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Soundfont Confusion

i have a Audigy 2 ZS. i have set my SB X-Fi Synth A device to hold three different soundfont banks. SB X-Fi Synth B is the default bank that was installed with the card. i did this using the Creative Soundfont Bank Manager.

in NWC, i went under Tools>>Options>>Midi tab and set the device playback so that SB X-Fi Synth A is the first playback device with SB X-Fi Synth B as the secondary and the rest in no particular order.  When i play back a file, it plays the incorrect instruments. if i go into staff properties to define instrument, it only shows me the defauls instrument tree. it doesn't show me the instrument tree for the soundfonts i've loaded. so i guess if i switch the playback device from SB X-Fi Synth A to SB X-Fi Synth B (the original soundfont bank for my soundcard), it plays back correctly. am i right in concluding that instrument patch 72 is different instruments in the two soundfont banks? how do i fix this? how do i get it to show me the tree for the soundfont bank i loaded into SB X-Fi Synth A?

geez. i hope that made sense. please lead me on this. in the past, i've done notation in NWC, then imported the files into cakewalk to apply soundfonts. i really want to learn how to do this in NWC to skip the conversion steps.
AIM me at drolar1 (home) or drolar2 (work)

Re: Soundfont Confusion

Reply #1 –
Soundfont assignment in NWC is done using instrument trees, and yes, different soundfonts assign different instruments to the same number. (Except for GM - general MIDI - which is the same across all sound cards. Or, at least, is supposed to be the same.) To learn more, go to the "instrument trees" section of this forum and click on "getting started with NWC2 instrument trees." Or just click this link.

Regards,

Bill

Re: Soundfont Confusion

Reply #2 –
thanks! i read that earlier, but i didn't realize it was for soundfonts. now i know.
AIM me at drolar1 (home) or drolar2 (work)

Re: Soundfont Confusion

Reply #3 –
G'day Drolar,
if you haven't already figured it out, iTree's are manually created/edited.  The fact that you have different soundfonts, or perhaps, a non GM soundfont is NOT automatically detected.  You need to know the instrument assignment and you need to edit an iTree based on that knowledge.

As for your playback devices, you will find that it is usually better to simply have only one playback device defined.  There are several reasons for this.  The most compelling being the ability to share files.  If people don't realise that there are sounds from multiple devices they won't hear what you've written...

The next most compelling is to minimise your own confusion, it's easy to lose track.  Of course, if you NEED more than 16 channels or you want/need a wider variety of sounds than one soundfont/bank can provide then you do what you must.  It's just that I'm a great believer in KISS.

At this point I would mildly disagree with William in that technically speaking the iTree doesn't do soundfont assignment, but it DOES make it easier to use the sounds defined in a soundfont without having to refer to some kind of conversion table to know which GM instrument to select to get the correct bank and instrument numbers for your particular soundfont's contents.  In effect the iTree does the conversion for you.

Hope I haven't muddied the waters...
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: Soundfont Confusion

Reply #4 –
not at all. the water is clear.

i looked at all the itrees in my itree folder and compared it to a couple i downloaded from the scriptorium and to the sample on the link william gave me. i did figure out you have to create it manually and that the =n is the instrument assignment. any files i share will be with the default, that's why i kept it in one of the playback devices. the other device is strictly for converting files to wav for putting on cd's.

thanks for you input!
AIM me at drolar1 (home) or drolar2 (work)

Re: Soundfont Confusion

Reply #5 –
Thanks for jumping in here, Lawrie, and of course you are technically correct. I just prefer to define the iTrees and then let them do the work of assigning soundfonts. That way I only have to look up the patch and bank numbers once, and I don't have to memorize anything.

Cheers,

Bill

Re: Soundfont Confusion

Reply #6 –
Now, if only there was an easy way to write an iTree!

Tony
 

Re: Soundfont Confusion

Reply #7 –
I hear you, Tony. But I'm kinda glad that the iTrees are in plain text format and don't require a special piece of software, or a special section of NWC, to edit - just a decent text editor. And you shouldn't have to do it very often. I keep just two trees - a GM tree for MIDIs I send to other people, and what I call my "composing tree" which has all my favorite soundfonts on it, all plainly labeled. I can see there might be occasions when one would want to create others, but so far I haven't run into any. When I need an instrument I don't have, I just add it to the composing tree.

Regards,

Bill