So, whats in your Opinion the best soundfont available ?

akuma · *Last edited by akuma; 02-12-2008 at 13:50.*

I am not sure if it even belongs into these Forums, neither am i sure if this hasn't been asked before and discussed through serveral times but iam going to ask it anyway.

So whats in your opinion the best available GM SoundFont (.sf2)?

Iam right now searching for a suitable one for my midi files, preferably ones that you can load into the Memory with the "Creative SoundFont Bank Manager" ( which means max. about 250-300 MB)

but iam open for any that need some 3rd party tool, too.

To date i tested Fluid R3, several free ones that i cant remember, and two commercial ones too - Papelmedia GM 2006 ( dont have 2007, so i dont know if thats any better ) and the Sonivox GM250 one, and ofcourse the good old CT2(4,8)MGM.

From those i tested i would say the Papelmedia ones the best, most realistic, but they got weak Piano Sets ( my opinion )

I am not sure if SoundFont's are still "in", does anyone care about them anyways anymore ?

Well i certainly do, so i hope some of you guys got some treasures which will make me happy in my pants.

Thanks in advance!

burn_654 · 02-12-2008, 19:49 | posts: 9

hello,

DEFINITELY try out the sgm soundfonts. (http://www.geocities.jp/shansoundfont/). they're free, and really high quality. as of right now V2 is beta but both are excellent really. ~200-300mb if I recall.

he has some audio demo's too so you can check out what he's done with them...quite impressive. oh, and I thought the piano was quite nice imo.

give it a shot!

akuma · 02-13-2008, 12:04 | posts: 11

Thanks Burn!

that Soundfont truly is excellent, especially if you consider the fact that its completly free

Very sharp, nice instruments and a nice piano set too

that being said i still have to admit that the Papelmedia Soundfont is just more realistic and beefier

even though some Instruments are too quite while others are too loud
it just makes the midi sound so much more like a recording with a real band and/or orchestra

here a little proof

http://rapidshare.com/files/91454197...Theme.mp3.html

first part is Shan's Soundfont while the last part is recorded with the Papelmedia Soundfont, no modifications were made.

Biges · 04-09-2008, 04:53 | posts: 24 | Location: Prague

May I use this abandoned topic?

What smaller soundfont would you recommend? Just for mids from old games (oldies for DOS

). So far I use 8MB Merlin Plus 1.3.
Thanks

MadMax · 04-12-2008, 09:50 | posts: 3 | Location: Berlin, Germany

I can recommend the "65.8mg Music Man GM GS V1.0 Bank". If I remember correctly, it's the GS-enhanced version of the "Soundsite-Font". The Descent(1/2)-midis just rock using it!

Stormyandcold · 04-12-2008, 10:09 | posts: 2,394 | Location: Wolverhampton, UK

www.sf2midi.com to get it, you've got to register first though.

Biges · 04-17-2008, 16:22 | posts: 24 | Location: Prague

Thank you both, I'm downloading the font now

proteo · 04-18-2008, 21:44 | posts: 90 | Location: Mexico

It's possible to load this SoundFonts on some software sinthesizer to play old games? At least anything that it's better than the MS Soft Synth?
Thanks

Biges · 04-19-2008, 04:32 | posts: 24 | Location: Prague

I finally tested "65.8mg Music Man GM GS V1.0 Bank". Thanks for the tip - MIDi is not dead!

Biges · 04-19-2008, 04:33 | posts: 24 | Location: Prague

Quote:

Originally Posted by proteo

It's possible to load this SoundFonts on some software sinthesizer to play old games? At least anything that it's better than the MS Soft Synth?
Thanks

Hm. You think with DOSBox?

proteo · 04-19-2008, 17:24 | posts: 90 | Location: Mexico

I was thinking on ScummVM, but now that I think about it, I believe there are a few old DOS games somewhere around here, if I can find them....

I'm downloading the Music Man soundfont to test if ScummVM can load it directly.

Biges · 04-19-2008, 20:14 | posts: 24 | Location: Prague

Let us know the results

proteo · *Last edited by proteo; 04-21-2008 at 23:52.*

I can't hear any difference, but only tested "Beneath a Steel Sky" and "The Secret of Monkey Island" so far; from the little information I can found, it looks like I can only load .dls banks, but not SoundFonts on the software synthetizer. I'm downloading a dls bank to try next and try with a bunch of midi files I found on a old backup.

EDIT:
I can play midi files using SF2 banks with SynthFont, and the difference it's amazing

. Now i have to find a way to convert the SF2 file to DLS 2, to make it the default soundbank and replace the gm.dls file from Windows.

EDIT 2:
finally converted some SF2 banks to DSL, I'll test later to see how it works, meanwhile, winamp has a few problems with some midi files, some instruments are replaced with the piano, especially when listening to Jean Michel Jarre's Oxygen 4 and Second Rendezvous.

proteo · 04-23-2008, 21:14 | posts: 90 | Location: Mexico

The games I tried in ScummVM I could not find any difference in the music quality, I'll search if there is an interesting games that uses a Midi soundtrack. Any recomendations?
Thanks

MadMax · 04-23-2008, 21:32 | posts: 3 | Location: Berlin, Germany

It seems as if scummvm only includes a soundfont management (for soundcards supporting them in hardware) and no soundfont-based softsynth. That's why you could'nt hear any difference, there wasn't any...

But the readme mentions a possible softsynth: Fluidsynth.

proteo · 04-24-2008, 00:17 | posts: 90 | Location: Mexico

allready looked at that possibility, but I think it's too much trouble, it needs to be compiled from the source code with fluidsynth 1.0, or modify the code to use 1.0.8, at least under Windows.

Sevenz · 04-29-2010, 19:22 | posts: 93

Upgrading MIDI for ScummVM: http://forums.scummvm.org/viewtopic.php?t=5346