Posted
I know that this is a long shot (I seem to have a talent for making long shot feature requests) but this is something that has been on my mind for a long time and I am going to explain why.
It feels like over the past couple of years I've gone though a process of refining the amount of gear I use. I find that it's so much easier to focus and stay in a creative state when there are fewer movements made and applications I have to open. Within the year to come I feel like I'm migrating towards only using NI plugins and/or those that are NKS compatible because it allows to to access and control such a large library in a single interface.
What does that have to do with Synfire?
I'd like to have a similar simplicity when it comes to making music. Yes, the Drones are fantastic, I have no complaints about this feature. However, in line with my efforts to simplify, it would be great not to have to go through the process of creating Drones in my DAW and connecting them to Synfire and operating out of two different systems (ie Synfire and my DAW). I like the idea of just focusing on one thing at a time so as to foster more creativity. Instead of having both Synfire and my DAW open simultaneously, I would like it so that I only have Synfire open when I'm composing so that I can focus only on that and then transfer the project to a DAW when I'm ready to mix so that I'm just focused on that.
Here is my issue:
When I'm working on a composition, I'm going to do a lot of knob twiddling in my plugins. So a preset that starts of sounding one way will sound completely different in the process of composing. Obviously, the changes I make to a preset do not transfer over to the DAW. This is where Bitwig's DAWProject would be very helpful. Not only does it transfer MIDI data. It also transfer the state of VSTs at the time of saving (along with a lot of other information). I'm not as concerned with the MIDI data (or some of the other features) as I am with being able to save the plugin parameters at the time of saving. This would not only be helpful for me, but also if I want to collaborate with someone who does not have Synfire and uses a different DAW than I do.
My response to a couple of possible objections:
Why not just save the state of the plugin as a new preset and reopen that preset in the DAW? Yes, this is cool if my composition only requires a few tracks or if I only make music occasionally. But if I want to make orchestral compositions, for example, this can become a little more time consuming. Also, if you're making a lot of music, the number of presets that I have to navigate through start to pile up with every new composition. And if this is a collaboration process, the number of presets that I and my collaborator(s) have to manage start to pile up as I imagine they will want to my tweaks of their own.
Why not just use Drones? Well, as I mentioned above, for me this is about keeping things as simple and as clean as possible. Reducing the amount of software and hardware I use has helped me to feel more creative than I've ever been. If possible, I'd like to do that with my composition software: one environment for composition only, and another for mixing only. Also, as mentioned in the prior objection, Drones would not be the issue if I were working with a collaborator who does not have Synfire or the same DAW that I have.
This is called DAWProject. Synfire is not a DAW. True, but I think that this format will also work with applications that are DAW-adjacent. Over on the RapidComposer forum, Attila has suggested he is looking into making RapidComposer compatible with the DAWProject format.
Synfire's code will not work with DAWProject. What can I say? I'm not a programmer or coder, so I will have to defer to your expertise and accept Synfire as it is without this feature.
In the end, this is one of those things that is not a deal breaker. It's just one of those features that would be nice to have. And I mean REALLY nice to have.DAWProject is free and open source, so if any Synfire developer wanted to have a crack at it, there's an open invitation. And yes, even if it were possible for this to become a new feature in Synfire, I'm aware that there are many other features that are a priority at the moment. So this would come further down the road. For now, I just want to put this out there just to see what's possible.
Mon, 2024-02-05 - 01:11 Permalink
In the meantime why not use the cc feature in synfire so that when you move the knobs in the synfire hosted instruments, the knob twiddling is stored within the take/figures? It just needs the device descriptions setting up?
Also although I havent tried this since the version 1 days, there used to be a menu option to migrate from synfire hosted instruments to a daw, although this doesnt work if the instrument can only be loaded in one host at a time for licensing or other reason (I had problems with an access virus as the plugin was loaded in the daw's drones before being unloaded from synfire, and there is only 1 physical synth).
Mon, 2024-02-05 - 12:14 Permalink
DAWproject sounds like a promising exchange format. The more DAW eventually support it the better. I have my doubts though that market leaders like Steinberg and Apple will consider it unless it becomes a major factor in the workflow of a large user base.
Since I did a few DAW + Synfire projects recently, I see huge benefit in easy project transfer. Especially if MIDI could be transferred not as one long chunk per track, but rather as individual regions with their colors preserved, etc. And yes, the plug-in states.
Inside Synfire you can transfer plug-in state with copy/paste from the preset menu. No need to actually save a preset to disk.