Using Soundfonts with MIDI drum tracks

[Phyl]

While surfing this site I found a great thread that discussed using sound fonts to enhance the sound of MIDI drum tracks. The only requirement is that your sound card accept MIDI input and be able to use sound fonts.

Background - I'm using SONAR 2.0 running on a 1.8 Mhz Pentium IIII computer and have an Aardvark Q10 connected. I composed a MIDI drum track using the Session Drummer that comes with SONAR and managed to get the sound chip on my mother board to play the drum sounds. Eventually I guess I'll have to run a connector from my computer's line out jack to an input of the Aardvark in order to record the drum sounds to an audio track.

Now to my problem/question. Following the instructions in the thread I mentioned above, I'm trying to use the sound fonts instead of whatever stock synthesis routines the mother board sound chip has, but no luck. When I pull down the Options menu in SONAR the sound fonts option isn't highlighted leading me to believe SONAR has already figured out that my sound chip doesn't support sound fonts.

Is this a good assumption or am I completely off base about how this whole MIDI/sound font thing operates?

Bottom line, I'm trying to produce some great sounding drum tracks and would like information on how most people approach the task.

Thanks,

Phil

[moskus]

When I pull down the Options menu in SONAR the sound fonts option isn't highlighted leading me to believe SONAR has already figured out that my sound chip doesn't support sound fonts.

Is this a good assumption or am I completely off base about how this whole MIDI/sound font thing operates?

Stand up and yell "BINGO"! Your assumption is correct, but we Sonarusers have a workaround: You can use a DXi, the LiveSynth Pro. Use it as a normal DXi, choose the soundfond you like, and your drums will never be the same again!

But in Sonar 2.0 LiveSynth Pro is only a demo. You can use it in 30 days, after that it will only accept soundfont-banks under 1 MB. Why not buy a SB Live! or SB Audigy soundcard. They're cheap and got built-in soundfontsupport....

Good luck!

[Phyl]

Thanks Moskus, that sounds like the best solution.

Phil

[neirbo]

Before you run out and buy a new card, you could also consider buying Livesynth Pro. It costs around $50 if you buy it through Scott Garigus' website:

http://www.digifreq.com/digifreq/rev...ProdReviewID=8

I'm not sure of the pros and cons of a second sound card vs. Livesynth pro. But, I have the software and it works great.

By the way, to record your MIDI sounds to an analogue track you don't need to physically connect anything with a cable. Just send your output to the MoBo's sound chip, and set your Q10 to record the MoBo's output directly. This way you avoid any degradation due to converting the digital to analogue and then back. You can do the same with sound fonts.

[AlChuck]

neirbo, can you explain your assertion that "to record your MIDI sounds to an analogue track you don't need to physically connect anything with a cable. Just send your output to the MoBo's sound chip, and set your Q10 to record the MoBo's output directly."

In my experience this doesn't work. I have an SB Live and a Delta 66 and there is no way to route its output internally into the Delta 66. I would suspect that the same state of affairs exists for an onboard sound chip.

What can be done is that the MIDI sounds can be recorded to the audio device that's playing them -- that is, with my SB Live I can record MIDI parts to an audio track via the SB Live's WAV input channels.

[audiohead]

the pros and cons of a second sound card vs. Livesynth pro:

a card
pros: zero latency, no CPU load, you can create your own SFs
cons: requires a PCI slot and an IRQ

Livesynth
pros: you don't need to install any hardware
cons: extra CPU load (= less tracks and/or effects), the price is 2 times that of SBLive value card

[Phyl]

I got a SoundBlaster Live yesterday. It got a me just a little closer to using soundfonts but apparently there's more to figure out.

At least now when I open the Options file I have the soundfont option and can use the attach option to open the soundfont file I downloaded. The problem begin when I try to use some of the different patches within the soundfont file.

Althought I can select different patches it doesn't change the drum sounds at all. When I open the piano roll view I don't see the midi notes either. Obviously I still don't have something right.

Here are the steps I performed:

- Open a new MIDI track, make it track 1
- In the track pane under effects, open Session Drummer
- Select different patterns and hit play until I find one I like
- stop play

Options->soundfonts->attach->acoustic drums#1->open->close

In the track pane view:

- Channel = 1
- Bank = Acoustic Drums#1
- Patch = tried several different numbers
- Bank Select = Controller 0
- Port = SoundBlaster (there are four soundblaster options,
I chose the first one.

A final question. When I tried to use the Douglas Drums soundfont everyone raves about, I get a "Not enough soundfont memory to load the soundfonts" message. Is Sonar trying to tell me that the sound card doesn't have enough memory or that Sonar hasn't reserved enough memory? The font is approximately 22 MB.

All comments are appreciated,

Phil

[moskus]

I'm at work, so I can't help you as much as I could if I were home, but here's some clues...

- Open a new MIDI track, make it track 1

Ok. But default channel-number is Channel number 10, use it and it goes much smoother.

- Port = SoundBlaster (there are four soundblaster options, I chose the first one.

. We need to know the full name of the port. It should be "Soundblaster Synth A" or similar.

I get a "Not enough soundfont memory to load the soundfonts" message

Open the AudioHQ-program that came with the Live!. Open "Soundfonts". Someplace around here you should be able to adjust the amount of RAM the system is allowed to use for soundfonts. The Live! and Audigy don't have memory on the card itself, but uses the system RAM.

[AlChuck]

audiohead,

One of your pros and cons re using an SB Live or a softsynth like LiveSynth to play Sound Fonts doesn't fly:

"you can create your own SFs."

Sound Fonts are just data files. All you need to create them is raw material -- WAV files -- and a Sound Font application like Vienna Studio. Sure, Creative Labs packages a copy of Vienna with the software for these cards, but it's readily available off the web for free, as are other Sound Font editors.

-AlChuck

[neirbo]

Originally posted by AlChuck
neirbo, can you explain your assertion that "to record your MIDI sounds to an analogue track you don't need to physically connect anything with a cable. Just send your output to the MoBo's sound chip, and set your Q10 to record the MoBo's output directly."

Whoops, I haven't done this in a while, and I screwed up the explanation. Alchuck is right. The recording is done internally using only the sound chip that plays MIDI - not a secod card as I said earlier.

In any event, the main point is that you can record the MIDI output as audio without using cables or going through digital/audio/digital conversion.

[Phyl]

I've gotten a little further...

I was able to open the SB Live control program and change the buffer size so that it would accept larger soundfonts. I also fixed a few fatfinger mistakes in things like channel selection - thanks Moskus.

I can now select the various patches within the selected sound font and hear the differences. Quite a few of the patches seem to be repeats but I suppose that's normal.

Next I'll work on Neirbo's suggestion for internally routing the Soundblaster output to a SONAR audio track.

Thanks guys!!!

Phil

[Phyl]

I guess I'm still confused about how to get the SB Live! output into a SONAR track without using external cables.

My only guess is that you could record the output of the SB card to a wave file and then import the file into a track...

[neirbo]

It isn't that tough. First, make sure your SB Live is listed in the "drivers" tab under Options/Audio. In tracks view (the main view) in Sonar, chose an empty audio track. Expand the track vertically to see all the ins/outs, effects etc. Click the box labelled "in" to tell Sonar where to get the audio source from and chose the SB Live.

Next, set your MIDI data to play through the SB Live's output. This is probably set up already, but you can do it under the Options/MIDI tab if necessary.

Arm the empty audio track and hit record That's all there is to it, unless I'm forgetting something. I'll check tonight at home and make sure.

[AlChuck]

Yeah, that's it, neirbo... no importing necessary. Record 'em with the SB Live's WAV device, play 'em back through whatever you want.

[audiohead]

Originally posted by AlChuck
audiohead,

One of your pros and cons re using an SB Live or a softsynth like LiveSynth to play Sound Fonts doesn't fly:

"you can create your own SFs."

Sound Fonts are just data files. All you need to create them is raw material -- WAV files -- and a Sound Font application like Vienna Studio. Sure, Creative Labs packages a copy of Vienna with the software for these cards, but it's readily available off the web for free, as are other Sound Font editors.

-AlChuck

Yeah, right, but you won't be able to audition your work in Vienna without a card supporting SFs.

[Jim Y]

Assuming you have the Lives audio drivers working in Sonar - you can record the soundfonts including the cards effects by selecting "What U Hear" as the record source in the Creative mixer.
"Some of the Patches sound the same"
Sonar has a defect - it cannot read the soundfont patch names for percussion within a bank. There are only 6 or so drum kit patches which are spread out - in the gaps, you continue to get the previous patch. To find out where they really are you need to audition them in the creative keyboard app.
You have 2 soundfont synths, A and B. They share the same soundfonts but you get 32 midi channels that way instead of just 16. Unfortunately, Sonar will only use one of them. It seems Sonars Soundfont support is based on the old Creative AWE card which had the one soundfont synth and stored them in memory on the card itself.

I'm afraid I got so annoyed at these quirks that I dumped the Live card.

[AlChuck]

audiohead,

You mean you can't hear the SFs you make within Vienna Studio unless you have a Creative card? A LiveSynth won't do it?

-AlChuck

[moskus]

You mean you can't hear the SFs you make within Vienna Studio unless you have a Creative card? A LiveSynth won't do it?

Nope, cause LiveSynth is a program, you need hardware to play back soundfonts in Vienna. The soundcard don't need to be from Creative, but it must support soundfonts.

[AlChuck]

Of course, am I nuts? thinking Vienna would support DXi...

The soundcard don't need to be from Creative, but it must support soundfonts.

That gives one a choice of -- what -- several Creative cards or maybe about two or three others? Only one I ever remember supporting Sond Fonts was the Terratec cards a couple of years ago and I think they might not any longer...

[moskus]

That gives one a choice of -- what -- several Creative cards or maybe about two or three others? Only one I ever remember supporting Sond Fonts was the Terratec cards a couple of years ago and I think they might not any longer...

Yeah, I know... How hard can it be to make a decent souncard with sounfont-support?

[AlChuck]

It's probably not that hard, more likely it's that Creative Lab's licensing for it is too onerous, and there's a Windows standard -- DLS-- that does essentially the same thing...