GS soundfont bank

[M G Jacobs (mgj32)]

By doing a google search I found "GeneralUser GS v1.4.sf2." It contains very much improved presets for all the GM instruments and gives one a lot more, including several pianos, wet and dry, Irish tin whistle, a great cymbals in the melodic pool, several drumsets in the melodic pool, orchestral percussion in the melodic pool (so that on one channel you can have timpani, cymbals, triangle, and all the rest), etc.

It comes with an .exe file which installs it, but I find that the presets can be used as they are, also. The file is about 30MB, but seems comparable to some much larger ones.

Since I can use only one of my hardware synths (Creative sunth A or B), for some reason, but can also use MS GS Wavetable SW synth to get 32 channels, my intention on doing the search was to find a file that would replace the instruments that load with the MS software synth. I haven't got far enough to see if General User v1.4 replaces this as well as the GM bank that loads by default into the hardware synth, but the instrument improvement is worth the price, which is $0.00.

all best,
mgj

[Sherry Crann (sherry)]

Howdy MG,

For those who are interested in this download, I found it at http://www.sccmusic.250x.com/sfont/genuser/download.htm

I haven't tried this out either, just supplying the link if anyone else wants to try it out.

This download is for the entire installation package, not just the soundfont (sf2) file.

ttfn,
Sherry

[M G Jacobs (mgj32)]

Hi Sherry,

Yup, this is where I got it. The actual download is about 10MB less than the unzipped size.

It does NOT replace the MS SW synth presets, though the instruments are really superior to those of the GM .sf2 bank. I guess I'll have to search further to see if I can replace the MS SW synth instruments with ones that sound more like real ones. I guess that will be a .dll file, if it can be found.

all best,
mgj

[Fred Winterling (harbor1)]

Hey dere MG,

The driver file for MS presets file is gm.dls. It is in the Windows/System32/Drivers directory. However, we must remember that MS stands Microsoft which stands for BG (Bill Gates). Billy says "Don't mess with my files, this computer will self-destruct in 10..9..8..7...6.." etc. http://www.notation.com/discus/clipart/smile.gif

Cheers,
Fred

[M G Jacobs (mgj32)]

Hi Fred,

Yeah, I mis-typed above. You may be right about BG having a detachment of cyber thugs stationed to protect that file. I sure haven't had any luck searching for dls replacement, upgrade, improvement, etc., etc.

best.
mgj

[Joerg Triesch (joerg)]

Does anyone know whether this works with soundcards not listed by the author?
I sent a query to him but did not get a reply.
I would like to be sure that there is a way of removing it whithout using the system recovery tool.

[Sherry Crann (sherry)]

Howdy Joerg,

Are you asking about the "GeneralUser GS v1.4.sf2."? Soundfonts for now are only used by certain sound cards, such as Creative's SoundBlaster line (most of them, anyway) and a few others. Those sound cards will have a manager of some kind that allows you to "load" or "remove" soundfonts from the sound card, so it's not a typical installation like a software or plugin installation.

But maybe I just missed the question entirely http://www.notation.com/discus/clipart/happy.gif

ttfn,
Sherry

[Joerg Triesch (joerg)]

Tx Sherry,
that was my question.It looks like my soundcard does not support this type of soundfont management. Do I need such a sound card to be able to make use of different soundfonts in Notation Composer?

jörg

[Sherry Crann (sherry)]

Hi Joerg,

If you want to use soundfonts to make an audio recording of your work, you can use a free work-around if your sound card does not support soundfont use. There is a product called SynthFont, which is free (or donation-ware), available at www.synthfont.com (http://www.synthfont.com). SynthFont reads .mid files, and you can assign whatever soundfonts you want to each instrument. You can also use it to render a file to .wav or .mp3 for sharing an audio version with others.
So your process would be to
(1) create and tweak your file in Composer
(2) save it as a .mid file and
(3) use SynthFont to render the audio file.

We're working toward better all around sound support for Composer, but the above would be a free and relatively easy solution at this point.

ttfn,
Sherry