[linux-audio-user] GM soundfont

[Chris Cannam]

On Tuesday 22 July 2003 20:03, Reuben Martin wrote:
> Does anybody know where to get this Fluid III font? I have been
> looking for it and the ALL in ONE GM v1.1. They are nowhere to be
> found.

I have both, and in principle I have the bandwidth to send them to 
anyone who wants, but I don't have anything like enough hosting space 
to actually host them and I really don't feel like clogging up the 
world's email servers with this sort of stuff.  I guess the answer is 
one of the filesharing systems, but I haven't a clue how they work (I 
prefer not to get involved with this technology stuff if I can help it, 
you understand) and really the thought doesn't tempt me.

One problem I have with these soundfonts, and with the idea of getting 
free-software repositories to host them, is that it's very hard to know 
that what you're getting really is redistributable.  Many of these 
soundfonts (I have no idea about Fluid) are made up largely of samples 
of existing synths: what exactly is the copyright situation with those?  
If it's iffy, how can I know whether a soundfont contains such samples 
or not?  It's very rare to see any statement from the author/compiler 
of the font about the status of the samples.  This question comes up 
quite frequently (though maybe a little less often than the one about 
ZynAddSubFX licensing) and I haven't ever seen a very satisfactory 
answer.

That said, I'm not especially keen on Fluid myself anyway.  I find the 
balance of the acoustic instruments is a bit unpredictable.

One completely different set of soundfonts I will recommend is Bree 
Gorton's (Gort's Synth, Gort's Mini Piano etc) available at 
hammersound.net.  There are some groovy and generally peculiar sounds 
in there, made up of very small generator sets and thus packed into 
absolutely tiny soundfonts (the largest I have is 78K, the smallest 3K, 
and they're full sets of 256 or so instruments).  Of course you need a 
rather particular aesthetic to enjoy that kind of thing, but they're a 
very clever construction.


Chris