No Midi ??

sanak · Aug 14, 2006, 03:07 AM

Hi,

at first I have to say that I am quite new to the sound and midi thing. Usually I installed dirvers an midi works...

Now i tried the kxdrivers as an alternative and I have to say that these drivers satisfy me beside the midi problem...
As I know the kxdriver dont come with midi drivers I wonder if it will help just to load the correct soundfont. Or do I have to set up something else first?
Further I would be happy if anyone can recommend a passable soundfont.
All I want to do with midi is to listen to some nice *.mid files and I want to have ingame music in some older dos games.

Thanks for ur help.

sanak

Maddogg6 · Aug 14, 2006, 03:32 AM

You need to find a GM (General MIDI) Sound Font Bank (XXXXXX.SF2)
And use the KX Soundfont Manager Applet (found in the KX Mixer) to load that into BANK 0 for both synths.

sanak · Aug 14, 2006, 03:42 AM

thanks for the quick answer.

I found the applet to load the soundfonts.
Are those gm soundfonts freeware?
If not are there any free alternatives, or can i even extract those fonts from the original ceative drivers??

sanak

Maddogg6 · Aug 14, 2006, 03:53 AM

There are plenty free ones - but you'll find plenty broken links too...
If you install CL drivers from CD - (for me anyway) it installed a few (2MB, 4MB, 8MB) in the windows system (or was it system32..??) folder... Even if uninstalling the drivers - kept those files there - but I suppode its possible some version exists that would delete them - BUT - I CAN NOT locate them on the CD - I even looked in what cab files that would open up for me... -but others report finding them... ??

Other than that - theres the ol APSLive site that still keeps an 8MB one - then theres one called personalcopy - thats up to like 32MB - heres a thread on SF resources
Soundfont resources

good luck...

sanak · Aug 14, 2006, 06:58 AM

Hi!

I got to manage loading the soundfonts that i want. But I have not found the right one yet.
In fact im searching for a soundfont that makes the midis on my sblive sound like playing them on a soundblaster pro/16 isa...
I tried the silverspring 1.5 soundfonts but they dont satisfy me completely...:/
Does anyone have a better soundfont tip??

Maddogg6 · Aug 14, 2006, 11:18 AM

The SBPro16 Midi Synth was FM synthesis - while its not quite the same - there are some FM emulating SF's out there - If you REALLY need FM synth - then get a free VSTi FM synth.... http://www.kvraudio.com/get.php?mode=results&st=q&s=1 Just find one that Multi-timbral.... (able to play DIFFERENT sounds on different MIDI channels at the same time) And try (?? I never tried it - so dont know if it will work for sure) foobar2000 with its MIDI > VSTi playing ability I remember reading about...

As a sample based synth will always do a poor job emulating FM synthesis.

sanak · Aug 15, 2006, 08:54 AM

thx for the reply.
I came to the same conlusion as I searched half the day for a nice fm synth soundfont.
As I am quite new to VSTi I first will have to find a few docs about VSTs.
For now I take the 2mb gm soundfont that came with my soundcard drivers.

TravelRec. · Aug 16, 2006, 09:54 AM

Take the 8Mb one from the CD, it sounds better. Search the web for SGM128v1.17.sf2, it is quite huge but sounds very cool. Or you try Unison soundfont, it´s smaller and also cool. All of them are free.