HydrogenAudio

Hey everyone,

I´m using foobar2k for quite a while now and I don't want to use
another player anymore, but there's a little problem.

I've downloaded the midi plugin for foobar and put it into the plugin folder, and it works.
But the quality is not really good. If i listen to the same midi in wmp it sounds as it should do.

I'm using midi files for the rpg maker and when i listen to the midis there, they sound like in wmp, so i guess
somethings not right with the plugin for f2k.

Is it just bad or do exists other midi plugins?

You need to download a SoundFont sample bank, or a VST instrument with General MIDI capability, then configure the component. The page is under Preferences, Playback, Input, MIDI synthesizer host. Emu de MIDI is the only option which does not require additional files.

Sadly I have no idea what to change under that options.
This is my view and my plugins:

http://imgur.com/zyuKb,Jg7YP (http://imgur.com/zyuKb,Jg7YP)
http://imgur.com/zyuKb,Jg7YP#1 (http://imgur.com/zyuKb,Jg7YP#1)

Could you tell me, what I need to change under the MIDI settings?

Hey again,

sorry for posting twice.
Can no one help me? Sorry if this is a beginners question, if there's a beginner forum, link it.

al i did was installing foobar and downloading the midi plugin, which contained 3 dll files and the vsthost.exe.
On the internet i can not find a sample bank or a VST instrument.

Try Shan's soundfont (http://www.geocities.jp/shansoundfont/). ADDED: It seems that the link is dead

Also: http://www.synthfont.com/links_to_soundfonts.html (http://www.synthfont.com/links_to_soundfonts.html)

Thanks lvqcl, I'm browsing trough the site.
Can you recommend a soundfont file?
There are quite a few websites with so many files.

Try these:

http://www.ntonyx.com/soft/32MbGMStereo.sf2 (http://www.ntonyx.com/soft/32MbGMStereo.sf2)
ftp://ftp.personalcopy.net/pub/Unison.zip (http://ftp://ftp.personalcopy.net/pub/Unison.zip)

Edit: Shan's SGM-V2.01: http://www.mediafire.com/?zo8l3dgf2989266 (http://www.mediafire.com/?zo8l3dgf2989266)

sorry again for my lack of knowledge...
I thought foobar and midi would not be so difficult, because windows media player can play them without a problem.
Why does no other media player support midi that good?
even vlc is not able to open most of my midi files.

I'm downloading the files right now John2k, thanks for that, I will try them out.

Ok now I have this:

http://imgur.com/CVINW (http://imgur.com/CVINW)

Is this correct so far?
Why can't I configure the bassmidi?

I thought foobar and midi would not be so difficult, because windows media player can play them without a problem.
Why does no other media player support midi that good?

Speaking of the Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth (gm.dls), since foo_midi doesn't support .DLS files, is there any way I can get foobar to make my MIDIs sound just like they do with WMP, maybe using a SoundFont that replicates that default DLS' instruments perfectly?

@yosuke30: Don't your MIDIs play properly now? AFAIK that Configure button is enabled only if you use VST files.

It sounds muuuuch better now. Nearly perfect.
But they do have a small difference to what they should sound.

There is no "should sound" to this whole format, unless the composer used a specific synthesizer when producing the file, and expected everyone who would listen would have the same exact synthesizer.

foobar2000 cannot use the system synthesizer because it does not support on-demand rendering, only real time playback.

If you really want it to sound like that horrible gm.dls bank, you may dig up Audio Compositor or similar and convert the bank to SF2 format.

I happen to flip around between a mix of Colossus.SF2 (not strictly legit) with SGM and AnotherXG, and the two Yamaha VST instruments, S-YXG50 and S-YXG2006LE.

I did not understand a single word from your last sentence. :-D
But thanks for the info.

(Sorry for my bad english btw, I'm german)


I am using midi files for creating a game in rpg maker VX ( a small programm for creating 2d RPGs like Terranigma).
And when i play the midi files in the programm they sound excatly like in windows media player, so i said "they should sound like in wmp".

When my game is finished and uploaded, a few will download and play it.
So i guess that everyone will hear the same sound of the midi file included in the game.
It's do damn hard to explain
Everyone will just download my game and click game.exe and then it will start.
The intromusic is a midi file. So everyone will hear this midi file and when i listen to it after the game starts, it sounds like in windows media player, so i guessed that the midi sounds "normal" in wmp.

OH MY GOD please forgive my english :-(

MIDI doesn't have a normal sound. The one you're referring to is the default Microsoft sound, which is the most common among players/listeners.

And that's why I want foobar to sound like wmp.
Because then I can hear what everybode else will hear when they play my game.
Do i have the possibility to do that? That fb2k sound like wmp?

If you really want it to sound like that horrible gm.dls bank, you may dig up Audio Compositor or similar and convert the bank to SF2 format.

Totally missed this post, sorry.
Downloaded VSampler now. Audio Compositor costs 40$...
Imported the gm.dls file and exportet it as a .sf2 file.

Selected it under BASSMIDI in foobar as plugin.
But it still sounds different. I opened the same midi file in wmp and in foobar and it's a difference.
It seems that the drums are missing or they sound different...

Maybe I'll give it up...
Is this correct so far? : http://imgur.com/n3jwk (http://imgur.com/n3jwk)

There should be a Roland VSC soundfont floating around, which is essentially the same thing.

GREAT! That's it!
Thank you so much, I found it somewhere on the net.

Finally! THANK YOU! 

I am surprised that Audio Compositor even costs anything at all now. I thought the developer's web page vanished years ago.

GREAT! That's it!
Thank you so much, I found it somewhere on the net.

Can you provide a link to the file you found?

I am surprised that Audio Compositor even costs anything at all now. I thought the developer's web page vanished years ago.

True, but gotta love copyright laws for crap thats not even maintained anymore >_> Which means me releasing a keygen is unethical, apparently.
Same goes for the XG S-YXG50 stuff, but the S-YXG2006LE is less in a legal hotbed as its sourced from a freeware player.

Or probably hacking said player and turning the core into a VSTi is still illegal too, bleh.

If you want a absolutely great experience listening to old Game Midis, search for the 055.1mg sound canvas v1.0 bank.sf2 soundfont. Its absolutely worth it, I never experienced Midis so close to the hardware-level with BASSMIDI and that soundfont.

What plugin does Zoomplayer use, as a certain midi sound as i want with ZoomPlayer, but with Foobar2000 and the Midi plugin it sounds completely different, tried many settings etc, none is correct.

A VST called SGM produces pretty epic sound that still sounds a lot like WMP ^^ http://download1604.mediafire.com/v38g4btj...66/SGM-V2.01.7z (http://download1604.mediafire.com/v38g4btjf39g/zo8l3dgf2989266/SGM-V2.01.7z)

Listening to an old Runescape rip right now, from before their last, awful music update. It sounds magical. <3

This looks promising:

Musyng Kite 990MB GM/GS soundfont. Former Evanessence overhaul! 3 years in the works! (http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=351893)

I'll add a mirror of Musyng Kite compressed to FLAC sf2pack, which comes out to only 10MB larger than the sfpack file, and can be used as-is with BASSMIDI driver, XMPlay, and foo_midi.

Quick edit: Seems the Orchestral Harp (b0p46) and the default drum kit (b128p0) feature some bad envelopes, and hopefully not bad samples. Quick fix, in the form of an sflist:

Musyng Kite.sf2pack
p0,46=0,46&p128,0=128,0|SGM-V2.01.sf2pack

I've been using Timbres of Heaven soundfont almost exclusevely for midi playback with your plugin, as it covers GM, GS and XG sets.

If anyone is interested to try, scroll down to the end of the page: http://midkar.com/soundfonts/ (http://midkar.com/soundfonts/)

By the way, I've just joyned to give you my thanks for this awesome plugin. I've been using foobar as my only music player for a couple of years after giving up on Winamp for good. I always relied on my soundcard for midi playback, (something I just can't let go) and was surprised by the quality of this plugin. No more clipping sounds and cut off notes after some hours of playback as was the case with the hardware synth from my Xi-Fi (or my previous soundcards), even with huge soundfonts like Evanescence (now Musyng Kite).

Yeah, BASSMIDI uses a floating point mixing process, so even if it does clip, it can still be volume limited either by a DSP or Windows itself. And it supports GS and XG features, unlike Creative's drivers.

I noticed something unusual. If I let the EMIDI device track exclusion active, some musics lose tracks, like the ones from Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo (PC edition).

I don't know if it is how it works or if it is some bug on the detection of EMIDI enabled files. For now I will let that option disabled and only enable it when I want to hear Duke Nuken 3D music.

I happen to flip around between a mix of Colossus.SF2 (not strictly legit) with SGM and AnotherXG, and the two Yamaha VST instruments, S-YXG50 and S-YXG2006LE.

Colossus has very good sounds - but also terrible ones.

so i ended up with the arachno soundfont, which is pretty good for videogame midis imo.

but you say you are flipping around between those soundfonts.

like with a xml player using sounds of more than one sf2 files?

that would be great if this would be possible.

is it? :-)

It already is, using one of two different "sflist" formats.

The newer JSON based format is probably easier to get into, but harder to generate from a directory listing:

https://gist.github.com/kode54/a7bb01a0db3f2e996145b77f0ca510d5

is probably easier to get into

wasn't online for a few days here. and to be honest i am not a programmer. i am into fl studio and photohsop.

so please tell "what" exactly is this doing? i mean the best thing would be that i can have two or more soundfonts, and with this "sflist" i can define which sounds of each soundfonts are used. but then i could make my own ultimate sf2 file. i would extract the sounds of my favourite sf2 files and then i would bring them together in one file.

but sorry. what can this sflist do exactly?

It can pull instruments from individual banks, and map them to any slot you want. It can also map whole files to individual bank offsets. It can also map bank sets that exceed the total size limit of a single .sf2 file.

If you don't want to muck about with a SoundFont editor, it's great. By all means, though, go ahead and cut and paste samples and manually re-save a huge bank file every time you want to make a little change, though.

You can map one or more instruments to other instrument numbers. You can tweak the volume levels of individual mappings you make. You can also choose whether certain banks only apply to specific MIDI channel numbers.

ok. this is just exactly what i need. like taking the best parts of the soundfonts i like and bring them together.

finally it would be great to have "this one great soundfont" with all the best sounds, but this is just one way to do it i guess.

i will check this out. this is definitely nerd heaven. :-)

thanks for pointing out what this is!

It can pull instruments from individual banks, and map them to any slot you want. It can also map whole files to individual bank offsets. It can also map bank sets that exceed the total size limit of a single .sf2 file.

If you don't want to muck about with a SoundFont editor, it's great. By all means, though, go ahead and cut and paste samples and manually re-save a huge bank file every time you want to make a little change, though.

You can map one or more instruments to other instrument numbers. You can tweak the volume levels of individual mappings you make. You can also choose whether certain banks only apply to specific MIDI channel numbers.

ok. lately i come back to this. there are several soundfonts i am using. finally i want to use this script because i want to blend between the sgm soundfont (maybe it is a matter of taste but for me it is overall the best soundfont AND i like the sound when playing videogame and jazz midis) and the aegean symphonic orchestra. bith combined is exactly what i am looking for (yet).

my question is: do i need to edit EVEYR single channel by hand? i would do it.

and here comes the very final question: is there a way that this script uses ALL channels of one soundfont, and all the channels that are not in use will be filled by the second soundfont? is this possible?

if not please please let me know how to blend these two soundfonts into each other as fast as possible (if you figured out a way to do so).

EDIT:

"SoundFont load priority is the same as the original SFList, in that files listed first will be overridden by files listed later."

when i create that list and put the sgm soundfont first, and the other second, the second soundfont's channels will overrite all of the channels of soundfont 1?

because the sgm and the aegean symphonic orchestra complemnet each other perfectly, so i do not need to edit the channels by hand (yet).

wbr

has anyone the jazman soundfont or maybe the genesys pro 8? or both?

i purchased the genesys pro 8 soundfont on gmsoundfont.com.

i'm thinking about purchasing the jazman soundfont as well, would like to exchange some audio samples of the jazman and the genesys pro 8 to hear which one is (finally) better for what i want to do with it (which is listening to videogame midi files :-).

Genesys Pro 8 was a piece of crap the last time I looked at it. Maybe look at Princess Soft Gold instead?

Genesys Pro 8 was a piece of crap the last time I looked at it. Maybe look at Princess Soft Gold instead?

thanks for the tip, never heard of princess soft gold. and well, the genesys pro 8 soundfont is, well, ok imo. i just listened to the demo samples on gmsoundfont.com and they were pretty good.

is the jazman much better than the genesys pro 8?

and i checked out the princess soft gold, or better banco sf2 - bec i cannot find a soundfont called like this. on the website there is only the banco sf2 and the princess violet sf2.

EDIT: ah, well, the princess soft synth seems to include the soundfont or is soundfont based. well, the demo samples sound amazing. will check out the free banco sf2, although the demo samples sound amazing and maybe i will buy it.

and if you want to know my oppinion about the genesys pro 8: 10% of the videogame midis on vgmusic sound pretty good with it, 30% is nice, and 60% not very good, very cheap sounding. that's my experince.

EDIT2: I downloaded the Banco soundfont and after unzippeng the sf2.zip - Voila - it's the Princess Soft Gold soundfont! and viola - i need to buy it it seems, i got decoding errors.

finally, i've found out about the Merlin GM v32 v3.2. it's just 34 mb and a great soundfont for listening to videogame midi's.

i like this sound very much, and it's free. just search the web.

although the non-free soundfonts on the site might be better, this one is very good for my purposes.