Re: Merging soundfonts

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dlnewhouse
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Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2021 11:00 pm

Merging soundfonts

Post by dlnewhouse »

I am interested in merging the norCtrack D-50 with the samples shop synergi using Awave Studio. Obviously, I have already merged some files to produce a D-50 soundfont. Curiously, there is a Cm32/64 drum kit, but in the D-50 soundfont there is at 0:0 which is where I would put the drum kit, there is "Amazing solo samples." I need some tips on how to do this carefully. I can't just open one file and then merge another and then save it. When I try to do that I get the following error message.
Awave Studio error message
Awave Studio error message
2021-04-28 18_10_05-sf2_Exp.jpg (14.95 KiB) Viewed 14324 times
I do not think that is the right way to get a combined MIDI bank, though.
Daniel L Newhouse
dlnewhouse
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Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2021 11:00 pm

Re: Merging soundfonts

Post by dlnewhouse »

I have partially completed my effort. I am looking at the following instrument, m-037-000-000 CM32/64 Kit XG. I want to figure out how to convert that instrument into a drum kit, the Awave Studio icon indicates it is an instrument patch.

I think that is an irrevocable flaw with the synergi soundfont. The problem is that the CM32 drum kit leaves a little to be desired.

K, merging the norCtrack D-50 with the CM32 drum kit from the synergi soundfont is k. I don't like what happens when I try to merge with Quasar sound's D-70 so I won't use it. The patches in the D-70 are not labeled. It looks like amateur hour and sounds like it too. It isn't hard to get the CM32 drum kit out of the synergi soundfont and assign it to patch 000:000. The drums work. They are a little bit loud.

The thing is, I've tried combining the D-50, D-70, and synergi soundfonts in mulitple ways. The synergi soundfont is partially malformed, the D-70 is rather malformed. So the error message is not necessarily the fault of Awave Studio.
Last edited by dlnewhouse on Thu Apr 29, 2021 1:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
Daniel L Newhouse
dlnewhouse
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Re: Merging soundfonts

Post by dlnewhouse »

Alright, after several soundfonts tried the best combination I have found for LA synthesis is D-synths vol 2 from Amazsounds and the D-110 drumk kit, also from Amazounds. In general, Amazounds is good, norCtrack is alright, and Quasar sounds doesn't sound all that good.

I have discovered that to merge a drum kit, it is sufficient to make 6 layers to combine the 6 regions of a GS drum kit under one patch if you want to make a TR 808 or TR 909 drum kit from the Amazounds drum kit collections. But for LAPC-1 drums, it is a waste of time. The best drum kit to sound like the LAPC-1 is the TR-707 drum kit.

After some experimentation, I have always wondered why the Utopia soundfont had 5 drum kits whereas the RAP-10 has 6. The TR-808 kit is what they leave out. It is not part of an Mt-32 map, as I thought may be the case. I have tested the TR-808 kit that comes with the Amazounds drum collecion by doing a merge, and it does not work with LAP-1 mode music. Also, GS includes a CM-32L drum kit. As with the gm.dls file that comes with Windows. That works, but does not sound as good as a D-110 drum kit and that does not sound as good as a TR-707 drum kit that come with the Amazounds collecion when making my own, well, Lapc-1 soundfont.

Also, now that Amazounds sells a D-110 drum kit sf2, Vintage Synth Explorer describes the unit. Apparently, that is the best LA synthesis keyboard?
Daniel L Newhouse
dlnewhouse
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Re: Merging soundfonts

Post by dlnewhouse »

Some of these soundfonts, and I include free ones, are not mergable because they have drum kits masquerading as instruments. The only one I haven't fixed this way is the Soniqbear, which isn't free.

I'd like to merge a few soundfonts. Some listening makes me think GM2 was useful before its time. The fact that they had a demo of an Edirol SD20 that had the theme to Spacequest made me wonder.

I wish DOSBox emulated GUS, because then we'd have a better benchmark for soundfonts.

For testing I have
sleeping sun.mid
I stole your love.mid
fearofdark.mid

Fear of the dark gets a better guitar tone. Sleeping sun is like the game XCOM. It's hard to capture every sound and the way it responds to GM2 soundfonts is strange. The timing on the drums is out there. There's a "pre snap" delay on the drums that varies quite a bit. The Omega soundfont hits it better than Soniqbear. FF8.sf2 doesn't sound bad either. There's kind of a whiplash effect with GM2_map_soundfont.sf2.

Playing I stole your love with Synergi is fun.

I think those two soundfonts are using Fane loudspeakers on the bass. They sound much better. Better enough, that you think "No, the pig is coming!"
Last edited by dlnewhouse on Mon Jun 14, 2021 1:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Daniel L Newhouse
dlnewhouse
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Re: Merging soundfonts

Post by dlnewhouse »

The kick drum on GM2_map_soundfont is so much better than the competition its not funny. Stunned expression goes here. K, Omega has the Fane loudspeaker, GM2 is Eminence, and I think Synergi uses (rare) Celestion for the bass.

if you look at Synthfont, btw the sound file is the bank and the MIDI program lists the instruments selected by the mid file.

Also, GS stands for General User, or general select.

I'm using learntofly.mid

fearofdark.mid sounds weak with Sennheiser headphones. It was great with Sony.

There is some improvement going back to the Aspirin soundfont. These Sennheisers should be superior at $200.

The best soundfont for Iron Maiden is FF8.sf2. The guitars sound better with that.

I found a new piece of software Polyphone. It edits soundfonts. It can clean them up before attempting a merge with Awave Studio. Polyphone does not do merges. Merges with Awave Studio are not possible most of the time because of the parameter limit. This parameter limit also means that there is no way a soundfont can deliver the audio fidelity we have been looking for. They both have this limitation and it isn't going away.

This limitation is so annoying that I say go ahead and just use eawpats.sf2 for gaming audio.

I have that and I have megaGMGS from GoldMIDI which is supposed to be an SC-88pro.

With eawpats.sf2 learntofly.mid has 4 guitars and with megaGMGS.jpg it has 3 guitars and a sax revealed as patches in Synthfont2.

My favorite GM2 soundfont, about 70 MBytes, has too many parameters to merge with anything.
Daniel L Newhouse
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Re: Merging soundfonts

Post by Admin »

I suggest to try my Viena program.
ziyamete
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Re: Merging soundfonts

Post by ziyamete »

Awave software is a very useful software in many other ways: converting soundfont formats to each other, editing samples, converting old CDs, etc.

But it's not very useful for soundfont (sf2) editing.

I hope the original versions of the soundfonts you combined are still there. Because if you compare the original versions with those saved by "Awave" in another sf2 editing software, you can see the difference.
dlnewhouse
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Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2021 11:00 pm

Re: Merging soundfonts

Post by dlnewhouse »

I would point out that nowadays Sony headphones cost $300-$500. My old Sony's were $100 and their price rose to $160 with time.

K, I got feedback on the limitation of Awave Studio. Soniqbear has exactly 61520 parameters.

The reply I received after pointing out the inanity of the error to Markus is

Awave Studio does not support a separation between "presets" and "instruments", so the preset and instrument parameters will be merged. This is not a simple addition, e.g. if there is two presets both with 2 params each, both using the same instrument with 5 params, one of which is the same as one of the preset params, then what SoniqBear will save is 2 + 2 + 5 = 9 parms, but what Awave Studio will save is 2 * ((2-1) + 5) = 12 params.


I think the limitation is supposed to be on the number of instruments and presets to prevent bloat.
Daniel L Newhouse
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Re: Merging soundfonts

Post by Admin »

SoundFonts are always separated into Instruments an Presets, so I do not understand his comment.
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