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Thousands of Phrases

Posted

From the marketing <g>  - 

With Synfire Pro you can generate thousands of phrases 

Literally true, no doubt, as it could be done by pressing a factory's 10x button  two-hundred times. 

Is that where we are at?

Is there a better way to accomplish it?

 

 


Sa., 30.12.2023 - 00:44 Permalink

It is certainly a pure security measure that there is no button 10,000x. Someone might get the idea to listen to all that stuff and end up in the loony bin.

Sa., 30.12.2023 - 10:58 Permalink

A mere 100 phrase pools with 10 variations each already get you 1,000 phrases.

But you don't even need that many. Hoarding phrases doesn't make you productive. If you come across 2 or 3 phrases that inspire you, stop there and use them! Generate variations of them and build a song. While you are doing that, new phrases will arise from your editing. Collect them, too. 

Rinse and repeat with your next song. 

After your 10th song is done, revisit the 1st and test it with alternative phrases from the 10th, 9th, 8th, etc. Single-parameter phrases with Harmony, Velocity, Rhythm are also useful resources worthy of keeping.

This way you will accumulate a meaningful collection of phrases that match your taste and style, rather than a huge pile of random variations that are too big to sift through when you need one.

Sa., 30.12.2023 - 13:41 Permalink

Very good workflow suggestions, thanks!

(I do think there is potential for an expectations mismatch between the marketing and the reality though ...)

Sa., 30.12.2023 - 15:04 Permalink

You may not really need 3,000 phrases in advance but you can create them in a matter of weeks. The point is that there is no limit.

Sa., 30.12.2023 - 19:49 Permalink

I do think there is potential for an expectations mismatch between the marketing and the reality though ...

In terms of "expecations mismatch", this is absolutely harmless. Do you want a more serious example? From the manual for the FL Studio plugin "Autogun":

"Autogun contains 4,294,967,296 presets (four billion, two hundred ninety four million, nine hundred sixty seven thousand, two hundred ninety six) ... to explore. Better start clicking!"

Well, better don't do the math. You can easily get depressed when you realize that your remaining lifespan is not enough to explore all the presets of a simple plugin. But if you start clicking through these presets a bit, you'll feel better straight away. Because once you've listened to a few, you'll know all of them. All four billion.