Subject:HOW DO I - Play Soundfont Instruments

Posted by: alastairbrown

Date:2/28/2003 2:57:46 AM

I have figured out how to load a soft synth and play VSTi instruments through ACID 4.0. What I can't figure out is how to load and play soundfonts from within ACID.

I have a soundblaster 1024 and Live Drive 2 which meant I had to use the KX Project drivers to get ASIO support to solve latency issues when playing soft synths. The KX Mixer Panel has a pop up for loading soundfonts, however, I can't figure out how to open/play them from within ACID.

Any advice much appreciated.

Subject:RE: HOW DO I - Play Soundfont Instruments

Reply by: dkistner

Date:2/28/2003 3:45:53 PM

You need a VSTi that accepts soundfonts. VSampler will load and play soundfonts(although I have only used it as a standalone); double-check, though, to be sure it's VST*i* compatible and not just VST. Kontakt's probably the best. Jeskola XS-1 is supposed to be the best-sounding of all of them, but I've been frustrated with the interface.

Alternatively, you can convert your soundfonts into DLS format and play them with the DLS Soft Synth in Acid. I don't have a lot of experience doing this, though; my first efforts gave me some degradation I did not want, and I was told at the time that this is because the conversion from .SF2 format to .DLS is not exact.

If you have any SampleTank product except the free one, you can also convert soundfonts into that format using Extreme Sample Converter. That's what I'm doing, and I've been quite pleased with the results.

Of course, with a Soundblaster, you can PLAY the soundfonts directly through your card. Doesn't sound like that's what you want to do, though.

Subject:RE: HOW DO I - Play Soundfont Instruments

Reply by: NewCreation

Date:3/28/2003 9:53:07 AM

I've just recently had some experience working through this particular issue and thought perhaps I could add some value to the subject. Here's what I found:

PROBLEM #1: Acid Pro will not allow you render an Acid song containing one or more MIDI tracks to an audio file such as MP3 or Windows Media. In fact, it automatically mutes your MIDI tracks when rendering.

PROBLEM #2: Acid Pro allows you to load .DLS (downloadable sound) files for the MIDI track to use when rendering. These essentially replace the General Midi sounds provided by whatever sound card you're using. However, .DLS files are NOT readily available anywhere that I have found (so far).

SOLUTION #1: If you love the sounds that your external MIDI device makes, and you don't want to consider substituting the MIDI tracks with alternate sounds, you must do the following:
a. Solo the MIDI tracks in your Acid song
b. Make sure your external MIDI device is ready to play. Also make sure that the audio line out on the external device is connected to your sound card's line in.
c. Record the extent of the MIDI track(s) to audio. When completed, you may want to convert the WAV file to something smaller such as MP3 to save hard disk space (in my case, my WAV file changed from 50MB to 5MB without any loss of sound quality).

SOLUTION #2: If you're interested in using SoundFonts, visit web sites like soundfont.com, soundfonts.com and a dozen others which are easily found using any web search engine (I like google.com). Some are free, others you pay a small fee for. Once you have the SoundFonts, you must CONVERT them to .DLS format using one of the few shareware programs which can do this including AWave Studio ($100) and Audio Compositor ($40).

I found a great article one the web which explains this much better. Here it is:
http://emusician.com/ar/emusic_downloadable_sounds.

Subject:RE: HOW DO I - Play Soundfont Instruments

Reply by: dkistner

Date:3/29/2003 2:44:31 PM

Now, I know there's a way to record midi out of Acid, because I've done it before. But I've stopped working in midi in Acid because I've come up with a more efficient setup now (feeding my scoring program output into Chainer [VSTi/VST/DX host] and recording that, then pulling the audio into Acid). This way, I get around any crotchetiness Acid has with VSTis and midi. But Chainer will run in Acid, and you can plug a soundfont player into that. Or get a VSTi that imports soundfonts (Kontakt comes to mind as one of the best, although some swear by Jeskola XS-1). I don't know if these are SoFo-sanctioned as working in Acid, though.

Subject:RE: HOW DO I - Play Soundfont Instruments

Reply by: forlornsoul

Date:3/29/2003 9:54:58 PM

I would love to be able to do something with SoundFonts but I would be using my other PC which has the SBLive 5.1 in it. The *main* PC (work, web stuff, main Acid usage, etc..) has a PCI128 which doesn't support SF's... I may look into AWave to convert the SF banks I like into DLS format and see what happens.

Anyways, with regards to recording with MIDI in Acid...I am no expert, to say the least in that part ;-) , but what I generally have been doing is create my midi sequence in XGWorks (for my Yamaha S03 synth) and load it into Acid and work the loops around it to fit the mood/style/etc of what I want to create. I don't do anything extensive in MIDI yet as I am still learning to play synth (theory, etc..) and it is slowly coming together. As time goes by I want to back off the use of loops somewhat and use more MIDI tracks but I may end up having to render the MIDI as a wav file and then bring that into Acid and work loops around it to get the piece complete.

Just what I've been doing (Echoes from a Dark Past is an example of simple playing with MIDI synth voice and loops that's listenable over at www.soundclick.com/darkenedsoul for anyone interested in my Dark Ambient project).

Mike

Subject:RE: HOW DO I - Play Soundfont Instruments

Reply by: Laurence

Date:3/31/2003 8:43:56 PM

Converting Soundfonts to DLS files with Awave works, but often the DLS files need tweaking. Awave lets you do this, but it is not always easy. The DLS synth is very easy on the CPU though. I was doing this until I discovered the Jeskola XS-1 synth at jeskola.net The XS-1 is a Soundfont playback synth that sounds great and is super CPU efficient as well.

Laurence Kingston

Subject:RE: HOW DO I - Play Soundfont Instruments

Reply by: Harmstation

Date:7/21/2003 5:28:07 PM

Try using a soundfont player VSTi. There's a free one here:

http://www.kvr-vst.com/get.php?mode=show&id=344

It takes a little fiddling, but it will do the job. I've been using it for a while. This one will also mix two sound fonts together and you can use filters and such on them. But it will play them straight, too. There are others out there, and that's the only way I've found of playing soundfonts through AP4.

Good luck!

Subject:RE: HOW DO I - Play Soundfont Instruments

Reply by: Girlio

Date:7/21/2003 6:43:27 PM

Not sure if it was mentioned since i don't wanna go thru al lthese replies, but there are vsti soundfont loaders, or u can convert your soundfonts into DLS soundsets using something like Awave. ;)

Subject:RE: HOW DO I - Play Soundfont Instruments

Reply by: groovewerx

Date:7/21/2003 10:37:06 PM

Mike Said,

"I would love to be able to do something with SoundFonts but I would be using my other PC which has the SBLive 5.1 in it. The *main* PC (work, web stuff, main Acid usage, etc..) has a PCI128 which doesn't support SF's..."

Try this:

http://www.fxteleport.com/index.html

Subject:RE: HOW DO I - Play Soundfont Instruments

Reply by: Paulie

Date:7/22/2003 12:19:24 PM

Fruityloops has a soundfont player.

I use Fruityloops as a VSTi. and then render to Audio. I paid for the Fruity Soundfont player ($35) a while ago, but I think it is now part of the standard product.

Paulie