14 Sep
2008
14 Sep
'08
8:12 a.m.
On Sat, Sep 13, 2008 at 03:02:19PM -0600, Stephen Doonan wrote:
I downloaded the soundfont and imported it into
qsynth, to play with my
external MIDI keyboard. Is this the way you yourself would use the
soundfont (with qsynth)? Or would you load the soundfont into some other
software or hardware?
Yes, it can be used in qsynth. I also use qsynth myself.
In qsynth, the base layer (piano) is triggered on MIDI
channel 1, and
the other velocity layers (piano layer 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5) are assigned (by
default, anyway) to MIDI channels 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.
Actually, only the channel 1 is needed, it does contain all the layers
included into it. They will be triggered automatically by programming
different velocity levels in a sequencer or playing your external MIDI
keyboard at different pressure levels. It is very easy, just attach
your MIDI keyboard to the channel 1 and start playing.
The other channels in the soundfont are there for debugging or special
purposes. For example, if you want a particular track of your sequencer
to always sound bright, you could attach it to the channel 2. Under
normal conditions you probably want to use the channel 1 only.
Note that the pressure levels may vary between keyboard models. In my
cheap keyboard I can only reach around velocity 110 no matter how strong
I press the keys. Other people could find the opposite: that the strong
layer is reached extremely soon, at soft levels. So that is what I was
asking for feedback on the different keyboards (my keyboard is not a
good reference).
However, I would very much like to try to use your
soundfont, if it is
possible.
Of course it's possible ;-)
Thanks again for your efforts and for this gift to the
Linux and
open-source world.
Let me know if you make music with it, I'll be happy to hear!
In this soundfont the samples came from a donation made by the OLPC
project, but it is rare to get such good samples with free licenses, so
I'm working to sample other instruments myself, at high quality
(24bit, 96Khz). If everything goes well, I hope to eventually announce
a lot of high quality, free soundfonts. Though it is a slow process, it
may take some time, and I need to convince some musician friends to let
me sample their instruments (an invitation to lunch at a restaurant
after the recording sessions may help) :-)