My dream is finally fulfilled with NWC2!

2017-01-27 12:11 pm

Okay, perhaps my dreams are a bit small...

But I just upgraded my desktop system to a Dell XPS 8900, and was finally able to play Tina Billett's scores without hangs or errors! This with one of the best soundfonts that I have ever used for orchestration (I hate to say I paid for a soundfont that is pathetic compared to this). In fact, I couldn't find a score that wouldn't play!

The new 24" display is also great, providing that extra horizontal space I always wished for.

Here is a tip to get the results I did...quite simple, actually:

1. Get CoolSoft VirtualMIDISynth: http://coolsoft.altervista.org. This eliminates the need for the troublesome and inefficient MIDI loopback utilities that seem to get bogged down and suffer overloading issues. Instead, this tool is a MIDI device that can be accessed directly by the Windows MIDI mapper as a device.

2. Download the Timbres of Heaven soundfont: http://midkar.com/soundfonts/coolsoft.html. In fact, this page is a great tutorial for installing it all.

I still keep VSTSynthFont64.dll around for soundfont rendering from within the VST realm, but only with products such as PG Music's Band-In-A-Box or Realband, where it is advantageous to have both MIDI device and VST options available (BIAB requires VST for MP3 generation...).

Now, to realize a few more dreams in creating instead of just playing around!