Synfire and Pro Tools as a DAW

It's been a while since I last used Pro Tools, so I might not be up to date. Here's what I remember off the top of my head right now:

As the name implies (and the facts support it), Pro Tools is renowned in the commercial music production business. I don't know the latest status, but for many years it was coupled with dedicated DSP and A/D hardware. Digidesign changed their policy rather often, so you should first check if you can run Pro Tools 8 without Digidesign or M-Audio hardware now.

Coming from Reason/Record, the step to Pro Tools is huge. Propellerheads software is kept simple by design. Pro Tools offers everything you can imagine. I would recommend you install their demo and see for yourself if you feel comfortable with the user interface.

Native Instruments plug-ins had issues with PT8 (64 bit), but these seem to be fixed now. If you want to run NI software instruments, you should test that with the demo too.

If you are heading for professional audio production, PT8 is certainly a good choice. For just hosting sound racks for Synfire, it may be oversized.

BTW: If I remember correctly, the Pro Tools trial/demo requires an iLok dongle. That is, you can use the same iLok you already have for Synfire (or vice versa).

John,

in my opinion Pro Tools is great for audio production, recording, mixing and postproduction. Although I think it's less suitable for instrument hosting and MIDI:

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro_Tools)

"The creation of Pro Tools 8 has now seen the addition of a MIDI edit window which enables the user to manipulate MIDI data in either piano-roll or score windows."

This means they haven't had MIDI editing prior to version 8.

Pro Tools also requires a proprietary plugin technology (RTAS) while most plugin developers provide implementations for the open standards VST and AU.

Christian

Hi,

I have moved all of my work to Synfire and Pro-Tools 10 (but cannot get them to integrate yet) for a couple of issues:

1) When launching Ableton with Reason - the whole machine crashes.

2) When slaving Reason to Ableton the machine crashes

3) When slaving Ableton and Reason to Pro-Tools, everything works. 

4) Synfire works in Ableton but does not show up in Pro-Tools 10 (I updated from 8 to 9 to 10)

5) Things work with Ableton as a Rewire Slave to Pro-Tools and Synfire can be used in that context

Now, my main problem is that I am not seeing Synfire come up as a drone in Pro-Tools 10.

I am not sure why that is --- currently, I can use it within Ableton and slaved to Pro-Tools but I would like to be able to have Pro-Tools slave to Synfire or vice-versa.  

I have used Pro-Tools for about 20 years and it is *the* standard for studio work in film and music (after you have used other perhaps more *creative* tool workflows, such as Ableton's scenes or Reason's nice instrument racks) --- Pro-Tools can't really be beaten on professional mastering, mixing and finishing quality and all that, especially if you are running on their hardware systems (I owned a huge system of 32 racks as a *physical* machine system that had its own machine room to keep the racks running cool ...)

So I think that Synfire interoperability with Pro-Tools is of importance to Synfire and I would go so far as to suggest that you connect with AVID and let them know what you are doing so that you can get access to whatever other technical integration pointers that could help embed Synfire within that environment --- I am sure a lot of composers would find it useful.

Consider this:  I can switch from MIDI to musical notation in Pro-Tools and do editing on sheet scores - cannot do that in many other systems, and, the thing never crashes ... it manages all audio hardware and it manages all the dirty work of a lot of housekeeping in a very elegant way.

In any case, I have been progressing very, very well with Synfire, written a composition and now am focusing on a rebuild of my environment so that Synfire is not just an *add-on* but an *integral* and central creative space within my hardware/software ecosystem with Pro-Tools.

I will continue using Ableton Live and other tools with Synfire, but I suspect that I will use them less and less as it is easy to replace the "scene" concept of Ableton with a marginally more complex notion of "figure" in Synfire.

I will look into the Pro-Tools 10 issue to try to see why the Cognitone drone is not showing up.

More news soon.

Thanks!

Now, my main problem is that I am not seeing Synfire come up as a drone in Pro-Tools 10.

"As you mentioned ProTools, it should be noted that at this time you will not be able to use Synfire's audio drones unfortunately. Avid's legal terms do not allow us to ship a product like this (no RTAS drone). Either you find an alternative way to get the VST or AU drones into ProTools, or you will need to use another DAW for prototyping and composition.

Or you just use the conventional MIDI-based setup, but I would not recommend it. I strongly recommend using our Engine for prototyping. It's way easier and more flexible than a DAW for this particular purpose"

So I think that Synfire interoperability with Pro-Tools is of importance to Synfire and I would go so far as to suggest that you connect with AVID and let them know what you are doing so that you can get access to whatever other technical integration pointers that could help embed Synfire within that environment --- I am sure a lot of composers would find it useful.

Absolutely agree with you. We already got RTAS drones working with ProTools, but can not ship them due to legal restrictions. MIDI-only RTAS drones would be allowed, but RTAS plugins do not support MIDI output (at least ProTools does not seem to process it). 

I will check again if I possibly misunderstood their terms, or whether they really apply to Synfire Pro. Don't hold your breath, though. Cognitone is not in the position to influence Avid's strategic decisions.

Just for curiosity: is/sounds, generally spoken, RTAS better than VST, or is it just more expensive because of the market position?

RTAS is comparable to VST and AU. It has the same function. Most effects and instrument plugins on the market come in all three flavors anyway. Making RTAS plugins is free of charge, but certain types of functions are not allowed. The outcome is that our DAW Drones are to powerful for what Avid deems appropriate for their platform.

I will look into this myself.

The AVID Audio Workflow Solutions program is the one that might also fit the Cognitone model on first glance so it will require the correct approach tp AVID.  I am willing to help in any way that I can.  

If and only if Cognitone creates a virtual instrument, such as a synth, then you can publish this into RTAS for Pro-Tools without issue and you can have the synth be "intelligent" in that it packages all the cognitone capabilities.  You might find it useful to consider bundling Synful (and the developer there may find Synfire a good synergy) for Pro-Tools bundling but that's a bit more complicated (though a lot of smaller companies in high tech do work to create integrated solutions in other commercial markets).

Of course, the easiest fastest workaround is to do what the following major manufacturers did (manufacturers such as Solid State Logic, Focusrite, Lexicon and tc electronic) which is to make sure that their stuff ran in the fxpansion wrapper:

(http://www.fxpansion.com/index.php?page=15) 

There are other approaches also in order to be successful that could be discussed offline.

In any case, having read the basics of how AVID business development works, I don think it will be hard to get in there though some work is needed and I'm happy to help :)

Cheers

I would suggest keeping SFP neutral.  Yes, Protools is the 'commercially accepted standard', but there are a lot more people using Cubase, Logic, Cakewalk.  My early experiences with Protools was good, until they kept forcing me to spend more $$$ or get dropped from the loop. 

Apple adopted a similar approach when they bought Logic from Emagic and teamed up with Apogee, but they made their software more independ and able to use most 3rd party hardware at different price points. Other companies started the same, then Pro-tools made it possible to use cheaper hardware...

But if you get too dependent on 3rd party harware/software companies, you'll be forever playing catchup with each company.  I't already bad enough, Logic can't use VSTs, or AU with a midi out etc. different VST, RTAS, each having some variable's etc.

I think your focus should be on making a more comphrensive manual, and videos explaining aspects of SFP.  Looking over the posts I see various people posting a lot, and then more or less disappearing..  I wonder are they now Synfire Pro Guru's and too busy in their own world, or have they given up and moved to a more direct piece of software.

I do LOVE Synfire Pro, but am spending an INordinate amount of time trying to figure it out. You do need to build a stronger learning foundation to the program.  I know it is an extremely complex piece of software, and when I first approach it, I wonder why you wrote the software they way you did.  I'm not giving up on it.   I have invested hundreds' perhaps thousand of hours investing in learning all of Yamaha Tyros and Logic Pro secrets and other software over the years. .

Part of your problem is the size of your company, there is just not enough time in the day to take care of all the issues, that need to be dealt with.  Personally I'd love to see more feedback from user's, hear their projects,and their explanation of their process. Even if people posted their .cognac files, so other's could load them in and learn from them. 

With SFP like Logic, Photoshop, and a bunch of other programs, there can be more than a few ways to approach a musical situation. There are obviously a few very knowledgable SFP owners here.  From their posts, I can tell they are quite versed in some sections of the program.  I myself spent tons of hour answering Logic Pro problems, on forums, until Logic dropped the price and the amount of questions, and the Intelligence quality of questions hit bottom.  I cannot afford to spend a couple of hours a day reading and answering posts anymore.  

I'm sure there are quite a few of users like that. They are too busy working on music to answer questions. It is not an easy situation to address. 

@galaxiesmerge:

I much appreciate your thoughts and suggestions. Thanks for taking the time. The fxpansion wrapper seems to be a viable way to get the drones running now. At least as a temporary workaround. Did you manage to load a drone into the wrapper? Anyways, I'll get back at you soon regarding your other posts and emails you sent me.

@markstyles:

I think your focus should be on making a more comphrensive manual, and videos explaining aspects of SFP.

Absolutely. This is a top priority now. We need to get a few basic videos ready before the new version 1.5 is officially announced.

Part of your problem is the size of your company, there is just not enough time in the day to take care of all the issues, that need to be dealt with.

That's true. Currently. It's a hen-and-egg problem. In order to hire people, we need more money. In order to get more money, we need more people to speed everything up ;-) I am still confident that the speed of our evolution will significantly increase soon. It's a matter of a certain critical mass. Once we get past this threshold, things will be moving faster.

I'm sure there are quite a few of users like that. They are too busy working on music to answer questions. 

As you can tell from the "online users" list on the entry page, only a very small percentage of Synfire Pro users are visiting this site currently. This is nothing I worry about. We haven't sent out a newsletter, press release, or done any other marketing activity for more than two years (actually we never did any marketing yet). This was deliberately postponed until the software got audio support and grew more mature. Hence still the "Early Bird".

You will see much more activity and participation here once we begin telling everyone about it.

The party has not yet begun.

I do LOVE Synfire Pro, but am spending an INordinate amount of time trying to figure it out. You do need to build a stronger learning foundation to the program.  I know it is an extremely complex piece of software, and when I first approach it, I wonder why you wrote the software they way you did.  I'm not giving up on it.

Yes i love the software too, although still as a demo version. It is a tough challence to try to master Synfire Pro and it seems to be a trial and errror exercise ( a really bad study strategy to follow) . Better study efficiency is when all is good documented.

Cognitone must come up with the container basics video and a song where all containertypes are represented as a bais for the user to start with SFP

I don't  agree with you, that this is a extremely piece of software..it is only that the new user are not guided by learning the basics of the program.
Realize that you can learn everything if there is good studymaterial

The first step to master is to work with all the containertypes in the arrangement : there are standalone , inherited and snapshotcontainers as primaire containers to work with, but there is more..the alias container
     
The instrumentphrases in all of these three primaire containers  are connected with  the rootcontainer content

Interesting question is : suppose i do work only with a snapcontainer for a arrangment ..how far do i come with making an arrangement..this also a interesting workflow
A snapshotcontainer works only with a rootcontainer instrument and adding more instruments you have to use a standalone container.
I have to figure out more and hope that the demo is updated soon and get clear how i can extract a single snapshotinstrument out of the rootcontainer ( it is a tricky affair , see post https://users.cognitone.com/content/how-do-i-get-snapshot-one-instrument-rootcontainer )

The first step to master is to work with all the containertypes in the arrangement : there are standalone , inherited and snapshotcontainers as primaire containers to work with, but there is more..the alias container

I think that is not the right view on the containers. Actually there are no different containertypes (except the rootcontainer that differs from the other containers insofar that it can’t be moved or divided). You are absolutely free to mix snapshotted parameters and inherited parameters in one container and I think that’s one of the main cool features of Synfire since that gives you the flexibility to do amazing things. You should make your mind free of the thinking that a container has a specific predefined task. It has the task you give it. For example you can just store a harmony vector into a container and call it “harmony container”. Then move around with this “harmony container” in the arrangement window and listen to how the music is modified through this harmony vector at different places on the arrangement. The same way you can create a “rhythm container” or a “transpose container” or a mix of all that.

I admit that this all can be confusing at the beginning. But I promise you that once you have understood this concept you will appreciate it and realize that is not complicated at all. I agree that the user manual maybe is a little too basic. But I think the features of the software are not so easy to describe in detail.  Probably they are easier to use than to describe.

The instrumentphrases in all of these three primaire containers  are connected with  the rootcontainer content

The rootcontainer – I mean the first container when you open a new arrangement – is the only one that you can’t move or divide. Therefore it is more inflexible than the other containers and I usually don’t use it for storing phrases. The first thing that I do when I start a new project is to create a new container and start my work from that container. This way I will be able to move this container later. That’ just a suggestion, of course you can use a different workflow.   

I think that is not the right view on the containers. Actually there are no different containertypes (except the rootcontainer that differs from the other containers insofar that it can’t be moved or divided). You are absolutely free to mix snapshotted parameters and inherited parameters in one container and I think that’s one of the main cool features of Synfire since that gives you the flexibility to do amazing things. You should make your mind free of the thinking that a container has a specific predefined task. It has the task you give it.

Yes that is the type of parameters a container can be filled, but in the arrangement i must give the container a function: what nusical to do with 

The rootcontainer – I mean the first container when you open a new arrangement – is the only one that you can’t move or divide. Therefore it is more inflexible than the other containers and I usually don’t use it for storing phrases. The first thing that I do when I start a new project is to create a new container and start my work from that container. This way I will be able to move this container later. That’ just a suggestion, of course you can use a different workflow.

Ok i understand that your workflow start with a empty rootcontainer?
All examples in SFP shows a rootcontainer filled with instrument phrases and some arrangements use these rootcontainers to build up their arrangement.

Suppose you use a midifile as basis for your arrangment by a  import , than you pull out the instrumentphrases by hand from the rootcontainer and get seperate instrumentphrases ?
( it seems to also handy if SFP can do this for me )

The idea is from this workflow that all instrumentphrases can be moved freely..on this way it looks on a traditional DAW 
( than has every instrument his own container lane and than there are no containers with different instruments on a same lane like it is when you work with a rootcontainer filled with instruments )

Well than for arranging there are 2 main workflows ..working with a filled instrument rootcontainer or not.
You can look at a container on different ways than: what is his content ( inherated or snapshotted parameters= type of parameter or combined ) and how is it used in the arrangement : as a harmony container, a instrument container, etc

I admit that this all can be confusing at the beginning. But I promise you that once you have understood this concept you will appreciate it and realize that is not complicated at all. I agree that the user manual maybe is a little too basic. But I think the features of the software are not so easy to describe in detail.  Probably they are easier to use than to describe.

Yes all arrangement examples from SFP are based on a rootcontainer filled with instruments ..or not?
( Perhaps can this be automated in SFP that the instruments are pulled out of the rootcontainer ?) for this type of setting up a arrangement

It seems that for instance that the Chanel no 5 arrangement demo shows inherited instruments in the rootcontainer from container s on top of it 
Yes it is confusing..so first i must see a example with a rootcontainer filled with instruments and see the same arrangement with no instruments in it and the instruments placed in separate containers

Juuku has a very good understanding of the Synfire paradigm. Leaving the root container empty is a good idea. You can put all volume, pan and similar global parameters in the root container. Andre should create more examples with an empty root container.

Perhaps can this be automated in SFP that the instruments are pulled out of the rootcontainer

Synfire can do that: Copy the root container and paste it into itself. Then delete all phrases from the root container (select each instrument and "Clear").

Hey, let's continue this discussion at the "Workflow and Music" section of the forum. I will post a response at your remarks from yesterday at the "How do I get a snapshot.."-thread.

Yes, thanks this is leading to useful information ( for me )

@Juuku  says

I agree that the user manual maybe is a little too basic.

Well i am sure that the usermanual lacking vital examples of how it works all in SFP :teach: :-?
I know that Cognitone did their outmost best to give the right information, but it seems to not be enough for me.

yes i got the same idea from it !, because the topic is not related with this thread  Synfire and Pro Tools as a DAW