (the second "Arrange a Song" video with song sections and aliases, for example), but they are not the main topic anywhere. I don't know if their purpose is obvious enough from the examples.
There's a rule in movie making: Show, don't tell. I think it also applies to tutorials. If a thing can be shown in action, it says more than an explanation with a hundred words. Also, if you enumerate all possible ways in which a thing can be used, it is more confusing than helpful. Showing only the 2-3 most common ways and leaving the rest to the user's imagination is probably best.
Tue, 2023-10-10 - 14:57 Permalink
I've been using synfire everyday 1-9 hours a day for the last 30 days. I just purchased PRO yesterday and I am happy with my purchase.
I have got a great feel for the instruments, figured and building libraries. What I do not feel confident in is the use of containers to make my music more complex and fluid, which is why I went to Synfire in the first place.
Often times I'm afraid to use new containers because I don't want to loose what I already have somehow. I guess this is more so due to bugs.
I'd love to see a detailed PRACTICAL video of you using containers in your own projects. The short phrases video you created a while back was a big help for me.
You mentioned there are several ways to use containers, go over each method in details. Split the video into sections
Another thing that could help is a video on rhythms and catalogs.
I make alot of RnB and I spend alot of time still learning how to manipulate rhythms to at least get it in the ballpark.
I also know that sooner or later I'll have to update the catalog to use intervals and chords that are unique to the genre I am working on....I have NO idea where to start.
Thanks.
Tue, 2023-10-10 - 15:36 Permalink
First of all, I would like to thank you for your constant program updates and prompt answers to our questions. Could you prepare a tutorial using synfire pro and DAW? We would like to learn how to best use both together.Thanks.
Tue, 2023-10-10 - 15:45 Permalink
Synfire has 9 episodes. Structure, Overview, Matrix, Progression, Harmonizer, Palette, Snippets, Library and Sounds. It would be great if there was a tutorial for each section that would just show their usage. Thanks.
Tue, 2023-10-10 - 15:54 Permalink
Often times I'm afraid to use new containers because I don't want to loose what I already have somehow.
One of the use cases for containers is experimenting non-destructively. Whatever the container did to your work, once you remove it you're back to the original.
The collective feedback here already motivated me to make a video on Containers. There should be enough use cases to make this worthwhile. To name a few:
- Divide your piece into sections
- Repeat a previous section with an alias
- Introduce changes in the middle of something (development, variation)
- Experiment non-destructively with parameters and figures
- Partially replace something that's running in a parallel container (e.g. an alias)
Another thing that could help is a video on rhythms and catalogs.
A quick tip regarding Rhythm: If you have something that works for a certain phrase, right-click and apply Rhythm to Figure. That will remove the parameter and modify Figure to match it. Otherwise, you'll be lugging around a lot of rhythm parameters and lose track of what you're doing.
The Catalog of Pro is pretty comprehensive already. What you will certainly want to do at some point is design your own Palettes with scales and chords that make sense for your style.
Wed, 2023-10-11 - 08:01 Permalink
I'm really enjoying the tutorials. I watch them all the time for inspiration. It looks like one of my favorite tutorials has been taken down, but it's for Synfire 1 so I can understand why. I started looking at the song templates for the first time over this past weekend and think they are great learning tools. The perfect complement to the video tutorials.
In addition to a tutorial on Snippets (a request I recently made elsewhere on this forum), I'd really like to see a detailed tutorial on using the Factory. Sometimes it's fun to trigger something random. But there are times where I have a vague idea of what kind of output I would like and I'm not always successful in getting what I want. It wold be nice to see a tour of the various functions in the Factory and what kind of output I should expect given which direction I move the slider in. Even if something like this would take two (or three) videos to cover, it would be very helpful.
One of the things that I've found challenging when generating figures is getting something in the correct instrument range. Sometimes I want something in the middle or something a little lower down the instruments range. So I'll select that option on the Segment tab, but it doesn't seem to have any impact on the generated figure. Not sure if this is something that could be demonstrated in a tutorial or if there's some way to "force" Synfire to generate figures within a predetermined range. As I recall, a few months ago there was a thread where it was suggested that Synfire's range feature might be updated/simplified. Not sure if this would address my concerns or even if it's still in the works.
Mon, 2023-10-23 - 21:11 Permalink
A container tutorial is now online. It may still need a few minutes until it's full HD.
Wed, 2023-11-01 - 08:31 Permalink
Thanks
How about a very detailed tutorial video for each and every single parameter. And real life examples for each as well.
Mon, 2023-11-06 - 00:45 Permalink
Questions to Beginners
- Did the tutorials help you get started?
- Which one(s) helped the most?
- All tutorials are useful, as it is a complicated piece of software
- How helpful do you think are the song templates? Are you using them?
- never use them, as I know already enough. But when I started I liked examples to see what is possible,
- Where do you get stuck? What confuses you most?
Questions to Advanced Users
- Did you learn something new from the tutorials?
- Sure, there is sometimes something special and new for me. I watch them all.
- Do you remember the most difficult obstacles you were facing during the learning curve?
- How to use the GUI - since I started - sometimes GUI can drive one crazy - but it is not a question of tutorials, more about the GUI itself. Let me say more about this in a different thread.
- Which topics do you want to see addressed in future tutorials? (apart from those already mentioned)
- Keeping settings of sounds/instruments to be reused again. E.g. is there a way to load a full rack into a project?
- The factory, as it has so many settings and I simply get more trash out of it than useful things, as I don't see which knob has which impact
- Understanding the harmony interpreter better when imporing / analyze midi.
- The special settings in all the properties like "Figure" etc - what do they do and having which effect?
At all I appreciate the tutorials. But IMHO you make it too complicated with the artificial voice you talk with. I would prefer, if you just talk with your voice and explain it directly. Don't overengineer it and your voice makes it more personal.