Posted
I imagine most of the time the user would want the playhead to advance the linear time line.. However once you start working on a phrase, it would be nice if there was a shortcut or button right above the instruent section, or the program sensed a lot of mouse activity, and did not further the time line, until mouse activity stopped. Or right mouse click had option to stop to stop timeline advancing.
It feels like too much mouse work to get certain actions going sometimes, I'm constantly reaching for commands.
Perhaps if mouse left, right, shift left, shifd right displayed different menues..
I am constantly shifting tools, the 'i' key just does not feel intuitive to me.
Like Logic Pro, SFP could take a lesson. Logic comes with a very large shortcut pallette. But the beauty is one can change it to suit their needs. They can completely re-assign shortcut commands.. I imagine Cubase, Cakewalk, Logic users, would like to see some of the shortcuts the same in SFP and DAW.
Also - though mentioned before. It would be very desirable for instrument and it's status buttons to always remain on the left side of screen, and not scroll off. That's a real battle to get over to pause or mute while view 'follow transport' is checked. I have to stop playing and uncheck 'follow' or go back to beginning of instrument track to mute, pause, solo etc.
Wed, 2012-10-17 - 09:47 Permalink
Yes, most of that is on the agenda already.
Side notes:
The Follow Playhead feature is a bit disturbing. Actually, through the use of containers, no phrase should be longer than a few bars. There should be no need to scroll horizontally all the time.
If you have phrases longer than, say 16 bars, you are leaving the American Sector. Phrases spanning the entire song defeat the purpose of Synfire:
- How would you move parts around, resize or change them without lossing sync with the other instruments?
- How would you be able to use aliases to handle recurring parts?
- How would you replace harmony for the verse, bridge, chorus, without fiddling for ages with cut/copy/paste?
- What if you wanted insert a new part in between?
Admittedly, so many users still working "the DAW way" is my fault. There is no tutorial on using containers. I am confident once the video will be done, you will want to try the workflow.
Wed, 2012-10-17 - 20:15 Permalink
Often I start a song in Logic, and port over SFP to create additional material. I can use SFP to create parts which are beyond my technical ability (had a stroke, and hands not as nimble and accurate). SFP lets me create additional parts, which are beyond my knowledge of harmony and counterpoint. I can import horn or intricate parts from external MIDI files.. Many things which I would never have thought of by myself.. Also looking at the root container shows all tracks, so you get a visual overview of the arrangement.. Extremely important to me in working on music..
In Logic now, I always make extensive use of it's scoring section. It let's me easily see where I should have other instruments doubling, or making a counter point to the melody. In fact, I would love it if SFP could display a rendering in tradtional scoring as I use the program in realtime.. (I'm aware of Lilypond)
In answer to your questions - sometimes I leave the tracks the length they are already. Other times I cut them up into smaller containers. Often I import the midi file a 2nd time into a library, so now I have all the parts of the original file. I can create a new epiano part, and then delete the original epiano midi file I started with. With the Divide command, I can easily create a new part and put it inbetween something already existing. In other words, I leave some tracks the way they were, but create additional containers and instruement parts, using your approach..
Although this is not the way you intended SFP to be used. I and probably many others might settle on this routine.
I can try changing chords of an already almost done song. I might already have a great theme, nicely developed, and it is 96 bars long. Also some users will be used to creating music linearly for many years (over 50 years for me). Although it is never too late to learn something new, some users may want to continue in a linear fashion using the power of SFP in a manner similar to what I am exploring.
You've created a powerful tool, and shouldn't discourage people from using it in a way you had not originally intended. For instance, I've been reading a few musc books on harmony and writing parts. It's very easy to implement these ideas in SFP rather than a traditional DAW, cause I can create the forms (inverted music phrases creating a harmony to orginal motif.
I often listen and watch the SFP song thru root container to get a visual overview, and I would like to experiment with realtime muting of parts, (that's if inatrument and mute, solo, pause buttons) always stay in view. I'll try a few ideas and then go in and use the pause feature, to mute sections out.
PS. I have been creating parts in SFP and they are smaller.
