Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, Captain Ned
just brew it! wrote:I use FluidSynth on Linux. It supposedly supports Windows, but I have no idea how stable the Windows version is as I have not tried it.
Hz so good wrote:I asked this in another thread, and got no bites (My phrasing it poorly didn't help). So, here's a hopefully better explained version of what I'm after, what I've found available, and what I need it to work with.
Way back in the day (DOS6.22), I had a rather crappy sound card (SoundMan Wave, unfortunately) that I tried to listen to GM music with. The tiny 2MB Patch ROM resulted in over-compressed samples, which sounded terrible. Not to mention the dreaded "Hanging Note", like in Tie Fighter.
It was like listening along to the intro music, when suddenly one note hung, and became the MIDI version of this:
Now that computer components have moved on, and we have 2 VM programs to let me play my old games of yesteryear - ScummVM and DosBOX. The built in GM/MT-32 for ScummVM is respectable enough that I'm not worried about changing anything, but DosBOX give me the change to use a windows Virtual GM/GS/XG synth as a driver. I just have to supply the patches. And since some of the freely available soundfonts/patch sets range form 300MB to 1.6GB, I'd like to go back some of my older games, and see what the GM music sounds like with the larger soundfonts.
Roland and Yamaha both put out virtual synths of their own, but they support only up to XP. I use Win7 Ultimate 64bit. The only thing I can find is VirtualMIDISynth from Coolsoft, and I'm not sure it'll work like I need it to.
Any audio people out here know what I should be looking for, and OpenSource projects to look into? Any recommendations?
Hz so good wrote:Speaking of trying to get better audio, what are the good 2.1 PC speaker sets to look for these days? Last good set I had was from Cambridge Soundworks, back in late 90's/early 2000's.
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:I'm using BassMIDI driver, with the following sound fonts (stacked):
SGM V2.01
Bellatrix Orchestra
Drums! by Slavo
The Bellatrix Orchestra needs to be edited to assign the correct GM patch, though, then put it on top of SGM. The Bellatrix Orchestra handles anything orchestra while the SGM does the rest.
Hz so good wrote:Speaking of trying to get better audio, what are the good 2.1 PC speaker sets to look for these days? Last good set I had was from Cambridge Soundworks, back in late 90's/early 2000's.
Captain Ned wrote:Oh my, the 1970s are calling. That rig would have been top-end in my freshman dorm in the fall of 1981.
just brew it! wrote:Don't you dare cut through my lawn getting off of Ned's!
Captain Ned wrote:just brew it! wrote:Don't you dare cut through my lawn getting off of Ned's!
I fear we are the last of the vinyl. The current hipster blip will not last. Music just isn't right if you can't see the pickup head bobbing up and down in response to the warps in the record.
Hz so good wrote:Any idea why I can't add more than one soundfont to BassMidi? I added SGM, but now I can't add a second, even trying port A or B.
Hz so good wrote:Holy Schnikies! That's an awesome setup!
Captain Ned wrote:Oh my, the 1970s are calling. That rig would have been top-end in my freshman dorm in the fall of 1981. That Sansui is from the era of the WPC wars, usually fought in the ad pages of Playboy.
Captain Ned wrote:Also like the copy of Falcon 4.0 in the background.
Captain Ned wrote:You can modify the bass response of those JBLs by stuffing socks in the ports. Get it right and the one-note boom goes away. Woofer surrounds look OK, but the cones need some attention.
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:Thanks, but it's not boomy at all. In fact, it's articulate, although it also depends on the amp. With Sansui amps (AU-7900, A-40), the bass sounds thinner, but more accurate. With cheaper amps (like NAD C375BEE), the bass starts become boomy.
Also, the Sansui outputs cleaner, more accuate HF, while the NAD's HF sounds harsh.
Hz so good wrote:I can't tell the difference, but he swears he can. He even bought two stupidly expensive AMPs (one per speaker) that are so heavy, they've buckled the hardwood floor beneath them.
And he's only 40, so it seems vinyl is sticking around for a bit. Plus, in jamaica/bahamas, it's cheaper for aspiring artists to press vinyl, than it is to get CDs produced, so there's still a thriving market there.
/I dodged your lawn just brew it during my escape. That dog scared me to death (and I treat rottweilers, chow chows, pit bulls, and wolf-huskies like puppies. Never been bit once)
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:Hz so good wrote:Any idea why I can't add more than one soundfont to BassMidi? I added SGM, but now I can't add a second, even trying port A or B.
What? It's as easy as clicking on the Add button.Hz so good wrote:Holy Schnikies! That's an awesome setup!
Thanks!
Anyway, if anyone just happen to spot a pair of JBL 044Ti tweeters in fully functional condition, please let me know. I'm willing to pay upfront. No, my tweeters are fine, but it feels better when you have spares.
Hz so good wrote:Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:Hz so good wrote:Any idea why I can't add more than one soundfont to BassMidi? I added SGM, but now I can't add a second, even trying port A or B.
What? It's as easy as clicking on the Add button.Hz so good wrote:Holy Schnikies! That's an awesome setup!
Thanks!
Anyway, if anyone just happen to spot a pair of JBL 044Ti tweeters in fully functional condition, please let me know. I'm willing to pay upfront. No, my tweeters are fine, but it feels better when you have spares.
I think it was the soundfonts I was trying to use. I got the ones you recommended (Bellatrix Orchestra and Drums!) to add. It's odd, because SGM added right off the bat. Maybe the SFARK program I was using didn't properly convert them to sf2, maybe? I was trying CrysisGM3.0.1 Muystik, and FluidR3, and neither of those would add to the list.
Hz so good wrote:*EDIT*
"The Bellatrix Orchestra needs to be edited to assign the correct GM patch, though, then put it on top of SGM. The Bellatrix Orchestra handles anything orchestra while the SGM does the rest."
Can you explain to me how to do that? The assignment, I mean.
Captain Ned wrote:Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:Thanks, but it's not boomy at all. In fact, it's articulate, although it also depends on the amp. With Sansui amps (AU-7900, A-40), the bass sounds thinner, but more accurate. With cheaper amps (like NAD C375BEE), the bass starts become boomy.
Also, the Sansui outputs cleaner, more accuate HF, while the NAD's HF sounds harsh.
So, you have outed yourself an an audiophile.
Nice to know I'm not the only one here.
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:IIRC you should unzip them first. Do they came in .7z format? I didn't remember.
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:You should use a sound font editor, which is an entirely different application than software synthesizer (I use Vienna). For example, the GM instrument number for Trombone is 57, but Bellatrix Orchestra doesn't adhere to GM standard, so its Trombone instrument number is 5 or 6 or something (don't quite remember, it was 2012 when I did a complete revamp of Bellatrix Orchestra), so you should use a sound font editor to change each instrument number to the proper GM standard.
Hz so good wrote:Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:IIRC you should unzip them first. Do they came in .7z format? I didn't remember.
I did, but some were in SFARK format, not sf2. That may have been the problem. The sf2 format ones worked like a champ.
Hz so good wrote:Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:You should use a sound font editor, which is an entirely different application than software synthesizer (I use Vienna). For example, the GM instrument number for Trombone is 57, but Bellatrix Orchestra doesn't adhere to GM standard, so its Trombone instrument number is 5 or 6 or something (don't quite remember, it was 2012 when I did a complete revamp of Bellatrix Orchestra), so you should use a sound font editor to change each instrument number to the proper GM standard.
Thanks! I'll snag Vienna. Is there a list out there of what channel Bellatrix uses vs the GM standard? Is there a GS or XG soundfont pack out there that would let me check those out, as well? I was always jealous when I was a kid, that I couldn't afford an MT-32, SoundCanvas, nor a Yamaha XG board.
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:Hz so good wrote:Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:IIRC you should unzip them first. Do they came in .7z format? I didn't remember.
I did, but some were in SFARK format, not sf2. That may have been the problem. The sf2 format ones worked like a champ.
IIRC SFARK is still a compressed format, so you should uncompress it to SF2 format. I don't quite remember, my complete list of sound font utils are on my former hard drive.Hz so good wrote:Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:You should use a sound font editor, which is an entirely different application than software synthesizer (I use Vienna). For example, the GM instrument number for Trombone is 57, but Bellatrix Orchestra doesn't adhere to GM standard, so its Trombone instrument number is 5 or 6 or something (don't quite remember, it was 2012 when I did a complete revamp of Bellatrix Orchestra), so you should use a sound font editor to change each instrument number to the proper GM standard.
Thanks! I'll snag Vienna. Is there a list out there of what channel Bellatrix uses vs the GM standard? Is there a GS or XG soundfont pack out there that would let me check those out, as well? I was always jealous when I was a kid, that I couldn't afford an MT-32, SoundCanvas, nor a Yamaha XG board.
No, there is no such list, but you will discover it easily when editing the sound font, then simply change each instrument to the correct GM instrument number.
Hz so good wrote:So SFARK is a compression program, not a convertor? Huh! Learn something new every day!
Thank you very much!
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:Hz so good wrote:So SFARK is a compression program, not a convertor? Huh! Learn something new every day!
Thank you very much!
Indeed, SFARK is a compressed format. Try here. You should not compress an already-compressed SFARK file with an SFARK compression utility; you should use SFKAR decompression utility to decompress SFARK to SF2.
Anyway, you said you're posting in Vogons too. Well, I'm also in Vogons (note the longest thread in Miliways ).
The Egg wrote:I can't really help here, but the discussion is very interesting. My first soundcard was a Sound Blaster AWE32, and to this day it still had some of the best MIDI playback I've ever heard. I used to sit for hours and listen to MIDI versions of classical music from Comptons Encyclopedia. When played on any other soundcard, it sounded pathetic by comparison. I do remember some stuff with different SoundFonts, but I think the default one generally sounded the best.
Other than that, I probably didn't know how to fully use the rest of the features on the card. I was mostly interested in games at the time. I'm pretty sure I tried adding 30-pin SIMMS, but it either didn't work or had no effect (that I was able to distinguish). Great card though.
just brew it! wrote:If you're willing to set up a secondary system or dual-boot, it appears that Linux + FluidSynth + DOSBox may be a workable combination.
Hz so good wrote:The last soundcard I bought was an AWE64 Gold, and with the extra SIMMs, you could load custom soundfonts. Made listening to regular MIDI files a thing of beauty. It did nothing for game music, though.
It's a shame the GUS didn't catch on. Instead of standard soundfonts, game devs could load custom soundfonts, which really made every game sound unique. I tried it out in DosBOX with Star Control 2, and the difference was night and day. No wonder the MOD scene snapped them all up.