Roland Fantom Soundfont

[Barb Magario]

Heyguys!! I'm kind of new to the keyboard world so please be patient. My gear is an Axiom 49 and Reason 3.0 software. I have played around with all the different sounds and instruments on Reason and a lot of them have an annoying delay (like the sound will start out low and then get louder). Also a lot of the vocal choirs sound cheesy. I was wondering if you guys could recommend some software that can sound like the keyboards on an Emperor or Cradle of Filth cd (yes I know they aren't true black metal). Even the keyboards on Jason Becker's Altitudes sounds nice. I just don't think Reason is the program I'm looking for. Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

i am not in Black metal but i have listened to cof once...well normally they must be using hardware keys for that...try something that it can make pads and intro fx...,maybe korg stuff will suite you more since they have nixe choir/pads

I play keyboards in metal (not black metal though). You would probably be fairly sorted with some type of pro/workstation keyboard. Also ideal if you are going to be gigging. If you get a korg triton, yamaha motif, roland fantom or similar you would probably be able to do all your sounds in a live situation from one of them.

If you want to continue with software, You could get quite a lot of nice sounds from Kontakt player + good sample library and Native Instrumetns Absynth has enough variation in sound that anyone could find something in there for themselves. Absynth has some quite good choir type pads but they aren't really realistic voices. The realistic choir sound I use is from kontakt player.

If you want really evil sounding realistic voices. Eastwest Symphonic Choirs could be worth trying. -Quantum-Leap-Symphonic-Choirs-pr-EW-165.html ..... The demo videos are quite impressive. Also learn some latin.

If you are on a tight budget and want something really general purpose, pick up a used Korg X5 (I have an X5DR). They don't go for very much second hand. You can get fairly decent harpsicord, pipe organ, piano, synth strings, pads, amongst other things from that.

Your best bet would probably be a mid 90s Korg as those are both inexpensive and popular in the genre (especially the X-series). Interestingly enough, I recall reading Emperor used an Ensoniq TS12 for 'In the Nightside Eclipse'. Dimmu Borgir's 'Enthrone Darkness Triumphant' is mostly Korg X5, iirc (at least that's the board they used on stage). Korg really has the atmospheric stuff nailed, though, so that'd be my recommendation.

Im not much of a black metal fan, but the guys I know who play that sort of stuff swear by Korg AI2 based boards, so track down something like an X5D or N5EX ( I have one, and it serves we quite well ) and you should be set. Generally in my experience ( I played in a metal band or two ) Korg is the best bang for buck option for metal. Software wise, you could do just fine with Fruity Loops and free soundfonts downloadable from net especially when choirs are in question.

If you have some money to throw around, I'd look into the Yamaha S90ES (though not a workstation, I think the sound bank in that would blow your mind). I kinda want one now. I just spent some serious time with one and am trying to replace my Motif 8 with one.

No, seriously. Korg TR or Le - those have the bombastic orchestral sounds plus the signature solo lead sounds. Or an X50, which is a sequencer-less version of the TR/Le (similar "architecture", so to say).

I am familiar with Vernon Reid, Living Color Guitarist, was one of my shredding guitar gods when I was in high school, and no way their music were as black as the Nordic 'black' metal . I am getting too old

Like someone else said, the noise you hear is probably the attack time in the envelope section of the sound module you use. For example, if you selected a pad patch in the subtractor sound module, they may sound slow because the attack is high. I think you should learn what all the buttons do and then try to edit the patches that come with reason to suit your needs.

You can buy sample CD's to use with Reason too. You can buy choir CD's and use those sounds within Reason and it will sound fine. By the way, there is a really good choir sound called "monk choir," in the NN-XT module. I used that patch for one of my metal songs.

I'm surprised no mention of Casio for black metal usage considering some of the bands are quite rudimentary in skills. Lol. Although, the new Casio CT-X series was said to have quite a powerful sound engine (AiX), I wonder what are some of the latest keyboards with powerful sound engines without costing over $1k? There should be more options now than a decade ago.

I'm actually in the market for keyboards although I probably could use my old Roland GR-20 guitar synth pedal as a sound module to get the "black metal" keyboard sounds, it's just not the same thing as actually playing on an actual standalone keyboards.

What external sound module would you all recommend for someone who already had an MT-32 and a SC-55mk2 and who wanted a third module (new or old) that would play old general MIDI DOS games' music with the most realistic (as in closest to real instruments' sound) and impressive (a subjective term, I know) sound available and for under $1000 and in a form factor that isn't too humongous. It could be by Roland or another brand. I really like the sound of the Roland Integra 7, but it is rather large and you'd probably be paying for more features than would be necessary for playing old games. It would be great if I could find something less expensive than an Integra 7. And I also saw this video of a Roland Fantom XR playing Quest for Glory IV music and was impressed:

_nP8

Basically, what I want is the best for my next purchase. I still love my MT-32 and SC-55 (and consider them "the best" for me when playing certain games), and am looking for something different this time to change it up. For this purchase I am not as concerned about authentic sound/how it was "intended" to sound when the music was written. I want it to sound as close to real instruments as possible. I don't want any software or internal stuff. I want a box that will sit on my desk on top of, under or next to my other modules. It would be great if it were somewhat close to the SC-55/88 form factor size. I was considering getting the SC-88 pro, but then I wanted to see if there were much better options than that out there.

This question seems to come up once in a while - I don't think there's any module out there that could make DOS Midi game soundtracks sound much better than the module they were originally programmed with (Roland SC-55 for the vast majority of GM games). Of course later modules have much more realistic sounding instruments, but because of timbre and level differences compared to an original Sound Canvas, the game soundtracks often sound unbalanced on these. If you were to take each midifile from a given game and arrange it for the newer module you could come up with music that sounds much better, but straight out of DOS, I'm not so sure.

Please correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think you can use the expansion cards for game soundtracks. These modules have a GM (or GM2 for the XVs) bank, and the game wouldn't be able to access the expansion sounds if the unit is in GM mode.

Clearly it doesn't sound that great on most of them, the balance of instruments is often wrong... They just don't match together that well. Like many DOS games, CANYON.MID seems most at home on the Roland SC-55 and related units. That is probably what it was composed on.

Often we want the "best" device or gear, but in some instances it doesn't make much sense. I guess an anology would be to get a 4K TV to watch old VHS tapes. Even if the TV is the best one, the result wouldn't be so good because you're limited by the source material. In case of game soundtracks you will be limited by the way the midifiles were arranged to begin with.

The canyon.mid rendering on youtube is not the original playback on these devices, even if being played on a GM compatible sound module.

Check it out the different intrument map here: e.g.

for SC-55MKII: -55mk2_index.html

and SC8850: -8850_index.html

So the playback was "tweaked".

I think the Integra-7 would be a cool tool to play with, as it has a loadable GM2 bank that uses a lot of great instruments from other banks. So it won't sound like a fantom XV or a XV5080 (which is rather good for GM).

So anyone with a Integra-7. I would love to hear some recorded GM midi game music, of course not tweaked in any kind.

I'd say the best bang for the buck is a Yamaha MU1000/2000. The performance for price ratio is about as good as it gets. The more professional level units like the Fantom are really hit and miss with games. Sometimes they sound fantastic, but other times they sound totally off. If you have no intention of tweaking things, the MU500 contains the same sounds and the digital output as the 1000/2000, but sells for almost nothing on yahoo japan auctions.

But after that, it really depends on what you want to play. The Akai SG01k is a personal favorite of mine, fantastic for in your face stuff like Doom, but horrible for anything more subtle or orchestral.

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