7 Jul
2004
7 Jul
'04
6:20 a.m.
Hi
Being new to soundfonts I baically needed a decent piano soundfont for
arranging stuff for my students, but after shopping around, I thought it
maybe could be taken a step further. So my question is: Are soundfonts
good enough for "real" music production? And where can I find nice ones
to download? I guess I'm looking for imitations of real instruments,
mostly piano, accoustic drums and bass, but expressive strings and other
orchestral sounds would also be nice.
So far I found the "FluidR3 GM.SF2" (142M), how does that compare to
what's outthere? I also found alot of .sfArk sounds but it seems they
are in som kind of windows-only compressed format. I downloaded the
sfarkxtc_lx86.tar.gz but it complains "This file was created with sfArk
V1, and this program only handles sfArk V2+ files. Use sfArk instead."
on all the .sfArk-files I downloaded. Is there a linux utility that will
uncompress those files?
I run debian/unstable and plan on using fluidsynth and rosegarden if it
matters...
--
peace, love & harmony
Atte
http://www.atte.dk
7 Jul
7 Jul
7:36 a.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] how good are soundfonts and where do I find them?
W liście z śro, 07-07-2004, godz. 10:10, Atte André Jensen pisze:
Hi
Being new to soundfonts I baically needed a decent piano soundfont for
arranging stuff for my students, but after shopping around, I thought it
maybe could be taken a step further. So my question is: Are soundfonts
good enough for "real" music production? And where can I find nice ones
to download? I guess I'm looking for imitations of real instruments,
mostly piano, accoustic drums and bass, but expressive strings and other
orchestral sounds would also be nice.
Hello,
Having a good sound font is very important :) you may try this site:
http://www.personalcopy.com/sfarkfonts1.htm
Fonts placed here are big (ca 50MB) because many tones at different
pitch are sampled for a single instrument. I especially like and
appreciate PC51 font.
best regards,
Michal Kostrzewa
8:08 a.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] how good are soundfonts and where do I find them?
Last Wednesday 07 July 2004 10:25, Michal Kostrzewa was like:
Having a good sound font is very important :) you may
try this site:
http://www.personalcopy.com/sfarkfonts1.htm
This site is foul, the soundfonts may be good, but I don't like having to
stroke Satan's furry hoof in order to get them.
cheers
tim hall
9:58 a.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] how good are soundfonts and where do I find them?
W liście z śro, 07-07-2004, godz. 11:58, tim hall pisze:
Last Wednesday 07 July 2004 10:25, Michal Kostrzewa
was like:
Eh? I feel I don't quite understand you... What do you mean? What's the
problem with getting this fonts or with the site?
Michal Kostrzewa
Having a good sound font is very important :) you
may try this site:
http://www.personalcopy.com/sfarkfonts1.htm
This site is foul, the soundfonts may be good, but I don't like having to
stroke Satan's furry hoof in order to get them.
6:24 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] how good are soundfonts and where do I find them?
Last Wednesday 07 July 2004 12:21, Michal Kostrzewa was like:
Eh? I feel I don't quite understand you... What do
you mean? What's the
problem with getting this fonts or with the site?
Sorry, that was possibly an unnecessarily spiky comment. [trying to give up
coffee again ;-] - but seeing as how you asked ...
It's just that the site you mentioned is so Windows oriented, like so much
soundfont stuff, reading through lists of .exe .sfark and .sfwhatever that I
need to download yet another little application so I can decode them. I guess
I haven't really figured out the soundfont thing yet. I use Unison via qsynth
when I want a fake orchestra for writing purposes. I'm not sure how many of
the voices I would really want to use for anything more than a demo, perhaps
with the liberal application of a bit of LADSPA.
Qsynth has a slightly odd way of loading soundfonts to my mind, causing the
lowest entries in the list to overwrite the first few GM slots, it's not the
ideal behaviour.
Perhaps I would feel more comfortable if I learned to use smurf and
wrote/threw together my own selection, but so far I haven't been able to get
that application to produce any sound, which is a bit pointless if you're
editing a soundfont, surely? I can see how the rest of it is supposed to
work, I've loaded up the fonts I want to work on, but I'm finding it hard to
get under the bonnet of soundfonts.
Over half of the soundfonts I've downloaded either don't work, sound plain
awful or consist of just one halfway decent sound, the palette I'm looking
for is quite limited, basically a decent fake orchestra that will run
comfortably in 192M RAM, with possibly some classic keyboards (hammond,
farfisa, vox, rhodes, wurly, mellotron type stuff). i.e. the stuff that's
hard to synthesise. Is Unison basically the best I can expect off the shelf
for free on my system?
Fine if it is, I'll simply get on with learning how to make my own rather than
go trawling through a whole load of FrontPage enabled sites. The use of
soundfonts doesn't strike me as the most transparently open thing I've come
across since I migrated to GNU systems, but it is the only way I'm going to
simulate an orchestra on the resources I've got.
So, yes I was just being snotty because I didn't like the site. Nothing
personal. That has really brought to light my dissatisfaction with soundfonts
as I would like something a bit more than just a bunch of lame presets. I'm
sure soundfonts _are_ capable of delivering, I've read enough happy reports.
And yes, I am (becoming) familiar with ZynAddSubFX and pd and things like
that, but they hog the little resources I have and I tend to conceive things
with a broad palette (I'm really into weird chord voicings and part
arrangements) and I'm regularly pushing the limits of what JACK can keep i
sync. Duh, if only I'd be happy with doing 'Status Quo' arrangements ;-)
Wow, that was an extended whinge, I wasn't expecting all that to come out.
Answers on the back of a frying pan to the usual place.
cheers
tim hall
6:42 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] how good are soundfonts and where do I find them?
On Wednesday 07 Jul 2004 20:14, tim hall wrote:
Qsynth has a slightly odd way of loading soundfonts to
my mind, causing the
lowest entries in the list to overwrite the first few GM slots, it's not
the ideal behaviour.
That's FluidSynth rather than QSynth -- when you load multiple soundfonts it
just overlays them. I remember moaning many moons ago on the fluidsynth list
about a need for a way to tell it to load them to different banks or
something, but I never implemented it and I don't think anyone else did.
Perhaps I would feel more comfortable if I learned to
use smurf
wrote/threw together my own selection, but so far I haven't been able to
get that application to produce any sound
Have you tried Swami, which is the newer edition of Smurf?
the palette I'm looking
for is quite limited, basically a decent fake orchestra that will run
comfortably in 192M RAM
Probably one of those Creative 8MB soundfont thingies from the AWE driver set
would be OK. They're widely available, though I don't think they're actually
legally redistributable. Any better than that for an orchestral set in 192MB
may be a losing proposition -- strings and brass are incredibly hard to do.
If you'd like a small, fascinating set of soundfonts that don't have much to
do with real life, go to www.hammersound.net and download some of Bree
Gorton's creations. (They're all called Gort's something, and are generally
in the Collections pages on that site.) They're a bit long on boings and
twangs, but there are some very fine impressions of strangely mistreated
instruments as well. I've occasionally wondered whether a bit of polite
enquiry wouldn't be able to get some of these GPL'd or similar, as they're
clearly original works that are already being given away free.
Chris
7:04 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] how good are soundfonts and where do I find them?
tim hall wrote:
Over half of the soundfonts I've downloaded either
don't work, sound plain
awful or consist of just one halfway decent sound, the palette I'm looking
for is quite limited, basically a decent fake orchestra that will run
comfortably in 192M RAM, with possibly some classic keyboards (hammond,
farfisa, vox, rhodes, wurly, mellotron type stuff). i.e. the stuff that's
hard to synthesise.
If you find some decent Mellotron sounds, I'd be interested in hearing
about it. I've got a VST plugin with samples from a real Mellotron, but
I've yet to get it working using libfst or vstserver. I may just end up
making my own samples of the samples (which are, after all, early analog
samples of real instruments) and using them as soundfonts or something
along those lines. Of course, I can't redistribute them, since the
samples from GMedia are copyrighted.
--
Rule of Feline Frustration:
When your cat has fallen asleep on your lap and looks utterly
content and adorable, you will suddenly have to go to the
bathroom.
7:43 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] how good are soundfonts and where do I find them?
Them wrote:
tim hall wrote:
If you're up for trying something new (I'm not a sound Font fan) you can
get a free Mellotron gig file at
http:www.worrasplace.com
(Look under 'Oldies'.)
and run it under QSampler, the GUI for LinuxSampler.
http://www.rncbc.org/ls/
(Build everything on Rui's LS page if you're interested in trying any of
this out.)
LS is all very much development software, and there are a lot of changes
going on right now so it may be broken, but maybe you'll get lucky. LS
is a Jack application and gerneally runs very well for me on most gig
files. There are still a few it really dies on but I cannot get the
developers to pay attention to those yet.
I use a different, for money, Mellotron gig file under QSampler and GSt,
but this free one is certain OK when buried in the right mix.
Good luck!
- Mark
Over half of the soundfonts I've downloaded
either don't work, sound
plain awful or consist of just one halfway decent sound, the palette
I'm looking for is quite limited, basically a decent fake orchestra
that will run comfortably in 192M RAM, with possibly some classic
keyboards (hammond, farfisa, vox, rhodes, wurly, mellotron type
stuff). i.e. the stuff that's hard to synthesise.
If you find some decent Mellotron sounds, I'd be interested in hearing
about it. I've got a VST plugin with samples from a real Mellotron, but
I've yet to get it working using libfst or vstserver. I may just end up
making my own samples of the samples (which are, after all, early analog
samples of real instruments) and using them as soundfonts or something
along those lines. Of course, I can't redistribute them, since the
samples from GMedia are copyrighted.
8:26 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] how good are soundfonts and where do I find them?
Mark Knecht wrote:
OK, thanks for the ref. Not a big fan of soundfonts either (my card
doesn't support them anyway, I'd need a softsynth that does).
If you find
some decent Mellotron sounds, I'd be interested in hearing
about it. I've got a VST plugin with samples from a real Mellotron,
but I've yet to get it working using libfst or vstserver. I may just
end up making my own samples of the samples (which are, after all,
early analog samples of real instruments) and using them as soundfonts
or something along those lines. Of course, I can't redistribute them,
since the samples from GMedia are copyrighted.
If you're up for trying something new (I'm not a sound Font fan) you can
get a free Mellotron gig file at
http:www.worrasplace.com
(Look under 'Oldies'.) LS is all very much development software, and there
are a lot of changes
going on right now so it may be broken, but maybe you'll get lucky. LS
is a Jack application and gerneally runs very well for me on most gig
files. There are still a few it really dies on but I cannot get the
developers to pay attention to those yet.
I use a different, for money, Mellotron gig file under QSampler and GSt,
but this free one is certain OK when buried in the right mix.
What Mellotron sounds are these?
-- Brett
8 Jul
8 Jul
12:12 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] how good are soundfonts and where do I find them?
Them wrote:
Sonic Implants String Boxes
http://www.gigasamplers.com/GnCDRomGigasamplerVintage.htm
Buy carefully. It isn't exactly like playing the real beast. Now that
was fun!
- Mark
I use a
different, for money, Mellotron gig file under QSampler and
GSt, but this free one is certain OK when buried in the right mix.
What Mellotron sounds are these?
-- Brett
12:17 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] how good are soundfonts and where do I find them?
Mark Knecht wrote:
Sonic Implants String Boxes
http://www.gigasamplers.com/GnCDRomGigasamplerVintage.htm
Buy carefully. It isn't exactly like playing the real beast. Now that
was fun!
Yeah, that's why I want to get this thing working under Linux:
http://www.gmediamusic.com/gforce/m-tron/
They have a app you can download now that will let you play it
standalone (no need for a VST host). If I can get that to work under
Wine, I may be able to say goodbye forever to the Windows partition on
my audio workstation.
--
Rule of Feline Frustration:
When your cat has fallen asleep on your lap and looks utterly
content and adorable, you will suddenly have to go to the
bathroom.
12:43 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] how good are soundfonts and where do I find them?
Them wrote:
Mark Knecht wrote:
I must be misunderstanding. The box looks like it's a VST instrument. I
don;t see the app you are talking about, but it sounds like they have a
stand along VST Host that works with this thing, which is cool.
As for the qualiy, looks to me like both offer the same 8 second
samples, no looping, etc. I'd expect that they are probably pretty
similar in terms of sound.
At $45 Pounds it's pretty much the same price as String Boxes. I'd
probably go the LinuxSampler route since you're likely to be part of a
larger community and get some support, but that's just my point of view.
Good luck whatever you do.
Have fun,
Mark
Sonic Implants String Boxes
http://www.gigasamplers.com/GnCDRomGigasamplerVintage.htm
Buy carefully. It isn't exactly like playing the real beast. Now that
was fun!
Yeah, that's why I want to get this thing working under Linux:
http://www.gmediamusic.com/gforce/m-tron/
They have a app you can download now that will let you play it
standalone (no need for a VST host). If I can get that to work under
Wine, I may be able to say goodbye forever to the Windows partition on
my audio workstation.
12:50 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] how good are soundfonts and where do I find them?
Mark Knecht wrote:
Yeah, it can be used as a VST instrument (but not under Linux, can't get
it to work with lib_fst or vstserver), or use their little host app to
run it standalone.
They have a
app you can download now that will let you play it
standalone (no need for a VST host). If I can get that to work under
Wine, I may be able to say goodbye forever to the Windows partition on
my audio workstation.
I must be misunderstanding. The box looks like it's a VST instrument. I
don;t see the app you are talking about, but it sounds like they have a
stand along VST Host that works with this thing, which is cool. As for the qualiy, looks to me like both offer the
same 8 second
samples, no looping, etc. I'd expect that they are probably pretty
similar in terms of sound.
Yeah, they do sound similar. I already have the M-Tron (bought before I
moved over to Linux for audio work), so can't justify buying the other
product just yet... as I said, I may end up just making my own sample
set from the M-Tron as needed....
--
Rule of Feline Frustration:
When your cat has fallen asleep on your lap and looks utterly
content and adorable, you will suddenly have to go to the
bathroom.
9 Jul
9 Jul
2:56 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] how good are soundfonts and where do I find them?
Es geschah am Mittwoch, 7. Juli 2004 23:33 als Mark Knecht schrieb:
files. There are still a few it really dies on but I
cannot get the
developers to pay attention to those yet.
What does that mean? :)
It's just a time issue. We have to finish the most important features for the
first release first and after that we will start with bug tracking and wipe
out all outstanding bugs and problems. I will have time again in two weeks,
so I hope we'll have a stable release canditate in about a month.
CU
Christian
3:09 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] how good are soundfonts and where do I find them?
Christian Schoenebeck wrote:
Es geschah am Mittwoch, 7. Juli 2004 23:33 als Mark
Knecht schrieb:
Christian - we talked about this! You and I! By email!
None of the Scrabee Bass gig files work. you thought they had some sort
of strange protection or a different kind of compression as I remember
it. This was all months ago.
files. There are still a few it really dies on but
I cannot get the
developers to pay attention to those yet.
What does that mean? :)
It's just a time issue. We have to finish the most important features for the
first release first and after that we will start with bug tracking and wipe
out all outstanding bugs and problems. I will have time again in two weeks,
so I hope we'll have a stable release canditate in about a month.
Actually I think LS is working pretty well, although my copy is a month old.
5:47 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] how good are soundfonts and where do I find them?
Es geschah am Freitag, 9. Juli 2004 18:59 als Mark Knecht schrieb:
Christian Schoenebeck wrote:
Damn, my memory.... who are you?
Just kidding :)
Es geschah am Mittwoch, 7. Juli 2004 23:33 als
Mark Knecht schrieb:
Christian - we talked about this! You and I! By email! files. There are still a few it really dies on but
I cannot get the
developers to pay attention to those yet.
What does that mean? :) None of the Scrabee Bass gig files work. you thought
they had some sort
of strange protection or a different kind of compression as I remember
it. This was all months ago.
Ok, we figure that out in two weeks, if you remember me.
Actually I think LS is working pretty well, although
my copy is a month
old.
Still too many things left in stability, efficiency and accuracy. But we'll
fix that soon.
CU
Dory
7 Jul
7 Jul
7:32 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] how good are soundfonts and where do I find them?
On Wed, 7 Jul 2004 21:14:36 +0100, tim hall wrote
...
Over half of the soundfonts I've downloaded either don't work, sound
plain awful or consist of just one halfway decent sound, the palette
I'm looking for is quite limited, basically a decent fake orchestra
that will run comfortably in 192M RAM, with possibly some classic
keyboards (hammond, farfisa, vox, rhodes, wurly, mellotron type
stuff). i.e. the stuff that's hard to synthesise.
...
I'm not sure if you've invested in sample sets prior to using Linux, but if
you have and still have a Windows machine running, one app you can purchase
fairly cheap (sub-$100) is translator pro from chickensys. It translates
many, many formats from one to another. Over the years I've invested a
sizeable chuck of cash on samples in various formats (AKAI, GIG, Halion), and
with the pgm doing the translation, I can use everything I've purchased on
various systems. There are differences is the various formats (notably,
keyswitching not working in Soundfonts), but you can work around them.
I'm still currently trying to get translator pro to run under Wine (damn
hidden file on the CD).
That said, is there a reason you're looking for free soundfonts (as opposed to
for sale)? I mentioned it in a previous post, but I'll mention it again -
there are some commercial soundfonts (< $50) that will provide you with
exactly what you need.
R.
==
8 Jul
8 Jul
12:35 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] how good are soundfonts and where do I find them?
All fair comment Rick,
Last Wednesday 07 July 2004 22:14, Rick Henry was like:
I'm not sure if you've invested in sample sets
prior to using Linux, but if
you have and still have a Windows machine running,
I don't. Part of my frustration is the apparent need to delve into Windows to
get the best out of soundfonts.
one app you can purchase
fairly cheap (sub-$100) is translator pro from chickensys. It translates
many, many formats from one to another. Over the years I've invested a
sizeable chuck of cash on samples in various formats (AKAI, GIG, Halion),
and with the pgm doing the translation, I can use everything I've purchased
on various systems. There are differences is the various formats (notably,
keyswitching not working in Soundfonts), but you can work around them.
I'm still currently trying to get translator pro to run under Wine (damn
hidden file on the CD).
Therefore I don't bother with wine either.
That said, is there a reason you're looking for
free soundfonts (as opposed
to for sale)? I mentioned it in a previous post, but I'll mention it again
- there are some commercial soundfonts (< $50) that will provide you with
exactly what you need.
Yes, I have no money (i.e. my bag of brown rice ran out two days ago and I'm
currently blagging off my housemate). I'm also on a mission to find out how
far you can get in computer music on next to no money (e.g. welfare). I
intend to disseminate what I've discovered once I've achieved the objective,
which is to basically record an album using GNU tools on low cost / donated
hardware. I want to show that it can not only be done, but done well. To this
end the soundfonts I use should really be GPL'd or CC'd.
Buying soundfonts seems preferable to resorting to Windows, but I feel I'd
prove the point of the current exercise better by buckling down and getting
to know smurf or compiling swami (not in Debian archive) and doing the best I
can with the current free resources.
Thanks for the suggestions anyway,
tim hall
12:43 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] how good are soundfonts and where do I find them?
tim hall wrote:
Yes, I have no money (i.e. my bag of brown rice ran
out two days ago and I'm
currently blagging off my housemate). I'm also on a mission to find out how
far you can get in computer music on next to no money (e.g. welfare). I
intend to disseminate what I've discovered once I've achieved the objective,
which is to basically record an album using GNU tools on low cost / donated
hardware. I want to show that it can not only be done, but done well. To this
end the soundfonts I use should really be GPL'd or CC'd.
A noble cause... my ultimate dream is to produce a CD produced with Free
Software -- and this includes even the artwork.
--
Rule of Feline Frustration:
When your cat has fallen asleep on your lap and looks utterly
content and adorable, you will suddenly have to go to the
bathroom.
1:30 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] how good are soundfonts and where do I find them?
Last Thursday 08 July 2004 15:36, Them was like:
A noble cause... my ultimate dream is to produce a CD
produced with Free
Software -- and this includes even the artwork.
Well, we have the technology ...
:-)))
tim hall
1:38 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] how good are soundfonts and where do I find them?
tim hall wrote:
That's right... I can even make nice CG images for the CD cover that
rivals what could be done with commercial software like Maya or PRMan.
--
Rule of Feline Frustration:
When your cat has fallen asleep on your lap and looks utterly
content and adorable, you will suddenly have to go to the
bathroom.
A noble
cause... my ultimate dream is to produce a CD produced with Free
Software -- and this includes even the artwork.
Well, we have the technology ...
:-))) 
1:01 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] how good are soundfonts and where do I find them?
giovedì, 08 luglio 2004 alle 15:25:39, tim hall ha scritto:
To this end the soundfonts I use should really be
GPL'd or CC'd.
This is a rhodes piano sf2 I made a lot of time ago, and is GPL:
http://www.yeeking.net/audio/rhodes.tar.gz
The soundfont itself is not very well programmed, but the samples are cool,
IMHO... you can try to edit it with smurf/swami and see if can be useful to
you. The same guy that gave me those samples also has samples of a
mellotron, I ask him if they can be used for another GPL soundfont.
Ciao
--
Emiliano Grilli
Linux user #209089
http://www.emillo.net
1:28 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] how good are soundfonts and where do I find them?
On Thu, 8 Jul 2004 16:50:24 +0200
Emiliano Grilli <emiliano.grilli(a)poste.it> wrote:
giovedì, 08 luglio 2004 alle 15:25:39, tim hall ha
scritto:
nice! thanks!
flo
--
Palimm Palimm!
http://affenbande.org/~tapas/wiki
To this end the soundfonts I use should really be
GPL'd or CC'd.
This is a rhodes piano sf2 I made a lot of time ago, and is GPL:
http://www.yeeking.net/audio/rhodes.tar.gz
The soundfont itself is not very well programmed, but the samples are cool,
IMHO... you can try to edit it with smurf/swami and see if can be useful to
you. The same guy that gave me those samples also has samples of a
mellotron, I ask him if they can be used for another GPL soundfont.
1:34 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] how good are soundfonts and where do I find them?
On Thu, 8 Jul 2004 15:25:39 +0100, tim hall wrote
... I'm also on a mission
to find out how far you can get in computer music on next to no
money (e.g. welfare). I intend to disseminate what I've discovered
once I've achieved the objective, which is to basically record an
album using GNU tools on low cost / donated hardware. I want to show
that it can not only be done, but done well. To this end the
soundfonts I use should really be GPL'd or CC'd.
...
That's an interesting and admirable mission. It's taken awhile to get good,
stable GPL'd music software (some of which is about to turn "1.0"). I
imagine
in time we'll also see some good GPL'd samplesets too. I'm very interested
in
the results you achieve. Please keep us posted.
R.
==
7 Jul
7 Jul
8:31 a.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] how good are soundfonts and where do I find them?
On Wednesday 07 July 2004 10:10, Atte André Jensen wrote:
Being new to soundfonts I baically needed a decent
piano soundfont for
arranging stuff for my students, but after shopping around, I thought it
maybe could be taken a step further. So my question is: Are soundfonts
good enough for "real" music production? And where can I find nice ones
to download? I guess I'm looking for imitations of real instruments,
mostly piano, accoustic drums and bass, but expressive strings and other
orchestral sounds would also be nice.
You can find some nice sounds at
http://www.natural-studio.co.uk/sampled.htm
but you should read the copyright notice. The usage is not allowed in
commercial productions.
IMHO soundfonts are a serious alternative for "real" music productions. If you
don't use excessive filtering or modulation envelopes (and you won't like to
do that if you want natural sounds), the soundquality (nearly?) just depends
on the quality of the used samples. In general: I was usually satisfied with
soundfonts.
[...]
I also found alot of .sfArk sounds but it seems they
are in som kind of windows-only compressed format. I downloaded the
sfarkxtc_lx86.tar.gz but it complains "This file was created with sfArk
V1, and this program only handles sfArk V2+ files. Use sfArk instead."
on all the .sfArk-files I downloaded. Is there a linux utility that will
uncompress those files?
There seems to be a general problem with sfArk V1 files and unix-like
operating systems. Explaination:
http://www.melodymachine.com/sfark_linux.htm
Regards, Thomas
10:50 a.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] how good are soundfonts and where do I find them?
On Wed, 07 Jul 2004 10:10:02 +0200, Atte André Jensen wrote
...
Are soundfonts good enough for "real" music production? And where
can I find nice ones to download?
...
There are some good commercial soundfonts too, if you're willing to pay a bit
of money.
EMU Systems has several good soundfonts of their Proteus line (1,2,3,Mo Phatt,
Vintage, etc) as well as Orchestral and World instruments. Their Proteus and
Orchestral soundfonts are really quite good for the money.
The URL is: http://www.soundfont.com.
R.
==
12:52 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] how good are soundfonts and where do I find them?
Hi,
onsdagen den 7 juli 2004 10.10 skrev Atte André Jensen:
Hi
Being new to soundfonts I baically needed a decent piano soundfont for
arranging stuff for my students, but after shopping around, I thought it
maybe could be taken a step further. So my question is: Are soundfonts
good enough for "real" music production?
There is nothing wrong with the format in itself. It's more a question of what
soundfonts you can get your hands on. There are a few places where quality
soundfonts can be bought they oftenly sound pretty good.
More importantly though there are droves with free soundfonts ranging from
extremely good to really bad.
And where can I find nice ones
to download? I guess I'm looking for imitations of real instruments,
mostly piano, accoustic drums and bass, but expressive strings and other
orchestral sounds would also be nice.
The best site is still www.hammersound.net. There has been a few other sites
earlier but they have sadly disappeared.
So far I found the "FluidR3 GM.SF2" (142M), how does that compare to
what's outthere?
Sounds in FluidR3 are pretty good I suppose, I have used some of them. A lot
of work has gone into FluidR3 to make the sounds blend together. Sometimes I
think this takes away the edge for certain patches.
That the sounds blend together is important if you use the font to play ready
made midi files straight of. This is nothing that concerns me very much, I
mix and match from a lot of soundfonts and sound-types.
I'm more interested in sounds that feel original, they are oftenly not found
in the biggest and most highquality soundfonts.
Drums are an exception though, I'm on an constant crusade to find better, more
lifelike drums.
www.nskit.com is the current top of the crop. I'm going to try dfh in a while
too (that costs money though and is not a soundfont at all)
http://www.toontrack.com/index_samples.shtml
I also found alot of .sfArk sounds but it seems they
are in som kind of windows-only compressed format. I downloaded the
sfarkxtc_lx86.tar.gz but it complains "This file was created with sfArk
V1, and this program only handles sfArk V2+ files. Use sfArk instead."
on all the .sfArk-files I downloaded. Is there a linux utility that will
uncompress those files?
As has been noted, the windows utilities run fine under Wine, not a perfect
solution but it works.
I run debian/unstable and plan on using fluidsynth and rosegarden if it
matters...
Pretty much all music on my page below is done using fluidsynth (though that
might not be good exemples of how soundfonts sound ;-P).
Regards
Robert
--
http://spamatica.se/music/
4:47 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] how good are soundfonts and where do I find them?
So far I found the "FluidR3 GM.SF2" (142M),
how does that compare to
what's outthere?
I can't say I've used a *lot* of soundfonts, but from the ones I've
used, this one sounds the best. But (I personally) found the sterio
panning of the samples to be a hinderance. It gives me less control of
the "left/right spectrum". I've had to set all the panning effects to
the middle. And then there's the issue of "do I merge the two ("left
sample" and "right sample") as one sample. Or do I use the best sounding
sample of the two" (to knock the size down *a lot*). It's been a lot of
work (and it's not done), but I have a lot more control over panning
with the "mono version".
That covers "recoding my own music". But also, I find that other
people's midi files were created with "mono fonts" so the panning is
weird when played back with the FluidR3 GM.SF2 soundfont.
BTW... Why would anyone put a space in a file name? Isn't this just
asking for trouble?
Rocco
6:19 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] how good are soundfonts and where do I find them?
Atte André Jensen wrote:
Hi
Thanks for all the great advice.
I ran sfark through wine with success, thanks for that advice. I also
grabbed the NS_Piano, which sounds quite good. I still have some
figuring out to do, but now I got started.
--
peace, love & harmony
Atte
http://www.atte.dk
7:24 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] how good are soundfonts and where do I find them?
Thanks for all the great advice.
I ran sfark through wine with success, thanks for that advice. I also
grabbed the NS_Piano, which sounds quite good. I still have some
figuring out to do, but now I got started.
A popular sound font editors is "Swami"
Swami is the new name for the Smurf Sound Font Editor. The reason I'm
directing you to Smurf instead of Swami is because the last time I tried
Swami, it couldn't save an edited soundfont. Smurf works perfectly good
though...
http://smurf.sourceforge.net
Rocco
7489
days inactive
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13 participants
participants (13)
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Atte André Jensen -
Chris Cannam -
Christian Schoenebeck -
Emiliano Grilli -
Florian Schmidt -
LinuxMedia -
Mark Knecht -
Michal Kostrzewa -
Rick Henry -
Robert Jonsson -
Them -
Thomas Kerstgens -
tim hall