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Topic: How do you get more instruments? (Read 4827 times) previous topic - next topic

How do you get more instruments?

How do you get more than just four instruments available? Is there a way to download more?

Re: How do you get more instruments?

Reply #1 –
Four instruments? There are 128 instruments available in the General Midi patch list, and any of those can be reassigned to other instruments on sound-font capable sound cards.

Even the very rudimentary SB16 FM synth has 128 instrument voices, though many of them are admittedly quite similar.

A more detailed question might help give more detailed answers.

Regards,
Fred

Re: How do you get more instruments?

Reply #2 –
Hi Fred, I'm gonna jump in here 'cause you mentioned something that I could use help with. I just installed a 'Sound Blaster Live' card and now everything sounds a bit 'brassy' (perhaps 'tinny' would be a better word). Just how does one go about assigning a different sound to the instruments to get back to my 'mellow' sound?
Thanx
The Hankster

Re: How do you get more instruments?

Reply #3 –
Hi Hank,

Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I'm not myself an SBLive! user. So I'm hoping that some happy SBLive! owner will jump in here to help out with the care and feeding of this little beastie.

I think that Sue Morton did up a fairly comprehensive rundown in a forum thread some time ago, you might try a search for "SBLive!" and/or "soundfonts" to see if that brings it up for you.

Regards,
Fred

Re: How do you get more instruments?

Reply #4 –
Thanx Fred, I'll do that there thing.

Re: How do you get more instruments?

Reply #5 –
I agree with Fred. If you can get Sue Morton online, she has the answers to your question. She has the gift of clarity and brevity that you need to master this situation.

Regards,
Gordon

Re: How do you get more instruments?

Reply #6 –
Sorry it took so long to get here, because I forgot what the URL was to noteworthy.... Anyway, you said of 128 instruments? How do you get those to be used? I've tried several things, but all I get is four available. All I see available is Piano, Quartet, satb [?], and vocalacc [?]. Do you have any clue how to get the other 124? I also have "blank score" available, but, uh, that's a piano one.... I downloaded an older copy of noteworthy originally, but since it said that there was a missing font [it never done it before until I made backup files of everything and did the total system restoration [it was acting up so bad that I had no choice]], I had to download another copy of it. It was downloaded three days prior to the first post of this thread here by me.

Re: How do you get more instruments?

Reply #7 –
Nick, what you're looking at are score templates. This has really nothing to do with which instrument sounds, it's just a convenience to give you some common starting points.

Instruments are assigned for any given staff by going to Staff Properties (keyboard shortcut F2), Instruments tab. It'll be pretty obvious from there.

You can also change instruments during the course of a staff by using Insert Instrument Patch (keyboard shortcut i or I).

It might be a good idea to take a tour through the "Getting Started" portion of the help file, or follow through the examples given in the user manual.

Regards,
Fred

Re: How do you get more instruments?

Reply #8 –
Well, for one thing, I don't have a user's manual except what's on the computer. I couldn't find it in there, so that's why I asked....
 

Re: How do you get more instruments?

Reply #9 –
Nick, start with Alt-F (file) New and then select blank score. That gives you a single stave on your screen which you can customize any way you want - whichever clef, keysignature, etc. you want. If you want a second stave, press the big plus sign that doesn't have a magnifying glass around it. Keep doing that until you get as many staves as you need.

You can then press F2 to set staff properties, chose the Visual tab on the popdown window, then click on the arrow beside Style, which will give you 4 choices for the end brackets.

In the same popdown window is a tab for Instrument. Go there and pick one of the 128 or however many there are for the staff you were on before you started this process.

The screen display options will carry on to the printout (check the print preview if you wish), but they differ from the sound playback options.

Hope this helps a bit.