Installing soundfonts

Topic: Installing soundfonts (Read 5075 times) previous topic - next topic

Installing soundfonts

2008-11-08 09:09 pm

I have read several of the posts regarding soundfonts and still am a bit confused. I too, am trying for a deeper richer sound for the timpani.
I have a Creative SB X-fi Audio card and wondered if it supports these fonts? This is a new computer to me and I don't have the info on the card. Thanks for any help you can give me. btw - this program rocks!

Re: Installing soundfonts

Reply #1 – 2008-11-08 09:51 pm

In their wisdom, Creative have chosen to NOT support soundfonts in their lowest X-Fi soundcard (the Xtreme Music) - you must have at least the Xtreme Gamer in order to be able to change soundfonts. Thankyou Creative

Re: Installing soundfonts

Reply #2 – 2008-11-09 01:10 am

You can still check out soundfonts on your card if you use the method proscribed by Lawrie.
http://nwc-scriptorium.org/helpful.html#Explanations
"VST for Dummies Like Me"

For convenience all the files you need are here.

Download and install MIDI Yoke.
http://tinyurl.com/2rq3rh/MidiYokeSetup.msi
REBOOT - you will now have 8 new MIDI IN and MIDI Out ports.

Download and install VST Host
http://tinyurl.com/2rq3rh/vsthost.zip

Download and copy VSTSynthfont.dll into your VST Plugins folder.
http://tinyurl.com/2rq3rh/VSTSynthFont.dll

Follow the instructions in Lawrie's excellent "VST for Dummies pdf".

As a bonus here is a soundfont to try - for Timpani you can find better ones at Hammersound (link below).
http://tinyurl.com/2rq3rh/Chaos8.zip

Hammersound
http://www.hammersound.net/cgi-bin/soundlink.pl

And finally - I suggest you chain a Reverb Effect after Synthfont in VST Host.
This be greatly improve the quality of playback.
Classic Reverb
http://tinyurl.com/2rq3rh/Classic Reverb.dll
Copy to your VST Plugins folder.

When this is first loaded into VST Host it might start feedback.
Quickly mute it - (the speaker icon lower-right in the Classic Reverb gadget).
After it has been chained after Synthfont it can be unmuted.
Right-click the Classic Reverb gadget ans select Window>Edit to reveal the controls.
You can load an ambience - Right-click Classic Reverb and Load Program 0-15.

A short tutorial on using Classic Reverb with VST Host here:-
http://tinyurl.com/2rq3rh/Classic.pdf

--------------
Barry Graham
Melbourne, Australia

Re: Installing soundfonts

Reply #3 – 2008-11-14 03:11 pm

Also, beware that using soundfonts in any Creative X-FI laptop product is NOT supported.

If you have the older Audigy 2 ZS Laptop card like I have, you would be rather out of luck as well since Creative's drivers did not work much at all with MIDI. Fortunately, "Daniel," whoever he might be (thank you, kind sir), produced a kludged-up version of drivers that magically transformed all of the features of this card from NOT WORKING, to WOW! I now can play the 1812 Overture with amazing polyphony and within acceptable volume ranges completely unavailable using the latest Creative drivers. Unfortunately, Creative cracked down on Daniel and forced him underground. I'm sure you can still find the drivers out there someplace. This becomes the most effective and outstanding way of producing great sounds with your laptop!

Re: Installing soundfonts

Reply #4 – 2008-11-15 04:51 pm

Hi, Joel -

Good to see you here. You must have just joined (2 posts). You've probably seen Lawrie Pardie on the BIAB forum; he started out here until I turned him on to BIAB. So it's nice to see folks from the other groups on different forums.

- John (jford)

Re: Installing soundfonts

Reply #5 – 2008-11-17 02:12 pm

Thanks for the warm welcome, John!

Actually, I have been a user of NoteWorthy from way back...at least ten years. I used to be quite active on these forums as well. I suppose they changed the registration or something while I was away.

It's like what PG Music did to their forum system. I entered the new millennium with a thousand posts to my credit, only to have the number reset back to zero!

It's good to know that there are users of both products that realize that both products are made for each other!

Re: Installing soundfonts

Reply #6 – 2008-11-18 01:51 am

They definitely are. I've been using NWC since version 1.20.3 (which I just noticed had files date 1994/1995). So it's definitely been a long time.

Hope everything works out with your "upgrade" to 2.0 (I noticed your other post). At least NWC downloads aren't even close (in terms of size) to other full-blown applications.