True newbie question.

[thedreamingfool]

I have dabbled with Midi for a while, and want to get a few of these songs out of my head and on to something listenable. My current soundcard is the SB Live, one midi keyboard, and no decent mic... (which is ok, since I'm not ready for lyrics yet). The only problem with midi, is the built in and downloadable soundfonts aren't acceptable. I thought I was at a block untill recently....

Since I'm a PC tech, I work on several machines... One of our customers uses his for creating music... He had a software synthesizer (FM7 I believe) and I noticed you can customize the sounds to your liking....

Since I have low end equipment, I am willing to spend a little time tweaking to make it sound halfway decent... I remind you, this is JUST A HOBBY, and I'm not willing to spend much money.... However, I have thought about a way to get a decent result....

If I did manage to find and buy a software synthesizer, I am willing to use Cakewalk to structure the notes... However, the instrument would be replaced by the software synthesizer instead of the soundfonts. I can design a simple loopback from the line out to the line in, and can record it to a WAV file (I believe my PC and soundcard can handle that, since it's full duplex)... I am willing to do it track by track... (I.E. Substitute soundfont drums to the software synthesizer drums)... then after I have several WAV files, mix them together (I have found a way to do that too). Only thing I haven't been able to figure out, is if it's possible to substitute the midi soundfonts with the sound comming from the software synth. Since I can't play the keyboard, midi event/tone editing is crucial, since I can't play the whole song without MANY errors... midi allows me to fix them.

Is it possible to replace, even if just one channel, a midi soundfont with a software synth? If so what software synth can do that...

(I.E. I want the software synth to replace the "Microsoft Wavetable GS synth") Some examples of the SW synth is the FX7 and Absynth from Native Instruments, but I don't know if that would work in anything other than a "live" playing.

 

[Sarah Green]

Look online for some different soundfonts - there are thousands out there you can download free. You may well find your existing soundcard acceptable with some different fonts.

As this is a MIDI question, you could do well to browse the MIDI Mania forum for links and advice. But you might like to know that you probably already have a soft-synthesizer on your PC, i.e. Microsoft's own (NOT to be confused with Microsoft's Wavetable Synthesizer), which comes with DirectX and uses downloadable sounds (dls format). The default set (location C/Windows/System32/drivers.gm.dls) isn't much good, but it's possible to replace them. There are several shareware and freeware programs that use this soft synth in conjunction with downloadable sounds - have a look at Awave Studio from fmj software, or Audio Compositor, or even (I say with some trepidation, as I'm probably the only person in the world to use this prog) Microsoft DirectMusic Producer.

Sarah

 

[AlChuck]

Is it possible to replace, even if just one channel, a midi soundfont with a software synth?

Yes. Once it's MIDI, you can route it to anything that will respond to MIDI messages by playing sounds.

With softsynths, some relevant issues for you are:

(1) Can your soundcard's drivers be shared by Cakewalk and the softsynth? In other words, can you run Cakewalk and play the sequence at the same time as the software synth is running and receiving the MIDI messages and responding to them? I'm assuming you mean something older than SONAR, like Cakewalk Pro Audio 9. If this is the case, you can't run softsynths as plug-ins as far as I know. If you have SONAR, then that's not a problem.

(2) Is your PC powerful enough? Softsynths usually require a lot of resources, especially when being run in conjunction with recording software. If you have an older PC you might have trouble getting it to work well.

 

[rvf263]

I have a SB Live! Value card and plan on using H.S. 2004 and a external synth.
Anyway, over on the cakewalk forum there is valuable info about what you speak of that might help you.