Getting better sounds inexpensively

Hello Sherry, yes, I am a newbie here and in sounds, since with my ears I could never hear more than 3 kHz, and when this even degraded to 1 kHz over the last 15 years I was lost to music. Now with a new Cochlear Implant I can hear up to 8 kHz, so music makes sense again. In our aging society this problem - while generally less extreme - is quite common. Thus I thought to use MidiNotate to learn "hearing by composing" and by listening to MIDI-music and comparing the sounds with what I see. If the music is too fast, I can slow it down, and if the sounds are too terrible, I can look for better sounds. I am just beginning to understand how to use better sounds. General Midi is horrible - even for me.

My main objection to most help-files is : For the beginner they are too general. What is needed is a simple "how to" method : Most people have either a Microsoft Windows (XP, Vista, Win7) OS, or something from Apple. And there are only two or three typical sound-cards around. So if you would write a little booklet (online and expandable over time) on "what to do" about sounds - every single step in the "monkey see - monkey do" way, this would be helpful for both sides, since if something does not work, the users could tell you exactly at what point they encountered a difficulty. All general advice leaves the incompetent reader helpless with "what does Sherry speak of here ?". If readers got encouraged by some simple success ("ah, now I hear the new sound for the first time !"), the next steps will be easy.

So assume that I have MidiNotate available, and a soundcard with a GM bank too, and I want to tell my soundcard how to use new soundfonts in the *.wav-format. Where should I put the soundfonts so that the card can find and use them ? This is what I call the "monkey see - monkey do" way.

F.i., you wrote

Originally Posted by Sherry C

You can use the free soundfonts that you find from the links on our Soundfont Resources page, and just load them into your soundcard.

But what does "just load them into your soundcard" mean ? There is "start > settings > system controls > sound and media > soundcard etc., an then what to do ? Or there is a file "programs" on the systems-partition where to drop the new sounds in the soundcard subfolder ?

As you see, it is not at all clear for the layperson what to do - while it may be obvious for you !