Sound font resources

  • Thread starter Thread starter carlosguardia
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carlosguardia

carlosguardia

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Hello fellow ackus, I've been away for quite some time, working hard tracking guitars, basses, vocals etc etc for my prog-rock album plus now I'm planning to move to Byron Bay Australia for a couple of years to get a BA in recording arts from SAE (any comments on that BTW?) In any case, the purpose of my post is because I recently tried to look for a soundfont that would have sound effects such as an ambulance's siren and some other weird stuff I want to add to a part of a song; I tried to log onto the site that I usually downloaded my .sf2's from, the sound site dot net and it's not working!!! Is there any site nearly as good as that one where I could go and download .sf2's???!!! Thanks in advance and greetings once again to all you guys...

Carlos
 
Hey Carlos,

Byron Bay is the Hippy capital of Australia. You'll love it there!

My son did the studio recording course with SAE in Perth, Western Australia. Sadly he failed to complete his assignments and therefore didn't receive his certification, much to the chagrin of me and my wife. :(

His excuse at the time was that there were so few positions available in Perth that he didn't see the point in completing the course.

My wife and I went to the orientation night at SAE prior to signining him up for the course, and it seemed well equipped to me with both analogue and digital equipment throughout.

As for the ambulance soundfont, have you tried Googling for ambulance+sf2?

Now some phrases to get you out of trouble in Byron Bay:

Gooday mate, you're a Septic, right? No worries, it's your shout...
Greetings, do I detect an American accent? Would you care to buy a round of drinks?

Jeez mate, I'm flat out like a lizard drinkin'
Golly gosh, I'm just so busy at the moment...

See that Sheilah over there? I didn't get to root her...
I did not have sexual relations with that woman...

--
BluesMeister
 
The soundsite.net site is down for good I am afraid. Have not been able to get it work for almost a month. Too bad, best source on the internet.
 
Carlos,

I have read articles and posts on Australia forums that don't exactly talk highly of SAE, even to the fact that some teachers are still studying the basic's at TAFE (Technical and Further Education). In saying that SAE claim to be the 'biggest' sound school in the world... there are others. Personally, if I were you and were thinking about moving to Byron Bay to learn music, I'd try to get an into Studio 301 Byron Bay (Studio 301's new facilities up there).. if you haven't heard of 301, I'm guessing about 50-75% of all the major release albums in Australia are recorded at 301 (majority Sydney). Have you thought about Sydney?

Just a couple of thoughts,

Porter
 
Here is the list of soundfont links....

http://www.hammersound.net/hs_links.html

I have so many soundfonts files (both free and purchased/bundled) I collected for years. I'd like to share hundreds of them (free ones! ~1GB worth) to our Cakewalk forumist brutha'. My problem is I didn't have online server/host to keep it... So, Porter, if there's a room left on your site I probably can upload them...

;)
Jaymz
 
Jaymz,

The server that http://cakewalkers.hopto.org <--- plug ;) is pointing to is my own private server which only has 10MB of web space... the site is about 170Kb all up atm.... If there are any links that you would like me to put up on the site I'm more than happy to do so!!

Porter
 
aye mate, quokka on the barbie has me filled. Time to chuck a bricky.... :eek:
 
Middleman said:
The soundsite.net site is down for good I am afraid. Have not been able to get it work for almost a month. Too bad, best source on the internet.


dang, thats too bad. I like Hammersound though as well.
 
Hmmm... my "server" friend is working amazingly slow. I'll talk to him about giving us a GB for soundfont exchange. Just one thing, though... Only legal/shareware soundfonts!

:)
 
moskus said:
Hmmm... that link didn't work for me.
Is it the same as www.soundfont.net ?

Hey Moskus,
I don't know if it's the same site, but when I click on/type in www.soundfont.net , I can't connect.
But when I click on/type in www.soundfonts.it , it takes me to a site that's ran by some guy named Guido. You can choose Italian or English and it has a whole slew of soundfonts. He also tells a short story about closing down.

I wonder why you can't connect? Can anyone else connect to this site?

It's definately worth checking out if you can, before it closes.
 
Thanks guys...

As always, thanks a ton for the resources on obtaining more soundfonts. I'm all up for sharing some freeware .sf2's!!! Tell me where to upload them and I'll upload a couple that I've done myself that are pretty darn good (snares, nylon guitars, distorted power chords etc) and might help you guys out.

About moving to Byron Bay, here's the story: I've always been involved with music; composing, arranging, performing, recording and mostly reading and studying (with private teachers) all that I can. I never decided to actually get a degree in something that was musically related for I felt that with artistic things you don't need a degree to succeed, you just need to be the best. However, now that I own a small recording studio and that I practically live inside the studio, my parents were nice enough to encourage me to find and attend some school of audio in an attempt to obtain a degree in recording arts.

But why SAE Carlos?

I did my homework, and I started to do a search for all the posibilities. Living in Central America my closest option would be Mexico, and there are great engineers there, however, Mexico DF (the capital city) is not a place where I want to spend a few years. I searched in south america and in the USA (please fellow citizens of the US DO NOT BE OFFENDED BY THIS but I really do NOT want to live in the US; I already did, both in Calif and in Fla and culturally there is practically no point in comparing it to Europe plus things there seem to go in a double moral of rigidness that is just ridiculous to me... that said let me state that all my elementary and HS education has been done in American Schools with the american system of education) I didn't find anything in the American Continent that appealed to me so I started to search Europe, primarily Italy because I have already lived there, I speak italian and I have family there (my sister lives in Rome). In the attempt to find something in Rome I re-stumbled across SAE (I never thought too much of the school just solely because the logo seemed vary outdated and the website is not too nice either). Anyway, I sent SAE an email asking them for information, mainly pricing, facilities, accomodation etc etc. To this email I got a response from Tom Misner, the CEO and founder of the SAE chain of institutes answering all my questions and informing me that SAE, this year, opened an institute in Byron Bay. This new institute is 500 mts away from a beautiful beach and very close to the town of Byron Bay. The institute's campus also houses Studio 301's new studio in Byron Bay (Tom Misner owns both SAE and 301) The price, to me, seems quite affordable. It costs US$ 14,500 per year for tuition, and delux acomodations which means that me, my wife and even our miniature schnauzer can live in a small house inside the campus. After 2 years of school (and if I actually pass the courses :D) I can obtain a BA in Recording Arts and opt for a Masters Degree that is granted by the middlesex university of England. I don't know if I did my search wrong and I could do better somewhere else, but I'm quite enthusiastic about SAE in Byron Bay. Hey Porter, since you're so close, could you briefly tell me what pros and cons you would see in getting the BA in the SAE in Byron?! Thanks,

Carlos
 
Re: Thanks guys...

carlosguardia said:
Hey Porter, since you're so close, could you briefly tell me what pros and cons you would see in getting the BA in the SAE in Byron?!

Carlos,

First of all, have a read of this . This is where I'm getting my jedgement from. Rick O'Neil runs Turtle Rock Mastering. Some people say he's a bit of a wank, however he is straight down the line when it comes to stuff.... hence his writing in the thread. I think a majority of this judgement is of SAE Sydney... this might be different for Byron.

Secondly... close to Byron? Well if you class a 9 hour drive close... I guess so. Personally I've driven through there once.. it is the home of 'Hippy' in Australia and is home of the East Coast Blues & Roots Music Festival which is held on the Easter Long Weekend each year... plus is also the home of Mr Sayers.

A lot of the music scene in Australia I think is based in Sydney.. mostly around Newtown/Surry Hills/Liechardt <-- I'm guessing from the amount of studio in the vacinity of those reasons.

I won't say anymore... but Rick gives a good piece of advice.... start up a home studio, get bands in, then get the songs mastered and watch how they do it and how they improve the mix... then learn how to do it....

You can do losts of things, but ultimately it is up to you. :)

Porter
 
Toki987 said:
aye mate, quokka on the barbie has me filled. Time to chuck a bricky....
Toki, you've been watching way too much Steve Irwin!

Oh and that should be Time to chuck a sickie. :)

A brickie is a bricklayer. You wouldn't want to chuck too many of them around. A sickie is an illicit day off work claiming sickness as the reason. In reality you aren't incapitated at all, you just want to finish off that song you've been working on! :D

A Quokka is a native marsupial. They are qute little rascals, make no mistake, and very tame on Rottnest Island here in Western Australia.

We usually chuck snaggers on the barbie. ;)

--
BluesMeister
 
Carlos,

If your heart is really set on going to Byron bay, then give it your best shot.

However, I'm not so sure your miniature schnauzer will be welcome. We have very stiff gun-laws in Australia. :)

Be aware of this though, Carlos: Once you've lived in Australia, you won't want to return home...

--
BluesMeister
Yes, I know a Schnauzer is a dog. Look at my Avatar. Do I look like a dog lover???
 
BluesMeister said:
Be aware of this though, Carlos: Once you've lived in Australia, you won't want to return home...

I second this.... mind you, I've never left our shores... plan to one day when I get around to it (and can afford to). :D

Porter
 
Guys, today has been a terrible day. Costa Rica lost (once again...) to Mexico 2-0 in the 2002 Gold Cup Semifinals. We're ranked as the 18th country in the world and should have done better, however Mexico is ranked 11th and at home they're extremely strong; they even beat Brazil 1-0!!! In any case, being a die-hard soccer fanatic, it's very dissapointing to see your team play better and still lose 2-0 given two very unfortunate goals!!! If only we would've been able to start our two best strickers who play in Europe and couldn't make it... oh well... could've should've... At least we get to play USA on saturday for 3rd place of the most important tourney in the region and if we do win (another very tought match) we qualify to play in the "Copa America" which is the most important soccer tournament in South America... back to recording...

Porter,
Thanks for your replies, I'll check out those URL's and see what I can make of the reviews. What I meant about "close" is that you're at least some hours away driving... I'm 3 flights that total around 36 hours away from OZ-land and I've been in many parts of the world (North, Central and South America, Europe, and the Middle East) but I've never even been close to Australia!!! So I have NO IDEA how things are down there, what voltage do you guys run on, what beer you drink (well, I've had Fosters a couple of times and have to say that it is extremely good IMHO) what cigarettes I'll smoke, what TV is like down there, etc etc

Costa Rica is a really small country, however, I believe that we have some similarities too Australia... Our beer consumption is fairly high and our beer is really good; our beaches are full of surfers (we have some pretty good waves around here BTW) our country is extremely peaceful, safe and calm.

BluesMeister,
Thank you for your replies, I'm sure that OZland is awesome, I've been checking out everything that I can on the net, but CR is not bad at all... ;)

I'll continue to do research on the subject and I'll keep you all informed on my progress on deciding where to go and get more knowledge about recording. Be sure that just the change of atmosphere might create a positive impact by itself.

Carlos
 
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