Tracks

The linear sequence of clips for an instrument

With Synfire, the narrative Structure of your composition should be your primary focus, because linear Tracks for each instrument (as in a DAW) are built from that structure automatically. A track is simply the sequence of Clips that results from the arrangement of containers. When you move containers around, all tracks are rebuilt for you.

Containers can be nested and clips may contain any kind of parameters, so it is not immediately obvious on the Structure page what's ultimately landing on a track. The Tracks page Is therefore a convenient map to navigate and understand your final result.

Structure vs. Tracks

In the Structure view, you can focus on building suspense and overall musical experience, while the details of each individual track are automatically handled for you in the background. The structure view makes it particularly easy to make sweeping changes, experiment with ideas, and try out alternatives, all non-destructively. In the flat and linear tracks view, this would be extremely tedious (which is why we often avoid doing this in a DAW).

Thinking of music as a structure has real creative benefits, although it takes some getting used to. Of course, you can still build a song on the Tracks page, as you would do in a DAW. However, the resulting container structure will then be more like a pile of clips that makes little sense.

To clean up the mess in hindsight, you can build a structure from flat tracks by using Clip > Collect Into Container to group related clips, such as “Verse,” “Chorus,” “Middle Part”, and then consolidate the containers.

Important Tips

Tip: Don't put too many different things in a single clip. Avoid scrolling back and forth over a very long Figure that spans almost the entire song. Place multiple Containers instead, each with a unique thing in it. This way you can rearrange or reuse them more conveniently.
Tip: Rule of thumb: When you want something to start in the middle of something, insert a container at that position. Don't insert blank space at the beginning of a phrase only to make it start at a later time, unless you really want all loops to include this long pause at every turn.