[linux-audio-user] Audigy 6.1 platinum and Linux

[Joerg Anders]

On Wed, 28 May 2003, Robert Jonsson wrote:

> soundfonts. Most of the time I find it better to use Fluidsynth. The only 
> concern here is that Fluidsynth will consume CPU resources which the hardware 
> synth won't.

This is the 4rd time I'm told a hardware midi synthesizer isn't necessary
because there are a lot of software midi synthesizers. But this against all
of my experience. 

Please have a look at:

http://rnvs.informatik.tu-chemnitz.de/soundtest/soundtest.html

There is a MIDI file "sample.mid" and an MP3 "sample_hardware.mp3"
with the first 20 seconds of "sample.mid" created with soundcard
AWE 64 and soundfont "8mbgmsfx.sf2". It sounds like a bigband.

Unfortunately, there is no posibility to record the Fluidsynth
WAV output. Otherwise I'd present a direct comparison.
But even if I use the same soundfont and -r 44100
there is no similarity between the result and the sound
in "sample_hardware.mp3".

Till now I regard the software synthesizers only as a substitute
for all those who can't bring their hardware MIDI synthesizer to work.
This holds also for TiMidity++. 

But feel free to make your own attempts with "sample.mid".
I'm convincend you won't get a playing bigband. In my ears
it always sounds like a orchestra in a stock pot.

-- 
J.Anders, Chemnitz, GERMANY (ja at informatik.tu-chemnitz.de)