2018-10-16 18:33:09 (edited by akse0435 2018-10-21 19:49:41)

Hi,

I have some questions about various soundfonts.

1. Do anyone know which soundfont the Braille Sense U2 uses? I looked through the program files, and found out, that the soundfont is splitted up into a lot of .pat files with one instrument in each. So, if noone know which soundfont it is, is it then possible to combine the pat-files into one sf2-soundfont?

2. Do anyone know which soundfont is used in VocalWriter on mac? After hearing a lot of VocalWriter songs, I think it sounds interesting, and I am interested in using the soundfont on my Windows-computer.

3. How can I convert a dls-file to a sf2-file? I'm interested in converting the gm.dls file from Windows into an sf2-file to use it as a soundfont in other programs, and maybe also with the winnt one. Someone sent me the gm.dls converted into sf2 a long time ago, but I've lost the file. So how to do it?

Thanks in advance.

Best regards:
Aksel Christoffersen

2018-10-16 22:02:31

The Braille Sense uses a media player called GS Player, and it uses timidity++ in its MIDI plugin. Timidity++ is a cross platform MIDI synthesizer that can load sf2 soundfonts or Gravis Ultrasound patches. You can configure the program to lode the gm.cfg file.
There is already a soundfont based on gm.dls. It is called scc1t2.sf2, and it should pop up in a google search.

2018-10-16 22:11:51

I don't fully understand that. Is Timidity++ the name of the soundfont, or is it the plug-in that plays the soundfont?

Also, I know the Scc1t2 soundfont, but I'm still interested in converting dls to sf2, if it's possible.

2018-10-16 23:13:52

Convert DLS to SF2. Extreme Sample Converter for that purpose, or Awave Studio. Both are shareware.

Yamaha YM2608

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SAY! - Sonic the Hedgehog CD (Dec 4, 1992 prototype)

2018-10-16 23:24:13

Thanks. I'll check those programs out

2018-10-17 01:30:32 (edited by datajake1999 2018-10-17 01:31:11)

Timidity++ is the name of the program.
I uploaded a preconfigured version with the patch set from GS player.
http://grossgang.com/utilities/timidity.7z

2018-10-17 02:17:55 (edited by Slender 2018-10-17 02:24:15)

The soundfont in use by the U2 is the default GM patch set that came with the Gravis Ultrasound, a sound card released in 1992. Someone converted the patch set in to an SF2 once, but I've never managed to find the sf2 and the links I've found have always been dead.

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2018-10-17 03:27:37

oh i just love soundfonts! You can also download an application on windows called synthfont, and you can have a sf2 file in place of dull windows media player. I've a good few soundfonts to use, one of then is a yamaha gm820. Oh beautiful it is.

2018-10-17 03:59:18 (edited by magurp244 2018-10-17 04:21:21)

Ah, the Gravis Ultrasound. Good times.

I did some digging and I think I found a working link for that Gravis Ultrasound SF2 [here], a guy going by Samu seems to have left it on a dropbox link [here]. You can also find some of the original GUS patches [here] among other things, they seem to be popular in the ZDoom community.

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2018-10-17 04:09:33

ah yes! Oh i some what sticking with various soundfonts really fun. I've a .zip file containing good soundfonts and various information on it's change log and how to use it. Totally brilliant

2018-10-17 04:49:36

Thanks Magurp244, that was indeed the soundfont I was looking for. One to keep handy. A quick glance at it shows that it's decently faithful to the original, but not quite; one of the metronomes on the drum kit sounds wrong and there was an odd panning choice for notes C4 and below on the String Ensemble 1 patch in the original set that wasn't emulated in the SF2.

Oh no! Somebody released the h key! Everybody run and hide!

2018-10-17 04:57:42

Hm, well as Samu put it:

To access the drums you need to set the midi channel to #10 in BS-16i.

The samples in the GUS pack are 'hot' so you might need to lower the part-level to avoid distortion...

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2018-10-17 05:53:14

@akse0435 If you download Awave Studio, the most accessible version is the 10.1. From 10.2 to the latest version (11.2) is totally unusable.

Yamaha YM2608

YOU
SAY! - Sonic the Hedgehog CD (Dec 4, 1992 prototype)

2018-10-17 07:17:03

My very first computer had what I'm pretty sure was an Ensoniq Audio PCI sound card. That was one of the coolest fonts I've ever heard. Unfortunately, it was never converted to SF2 that I know of.

2018-10-17 07:58:41 (edited by magurp244 2018-10-17 08:19:58)

The Ensoniq Audio PCI seems to have a rather interesting history. Creative acquired Ensoniq in 1998, their cards used MIDI sounds in 2, 4, and 8 megabyte wavetables stored in ECW format. When Creative moved on to SF2 Soundfont formats in their later cards two years later, they never migrated the ECW wavetables into the newer SF2 format, or any way to load them. I've managed to dig up a few of the ECW wavesets, and it turns out someone has attempted to extract and port them over to SF2 format, but didn't quite finish. There's a 2mb and 8mb font conversion, so you could check that out.

[ECW to SF2 Conversion]
[Ensoniq AudioPCI 8MB ecw waveset]
[Ensoniq Driver]

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2018-10-17 08:25:17

Wow, that was a lot of posts.

Anyway, I downloaded the sf2 version of the gravis soundfont, and to me, it sounds like a cleaned up version of the soundfont that's in the U2.

2018-10-17 09:37:39

OK, after hearing some vocalwriter songs converted into midi with the Gravis soundfont, I have a feeling that it reminds a lot of the actual soundfont in VocalWriter. It's not the same, but...

Do anyone know which soundfont VocalWriter uses, or if it's just build into the mac?

2018-10-17 15:40:14

Hi.
The instruments that were used in VocalWriter songs by Flint Million are built into the Mac, as they are from QuickTime's MIDI implementation (basically it was a low class General MIDI soundbank).

2018-10-17 15:51:59

I thought Quick Time used gm.dls. AT least it does on Windows, though it would make the most sense for it to use that. I wonder if later versions of it on Mac do as well, and if you'd need the Mac OS version that Flint used to get the old more gritty sounds that are used in his Vocal WRiter tracks?

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2018-10-17 16:06:12 (edited by akse0435 2018-10-17 16:07:13)

I run VocalWriter on a Mac with OS X 10.6 Snow Leopart. As blind I can't operate the program, but with sited help I've played the demo songs, and the are the exact same instruments as in Flint's music, and in the DECtalk archive's demo songs. They were just converted to mp3 after saving as aif.

2018-10-17 19:10:07 (edited by musicalman 2018-10-17 19:11:42)

Hmm, on that Mac if you use other players like Quick Time that can play midi files, do they use that sound set? I don't know how Mac handles midi devices but does Vocal Writer perhaps install its own midi driver like some programs can on Windows? If the sound set is not accessible to other drivers then it's probably a Vocal Writer exclusive sound set, but I am sure I've heard that sound set elsewhere.

IN any case, I'd be interested in trying to sift through the Vocal Writer app file. Maybe there's a demo floating around which I can try to extract resources from. Maybe I can find recognizable files or find the raw samples used for the synth, so that a SoundFont could be made. It's a bit of a longshot but not necessarily impossible.

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2018-10-17 19:24:40

I don't know how to play a midi-file with Quicktime. Last time I tried I couldn't find out how to do it.

There's a file in the VocalWriter app called gm soundbank or something, but the size of it is about 0KB.

I'll try to play a midi file in another program NeXT time I turn the mac on, and if I can't, then I'll just take the harddrive out and check it on my Windows computer.

2018-10-17 19:42:38

I think Flint used a Yamaha keyboard in his Vocalwriter songs, he did make a note on his page that there was a lot of postprocessing done on the songs, adding reverb, panning etc, that were apparently things that Vocalwriter could not do on its own.

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2018-10-17 19:45:08

I'm sure he used the soundbank build into VocalWriter for the Whole most of the music. I heard the demotracks, that were shipped with VocalWriter, and it's the same soundbank as in the most of his music. I think the note about a Yamaha synthesizer on his site reffers to the re-make of his music, that he's corrently working on.

2018-10-17 19:58:32

I think the Vocalwriter synth is not a standard soundfont, I haven't been able to find an SF2 or DLS bank anywhere in the DMG.

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