It looks very powerful (with all that harmonizing, pattern recognition, auto arranging stuff) but TBH this seems more targeted at orchestra conductors or people with similar income. I.e. certainly not something for the hobbyist.

Think I'll buy it next week...

I pondered a bit longer...
Today I did it and bought MPS/Synfire.

stay tuned
HiEnergy

How are you getting along with Synfire? This program looks really amazing. I'm just curious how its working for you. I'm currently demoing and reading the manual.

Synfire is amazing. i have been using it for a few months now. very expensive but worth it.

revorg could you go into more detail about how easy it is to get good results from the product? also how you like it overall/thoughts on it? Thanks!!

its not very easy at all. it takes some time. if you have a background in piano and theory it could be easier for you. they have a demo you can download. it runs from their server. give it a shot. see if its for you.

http://www.cognitone.com/downloads/index.stml?o=0&p=2

I've actually already got HN2. I was wondering what u thought about synfire pro

synfire gives you the abilility to move notes through a chord progression and listen to phrases and how they sound with the different chords. import phrases and midi recognition. it does take some time to learn but it is an amazing tool for the composer looking to try out ideas quickly or edit midi. i dont have HN2. i downloaded the demo before i purchased synfire. also check out the videos. they really give you a good idea of what is possible.

"synfire gives you the abilility to move notes through a chord progression and listen to phrases and how they sound with the different chords. import phrases and midi recognition." hope you don't mind but your response is really interesting but I'm not quite sure what you mean (pardon my newbieness) could you explain in a little more detail? I would really really appreciate it. I'm already a member at the synfire community but would like some good ol kvr opinion. Thank you very much in advance.

If you draw a phrase the program will recognize the rhythm (length and distance between notes) and the direction of the notes' progression (how notes flow up and down, by step or in small or big leaps).

Then, it will keep that phrase design always right inside the harmonic progression that you have set. You can move the phrase up or down, back or forth and it will always make sense inside the harmony. You can obtain different results according to which scale you are working with.

So, you decide the shape of the melody, it's scale and harmonic progression, and the program writes it.

Also, you can import phrases from midi files instead of drawing or recording them.

I've downloaded the demo, and I'll keep playing with it, but I don't know if I'll buy it. (aprox $1050 US - so I want to be sure)
I like the concept, but things that ought to be simple are REALLY difficult.
I suspect it will take lots of intense use before I learn it well enough to know if it's what I need, because it's not at all intuitive.
It took me over 4 hours to figure out how to route the output to my VSTi's for example. That includes reading the manual and watching the appropriate videos.

On the positive side, the developer Andre, usually responds quickly to problems.
I hope he succeeds, but the UI needs to be simpler and it needs to be le$$.

Boyd

I have no idea where they got the inspiration for hooking up the ins and outs. It really is the most involved and unintuitive setup I have ever come across. I do like the flexibility you have afterwards to customize the many-to-many relationships, but there has to be a better way to do that. I remember that part more than I remember how the demo performed.

However I do remember Andre being extremely helpful via email. It would have stayed on my radar had it been more reasonably priced.

Andre has the vision of a Synfire-centric system where his app is able to control different Daws in a network of different computers at the same time. An Über-Daw. He wants his program to be used for big orchestration work mainly.

I have no doubt that he imagines such a thing. Still a horrible setup imo. Great functionality once it is all in place though.