Posted
Dear Andre, dear supertonic, hi list
As far as I can remember, Andre mentioned quite a time ago in his blog or somewhere, that he would like to know how users use Synfire (SF). Markstyles too. And I'm curios myself, how others do with SF. So here my workflow report.
Maybe, I'm a little bit exotic Synfire user: I'm a family man, beatboxing, impro-singing, singing in a choir. The result of my working with Synfire (SF) is a score. I have no DAW. I'm on a MacBook, so dont know if my workflow would work on Windows. Apologize for beeing ignorant about in this post. My monitor has a resolution of 1280 x 800 -- no paradise. So to everyone who wanna use Synfire: Buy a biiig Monitor! It's worthy to do that. I'm located in a lovely part of Switzerland, what explains my English ;-).
Grabbing ideas with Synfire
Two things I mainly do in SF: Grabbing ideas and troubleshooting. To generate Ideas, I use Common Music (http://commonmusic.sourceforge.net) -- a scheme-based text-editor/programm-tool (freeware) that allows me to generate tons of rough notes. If you want to make Common Music to sound or write midi, you have to have a midi-device like SimpleSynth (freeware). (http://notahat.com/simplesynth/) Here an example of Common Music code:[code](sprout
(process repeat 5
do
(send "mp:midi" :key (between 55 89))
(wait 0.25)))[/code]
a second one:[code](sprout
(loop repeat 55 collect (stuff))
(loop for x = 0 then
(+ x 16)
repeat 99
collect x)
"1729 stuff.mid")[/code]
This second example dosn't make any sound, because I snipped away my definition of "stuff". "1729" is a time-stamp, so I needn't to think about file-naming whem I'm working-in-progress ;-).
But look at the "(+ x 16)" near the bottom. This a bunch of notes every 16 seconds, what means a multiple of 4. And this is interesting for the midi-import to Synfire, because it is the value for cutting your phrases automatically in SF btw: the "repeat" must be >= the "collect" value. Working in Common Music, my focus aims in overall gesture and rhythm, fine-tuning pitches and chords can be done much better in SF. Actually, I try to translate the equations of (http://code.google.com/p/flam3/wiki/Variations) (flam3 is a freeware to generate amazing "smoky" pictures) into common music exploring to find how to set parameters(!) that makes nice music. Have a look at [color=aqua] test.coglib [/color]
On my 2.1-GHz-Macbook, a total of about 1000 notes is fine for me to import. Done in a few minutes. [color=aqua]Some feature requests:
- approx. rest import duration indicator
- importing selecting bars (even maybe "strange" things like [3 - 15, begin - 8, 6, 6, 23 - end] at the same [/color]-- great for recycling stuff!)
Because librarys need very long time to save, I use tons of little libraries at once instead of one big one. At home, where I have a bigger monitor, I have one or two main libraries and some randomly choosen libraries open when I'm working with SF. And: when I import "thick" material so that it goes polyphonic, i never use the default GM-piano. Cause on my mac, this guy generates sustain-values I don't want. Instead, I use marimba or vibraphone.
Building Progressions with Horizontal Scales and Helper Chords
For me, Building Progressions is the real challenge and focus using SF. Beforehand i've defined in the catalog some horizontal scales (the messiaen-scales of course and some of my owns) and according chords and things like quart-chords, clusters and so on. I gave them short names so I have not to type too much, for example, Cf2 means Csus4(2,b3,#5). I seldom use the palette, cause it needs a lot of monitor-space. But I often have the keyboard open to see of which pitches my chord is build. BTW: dunno what your copy of SF recognizes opening stuff with chords you havent that way like the "test.coglib". I'm wondering ;-)
One special, and very practical, sort of chords i've build is -- just intervals: x1 means just a minor second (Cx1 = c, c#), x2 a major second and so on. (@Andre: the minor third causes an error, i've hopely sent you a error-report -- SF 1.2.1 Build #12). I called this chords my helper chords: I use them in the beginning of building a progression, cause these chords allows to choose e wide palette of horizontal scales! So I choose my scale and after this I can replace my helper chord by a "full" one according to my scale. See pict. [color=aqua] Cx8.png [/color]
After building my progression, I make a little test-arrangement with stuff from my libraries, just one container between 4m-32m, setting different phrase-length to each instrument, not according to harmonics-length. So every round would produce self-similar, different melodies, my test file come polyrhythmical and yess, I love this little arrow to do that![color=aqua] arrow.png[/color] Then I import the resulting midi-file to Sibelius (notation-software, not free (http://www.sibelius.com/home/index_flash.html)) and save interesting parts of it to the Sibelius-Library for perhaps using it one day.[color=aqua] 1453.png [/color]
Troubleshooting Compositions
As mentioned in the beginnig, I think singing and beatboxing, so i mostly know by myself what I want to compose. And because my composings often have text, text guides me quite well.
But sometimes, things can go very dodgy: In "Bitte", a composition I've written this spring, I had much trouble in a part that mentions the pigeon, that brings a olive branch to Noah -- I don't like pigeons, they poop up whole cities. So I had some difficulties to find a lovely tune for this nice biblic birdie. So I went one step forward to step back between Synfire and Sibelius, trying out this and that progression, cutting out snippets and well, after a few hours of work, I got it. For working in Sibelius, I made by hand a brain-map of a good progression I've worked out in Synfire (http://www.mindnode.com/) (freeware: makes very beautyful brain-maps) -- so I always could see the cloud of pitches I'm in. Finally, I re-imported the final result in SF, and using "Variations", it was easy for me to create piano snippets for a further part of the piece. BTW: "Transposing" and "Variations" are one of my best friends in Synfire.
Sometimes, I duplicate two or three times one Instrument of an imported midi, make different variation-settings and export back to midi. @ Andre -- One wish I have concerning that part: [color=aqua] phrases of monophonic instruments should remain monophonic. [/color] But it´s not so bad -- I easily can wipe out superfluous notes in Sibelius.
The other effect of Synfire is (a main effect, in my opinion), that the artificial intelligence of this software "smooths out" a compostion. This can be boring, but often it is very helpful. So, somtimes I just import parts of a composition to smooth out, of course not without testing it with other chords as imported. ;-) Or I import a part as static brown pitches with harmony, "blueing" or "violetting" the ones i want to smooth.
So all in all, Synfire enlarges my composing skills, allows to use more complex harmonics as i would do just in my head. And along the way, I'm learning much about these harmonics: a very inspiring piece of software!
I've attached my composition that I'm referring in this post. If you want to perform it (I would like that ;-) ), please contact me.
Mon, 2011-05-30 - 18:03 Permalink
Dear Minkepatt;
THANK you for the very informative post.. This gave me a lot of insight. I love the phrases in your coglib. A very profressional score also. I've downloaded the free mindnode application also. I often generate just a simple text file as I work on a song for notes/ideas/etc. it is somewhat abstract, and varied depending on what I'm doing. Mindnode might come in helpful.
Thanx for pointing out SF's 'smoothing out feature'. I have rencently come to that situation. And was 'blindly' trying to smooth out melodies - with mixed results.
I too have notes issues sometimes with the internal GM piano instrument. A sustain/off feature might be nice. I also occassionally get hanging notes both with GM instrument and external synths.
Could you explain a bit about your 'helper chords'? These are used so that you can get the melody to go where you want? This is still uncharted territory for me. I've noticed that ocassionally I couldn't move a melody note to desired location. But I haven't ventured into creating a more complex or perhaps temoporary chord progression.
I use an arranger keyboard Yamaha Tyros 4. It will generate parts according to the chords you play in left hand, or a 'chord detect' track you send from a sequencer (Logic Pro). I have been experimenting with making slight alterations to the chord detect track to influence what a particular instrument will play. Sometimes I overdub the instrument parts (piano, bass, horn, guitar, etc) one at a time to create something more complex than what would happend when all instruments referenced the same chord. I intend to incorporate this same technique into SF.
Common music sounds interesting. I would be interested in something that would generate interesting, varied solo lines, that 'go outside the box a bit'. I sometimes use the melody and solo generator in Band In a Box for melodies/solos, and import them into Logic/ I shall also import them into SF. But they tend to be a bit similar, once you have had it a while. (same algorythm with not enough varied parameters.
I like your piece, outside of the realm of what I do, but it shows, thought and balance. THANX again for sharing.
Mark
Mon, 2011-05-30 - 20:10 Permalink
Hi Michael,
thank you for taking the time to write down this post and share your workflow with us. I like the idea of your "helper chords". Starting out with just two-voice intervals defined as chords is an ineresting approach.
setting different phrase-length to each instrument
That's a very handy method for creating variation, ranging from subtle self-similarity (as you call it) to extreme polyrhythm. I have used this technique to enrich minimal dance music, e.g. with an irregular bass line and odd sequencer loop on top. One could do this with conventional sequencers as well, but then harmony would get corrupted.
Or I import a part as static brown pitches with harmony, "blueing" or "violetting" the ones i want to smooth.
Cool technique! Never thought about using Synfire this way.
And because my composings often have text, text guides me quite well.
Music that has something to say is always more consistent and convincing. Working with improvised blind text instead of hiring a decent lyricist was a major mistake back I made in the 1990's when I was actively producing a lot of music.
phrases of monophonic instruments should remain monophonic.
Erm, doesn't it work this way already? Check out the Monophonic switch of the Interpretation parameter. Although it will not modify your phrases, just the generated output.
Tue, 2011-05-31 - 09:53 Permalink
Hi Mark
Let me explain the Helper-Chords-Workflow with an example. To use this sort of chors, I have first to define them in the catalog, just pure intervalls, that I named x. So x1 means a little second, x2 a big one end so on. x5 means a perfect quart - Cx5 is this quart over C -> c f. Of course, c f ist synonym to f c. (pict 1). For this example, I stay in C, choosing the horizontal scale Fmajor (pict 2). Now I can look into my addings for a C-chord in F-Major to replace my Cx5-Helper by a "real" one (pict 3). I decide to take a Cmi7, (pict 4) a chord that I definited by myself before in the catalog, and named it mi7. It meens "imagine a minor triad above the fifth" - which is G in C. c g bb d, no f at all. But, hey, Im still in F-major!
enjoy!
Michael aka Minkepatt
