On May 14, 2013 5:23 AM, "Leigh Dyer" <lsd@wootangent.net> wrote:
>
> On 14/05/13 7:38 AM, James Stone wrote:
>>
>> What I would be interested in is:
>>
>> 1) Decent collections of samples (soundfonts or whatever) that are
>> professional standard (i.e. up to the quality of Roland/Korg/Emu)
>> covering a variety of "bread and butter" type sounds - orchestral,
>> keyboard, piano, synth. I am happy to pay for them - but if the overall
>> price goes over 100GBP, I think I am probably better off with the
>> hardware option..
>
>
> Julien mentioned some great options that I'd second the recommendation for (the Salamander Grand Piano and Drumkit, Sonatina for orchestral sounds, setBfree for organs); I'd add the jRhodes3 soundfont and (to a lesser extent) the MDA ePiano plugin to the list for electric piano.
>
> I recently wrote up some thoughts on Sonatina after writing a short track with it here:
>
> http://wootangent.net/2013/04/ludum-dare-26-anti-minimalist-music-and-sampled-orchestras/
>
> If you're looking for synth samples, then I'd playfully suggest that you're Doing It Wrong :) If you want a good workhorse for typical synth sounds, TAL NoiseMaker is a great option -- it's easy to program, sounds great, and comes with a bunch of presets.
>
>
>> 2) Thoughts - soundfonts vs. gigs vs. ? and what software to play them
>> in Linux? Any samplers that also have synthesis options - resonant
>> filters/ envelopes etc? I guess I know about things like linuxsampler
>> and fluidsynth, but are there any other more complex options?
>
>
> Definitely check out petri-foo (standalone app) and samplv1 (standalone and LV2 plugin) -- they both combine simple sampling with a more complete synthesis engine (envelopes, LFOs, resonant filters, etc.). Neither will let you create an instrument that uses a bunch of different samples, but they're very useful for turning a plain sample in to a more expressive instrument.
>

Great ideas. Thanks! Didnt realise petri-foo is so advanced!

I guess one issue I have is that in the computer it takes ages to load different instruments (relatively) - and my lovely gig pianos are so big it is hard to load much else.. definitely not great for getting some quick.ideas and testing out different sounds...

Seems like there might be a market for a soundfont or sfz player that also has synth capabilities ....

By the way, do you have any recommendations for places to get soundfonts?