Sonivox 250mb Gm Soundfont Hit
Facunda Ganesh
I tried Virtual Midisynth but it freezes when i try to load GMLIVE24.Pro 24GM Soundfont is no longer available to buy. GM Live is the second verson of it but it is a big soundfont, the other was 249MB and probably was more compatible to creative cards.
Thanks for trying to help.
I have an old blog post where I listed the General MIDI soundfonts I have. Someone requested that I share the soundfonts, so I uploaded my soundfont folder to Google Drive. While this is nowhere near the size of the ZSF Distribution, there may be a few soundfonts here that are hard to download elsewhere, like Shadow 1.0.
For the sake of convenience, most of the soundfonts are in the root folder. The subfolders generally contain text files or demo tracks that came with the soundfonts. However, the subfolders that DO contain banks NOT in the root folder are listed below.
* With the exception of commercial soundfonts that have been abandoned for several years now, I have NOT included commercial soundfonts in the uploaded folder (e.g., JaZMan GM Pro 24, Soniqbear, Genevoice, Voice Crystal, Merlin Pro series).
* Some of these soundfonts may not be the latest version. E.g., the included Giant Soundfont, which the author regularly updates, is v5.8 while v6.0 is the current release.
* None of all those "SC-55" soundfonts are completely accurate to the real SC-55, unfortunately. Also, I have renamed the "SC-55" soundfonts in the root folder to be more descriptive where possible, as their original filenames were too similar and confusing.
* Some included soundfonts do not have all 128 instruments, either due to being unfinished, or by design (like the DOOM SNES soundfont).
* The folder contains a few DLS banks and ROM stuff, too (these are not sf2 compatible).
* Some of these soundfonts have bugs/oversights. Examples: Original 32 MB GM Stereo has some missing samples for the steel guitar (I have fixed this. The original copy of the soundfont is also included). Creative 28 MB has a missing picked bass preset. sYnerGi GS/sYnerGi 200 has missing Synth Strings samples (this is noticeable in playback of Wave Music 2 from Raptor: Call of the Shadows, where some notes do not play samples). Some soundfonts have instruments that are in the wrong octave. Such stuff can be fixed with Polyphone.
I have the JaZMan PRO GM 24-Bit soundfont, which is no longer sold on the gmsoundfont site (as noted by gpapanasta, they replaced it with GMLiVE, which I don't have). I think the original JaZMan one is pretty good, although there are some minor but fixable issues with certain instruments that you pointed out before. DOOM E1M1 sounds very nice, IMO.
I also have the Black Tyros GM Edition soundfont. I have not fully tested it, but...here is what I notice so far in certain instruments:
* Missing velocity layer samples. Seriously. In the standard open hi-hat, and possibly more; I don't know yet. Easily fixed in Polyphone, at least.
* Samples with silence at the start--enough to throw the timing off, such as in DOOM E1M8 where the synth drum and snare are not perfectly in sync (the notes are definitely in sync in the MIDI).
* Samples with clipping. Noticeable in the strings in DOOM E2M6.
* Stereo samples that don't pan properly (e.g., an instrument may be impossible to pan hard left or right). However, I don't know if this is how the original Yamaha Tyros patches were designed.
* Instruments with really weird-sounding velocity layers, where different velocities play samples that are so different they don't remotely sound realistic. The hi-hats in DOOM 2 DDTBLU sound horrible.
* Poorly-looped samples. Clicks/pops. Noticeable in the choir in DOOM E1M8; very distracting.
* Artifacts/buzzing/noise. Noticeable in some notes of the lead guitar in DOOM E1M8.
In short, JaZMan PRO GM 24 is good if one doesn't mind fixing issues, but that site's other soundfonts are likely all rushed, crappy sampling jobs with no regard for actual MIDI playback, which is the soundfonts' advertised purpose. ?
Edit: I made a little MIDI to show just how atrociously bad the sampling in the Tyros soundfont can be. Please note that I deliberately chose the worst instruments to play together--those with the most noticeable looping/clipping/timing issues (i.e., the MIDI's instrument combination isn't meant to make sense or sound good in any soundfont). Download the wave file for the full quality, as Dropbox's previews are lossy. Another edit: I replaced the MIDI with one that has sustained, longer notes and better demonstrates the issues. Note the subtle desynchronization between the synth drum and snare.
I know building an entire soundfont is a tremendous amount of work, but the Tyros GM sampling is simply unacceptable for professional or even general use, especially considering that pretty much any free soundfont does not contain as many glaring issues.
My personal all time favourite is probably Chaos soundfont (12MB for V19/V20), i had used it on my Soundblaster back then and i still sometimes fall back to it now when i'm not sure whether something sounds quite right.
Never liked Arachno (150MB). Don't know why. I know it's an authoritative soundfont for a bunch of rocky DOS classics, but still.
Never was particularly fond of SGM (235MB)
Timbres of Heaven (351MB) usually does better for me than either.
OmegaGMGS2 (265MB) is nice.
SF2015 (260MB) is nice too =hF-MWh6Fyi8
Sometimes small-ish soundfonts that sound era authentic are the way to go. Chaos is there, then Chorium (28MB). Turtle Beach conversion was made recently, it's fun. Turtle Beach Montego II soundfont (Aureal GM)
Also someone remember WinGroove? A little 1MB program that punched well above its weight. I mean lack of splits was fairly obvious, but it scored top marks on overall fun factor. So well there are some decent recreations, this: WinGroove lives again (in soundfont form) and this: New GM/GS soundfont (+a SC-55 based version)
Not a soundfont, but I have come to love the sound of midi music of games being played/interpreted by Yamaha XG devices (as in SW60XG and alike). It sounds gorgeous. If I would have had a synth card like these back then....
Guess I'll use the bump to link my soundfonts folder (minus the commercial stuff, of course). This will probably be helpful for some who are looking for some new soundfonts to try.
Link to folder: =1TbLOvr6GwqrxteWH8RD7Z7Q7t8q-vsIe
Now, as for recommendations, I'm just going to say that the vast majority of soundfonts are not going to sound "correct" in old games because the instrument balance is inevitably going to get thrown out of whack. You'd be surprised at the number of soundfonts that make no attempt to sound balanced or even usable for General MIDI playback. Even fewer are able to play some of DOOM's more unusual MIDI sections properly (the "DOOM" voice in the intro of DOOM II Map 5 and the marching sounds in DOOM II Map 31 are two effects that a lot of soundfonts and MIDI synthesizers screw up). Another problem that happens with certain soundfonts is when the Overdriven and Distortion Guitar presets use the same samples, so E1M1 ends up with pretty bad phasing (AWE32's 1 MB GM bank is guilty of this).
However, there are a few that stand out for varying reasons:
* 1mgm.sf2 - This is an SF2-compatible version of the classic AWE32 1 MB General MIDI synthesizer.
* Voice Crystal 4 MB GM v4.1 by Eye & I Productions - This is a commercial soundfont made by the same company that made the original GUS patches. This soundfont is probably the closest to the Roland SC-55 in terms of balance and consistency, and is one of my favorites. However, I cannot share it because this one is a commercial product.
* Arachno Soundfont v1.0 by Maxime Abbey - A popular free soundfont optimized for classic DOS games. Not perfectly well-balanced, but the instruments are very "big" and high quality. One of my favorite soundfonts.
* sYnerGi GS - A formerly commercial, professional soundfont that has "Totally balanced instruments [so that] the bank will play all standard midi files without any problems with dynamics or otherwise." However, there are playback-breaking flaws (see my _readme.txt linked above).
* Utopia Live! 2.0 - Another formerly commercial, professional soundfont. There are 4 versions: Default Stereo Panned Percussion (P), Light Edition (P LE), Pianos Enhanced (P PE), and SteroID Percussion (S). This soundfont "has a unique warm/ambient sound and a huge effort has been made to get it as close as possible to the 'balance' of the Roland SoundCanvas and thus ensure correct MIDI playback with nearly all types of music." I don't really like the electric guitars, though; I think they're too muddy.
I am trying to -viddump a demo, and I'm not getting the music for some reason. According to this thread, portmidi and SDL don't work with -viddump. Now that I've changed to fluidsynth, the music sounds like crap. Can anybody recommend me the "best" soundfont to use for Doom midis? Searching Google is overwhelming, 'cuz there are literally thousands of them out there...
582128177f