[LAU] Decent soundfonts

[Simon Williams]

Ketil Thorgersen wrote:
> Do a search on this list and you'll see that this has been discussed 
> frequently!

I've looked but can only find one other thread on the subject which 
didn't help me.

> For piano the best free one I've found is http://www.pianosounds.com/

That's got the same problem. It just sounds too tinny.

I've got a Yamaha YPP-35 at home. I would have thought it's a pretty 
cheap digital piano- only 5 octaves, 8 voices and partially weighted 
keys (though my parents seem to think it cost over 500 pounds at the 
time, which seems slightly mad, but I could be wrong- it was 10-12 years 
ago). But it sounds really nice- even the strings work well. All the 
sounds are clean and simple- they aren't too muddy in the bass, they 
don't resonate, they don't twang if I hit the keys hard, they aren't too 
tinny on the higher notes, and the volume is balanced across the 
keyboard. Why can't I get this sort of sound out of my laptop?

I guess maybe I'm not really looking for soundfonts. I don't really want 
samples of real acoustic instruments because recording them is 
impossibly difficult and leads to too much background noise. What I need 
is to know how to make these sounds up on a synth. I don't mind it 
sounding a bit electronic- actually I think I'd prefer it to some 
extent. Then all I need to do is find a synth which handles the response 
curve sanely and allows me to actually balance the thing across the 
keyboard, instead of being too quiet in the bass and getting louder as I 
work up. Maybe I'll end up writing my own. But at the moment I haven't 
got the slightest clue how to get the sound I want out of a synth.

Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance.
Simon