VSTi 64-bit Windows -- help newbie!

[MuTools_User]

Want to find free or cheap (under $100) VST instruments to use in MuLab, for 64-bit Windows. I do NOT want the electronic synthesizer sounds that are so prevalent, nor samples, nor loops. I want mostly sounds that emulate real instruments, would also love some ethnic world instruments. (In rare cases when I do want synthesizer sounds, MuLab is already loaded with them!) I need INSTRUMENTS, not effects -- things that I can load into a MuLab session, and they will just WORK, as close to plug-and-play as I can get! I've already downloaded about five different VSTi packages and they are listed as .dll files in my "Manage VST instruments" window in MuLab, but they all say "disabled" in the second column. So Jo told me that maybe they were 32-bit. ...? And that I should go to the forum for help.

First, do you think Jo is right, and second, do you have any suggestions for a good source to meet my needs?

I really just want a range of various instrument sounds like general MIDI, but hopefully sounding significantly better. (Not one package with 40 different guitar sounds!) When reading on the website that MuLab used MIDI, I thought, "Great, that will be a good start; then I can add some VSTi's later." Then when I got MuLab, I couldn't find the flute, the clarinet, the harp, the French Horn, and so on. Finally realized that what I was looking for were the GENERAL MIDI sound patches. ...And remembered that "MIDI" is just a generic term for the way the signals are encoded by the computer.

My husband also had me download Sonatina Symphonic something -- but all it was, was samples, and that is just more trouble than I want to go through! The files are .sfz something, and I can hear them in MuLab, but don't know what to do with them. Apparently there is a way to make it work, but you have to jump through a bunch of hoops to do it. Not going to happen -- at least, not any time soon!

Other problems already experienced:
most of the "free" sites are trying to get you to download SOMETHING ELSE like the Yahoo toolbar -- been through that already, had to uninstall the outdated .pdf reader what was also included...
or
they don't tell you what FILE FORMAT the VSTi is in, not anywhere on their websites, and MuLab can only readily use .dll or .vst -- Correct?
or
they don't tell you whether it's 32-bit or 64-bit...
or
they don't really say much of anything about what it is...

Context:
Piano teacher, write mostly solo piano music and MIDI keyboard ensembles (stuff that emulates various ensembles, jazz combo, rock band, chamber music, orchestra, etc.) for our music school. I like MIDI because you can change the tempo easily and transpose. I will be able to put MuLab on my laptop, and take a file with me to the school, and play it through computer speakers, then I still have that tempo adjustment capability -- crucial for music teachers! (Currently, I just make files at home on the app's listed below, copy them onto 3.5" diskettes and play them in our little Roland MIDI player box at the school. But one day, that Roland box is going to break, or I won't be able to get a 3.5" drive nor the diskettes anymore. And I also suspect that the Roland player is limited to General MIDI sounds (maybe?), and I want to branch out beyond that. So going to MuLab with laptop is a good step up.)

System:
MULAB/MUX v.6.0.35. Bought the user keys. Just started with MuLab this week, newbie!
WINDOWS 7 64-bit, did not buy a different soundcard. Realtek is soundcard in the machine. (Have an old M-Audio 192 (I think?) soundcard in my old computer, but don't know If I should move it over to the Windows 7.)
MIDI KEYBOARDS for input, two of them, both seem to be working fine with MuTools: a Yamaha piano and "X-board 49" from EMu.

Experience:
SIBELIUS COMPOSING: long-time user, since version 1.1. Currently have version 3 and plan to upgrade to 7 soon. Sibelius is still on my old Windows XP computer, currently. Love Sibelius.
LOGIC SEQUENCING: Have an OLD, orphaned Windows version called "Micro Logic" that dates back to their early days when they were dual platform, before they went to Mac-only. Uses General MIDI only. Have created many files with it. This is also still on my old Win. XP computer. Still love this app, but want better sounds than General MIDI, and unfortunately Logic is Mac-only now! In addition, the effects in this are extremely limited.
PRO TRACKS: Bought it, hated it. Almost never used it.

Thank you!
Lynne

[pljones]

First, do you think Jo is right

Hard to say as you have provided no information about the VSTs.

and second, do you have any suggestions for a good source to meet my needs?

Realistic emulations of real instruments are incredibly difficult to achieve electronically, so you will have to decide "how real" you need when auditioning each one.

Saying that you do not want samples effectively eliminates almost all the solutions to what you are looking for -- as the best emulations of real instruments still rely on sampling. "SFZ" is a way of telling a sampler how to play audio files based on incoming MIDI events. ("SF2" is not exactly the same - it's a way of packaging a bunch of samples, along with information about them.) To play SFZ files you need something like Sforzando.

For example, if you want a good piano, really, really, really you need to use samples. Really. There's no alternative. Same goes for drums. Probably for guitar. And acoustic bass. Brass maybe you can get closer synthesis, as it's a simpler audio spectrum. But anything where the basic sound is complex and varies a lot with volume and pitch is still extremely hard to emulate. (OK, that's my opinion )

Sforzando, mentioned above, comes with some free sounds (though you may need to hunt around on their website now). I don't remember them really being "real instrument" sounds, though.

You could also try Native Instruments Kontakt Player - I think the included sounds are "okay" and don't have the player "15 minutes and you're out" restriction that you'd get using free Kontakt sample packs otherwise. The range covers a lot of "real instruments", too.

In both cases (Sforzando and Kontakt Player), the installer will install both 32bit and 64bit versions and you'll get to see (or change) where they're installed. You can then tell MuLab to pick up the right one.

[MuTools_User]

Thank you for the informative and honest response!
Yes, in the meantime we also looked at this doc... "MU.Lab free -- Making Use of the VSTi"

http://www.johnnypumphandle.com/johnny/ ... 1_VST.htm

where it said, at the end, to try these:

"Advanced (Windows Only)

For those of you that are more familiar with MIDI song development, but want to use a VSTi, I would highly recommend the sfz VSTi module from RGC Audio. This is a Soundfont VSTi instrument that will load and select Soundfont banks and respond to patches. This instrument is supplied as a standalone executable or a VSTi. So it will work with MU.LAB or any other VST Host program.

If you are familiar with Soundfonts (used in the EMU/Creative line of soundcards) you may have access to a large variety of Soundfont banks which are also available throughout the Internet Download the sfz VSTi from RGC:AUDIO and install it in your VST folder. Add it to MU.LAB by clicking on the File button and selecting the VST Plugin Manager. While you are on the net, cruise on over to Hammersound.net and get a copy of the neat General Midi Soundfont bank named sYnerGi-8MB.sf2. This bank contains 128 GM instruments, 8 percussion sets and a few more bonus banks. It works beautifully with the sfz module to provide a complete soft synth General Midi set of sounds. The sound bank download is both zipped and sfpacked so it is only about 6MB. It must be unzipped to a temporary Folder and then the SFPack program is used to unPack it to a Soundfont folder (or the VST Folder will work)."


____________________________________________________________________
And I certainly believe you, that the sound quality using samples will be better! I just was not prepared for such a steep learning curve, getting started with MuLab. It's frustrating.

Also am concerned about system resources. 8 GB RAM, 2.94 Ghz processor seem like great specs to me, but am ignorant about the degree to which the live processing of the samples will tax my CPU. (Also it's dual core, but then, the MuLab doc's recommended limiting MuLab to just one processor, in the setup.) I normally don't have more than 10 or 12 tracks running at once, absolute max -- (and I added a couple of extra tracks, allowing for added effects, to that estimate). And probably no audio, just MIDI, MIDI effects, and perhaps one of these sfz player devices. And can the sfz player process several different sample voices at once? For example, can it process a piano, a flute, and a cello, live, all at one time, running in the same piece?

I definitely will look into your suggestions, and into the ones in this document also! I think the doc is probably a little outdated, but some things in it might still be useful.

Thank you!
Lynne

[liquidsound]

Btw, you can still download and use the 32bit version of MuLab. It will work flawlessly on your system.

Also this can give you some additional choices
http://pro.magix.com/en/independence/in ... .1013.html

2GB of sounds and up to 25 files import at the time.

Also Cakewalk has a nice free SFZ player.

[MuTools_User]

Thank you, I'll look save those items and look at them, also. We're trying Sforzando first and seeing how it will work. Just downloaded the file and the -- gulp! 25 pages -- manual.
Lynne

[pljones]

Also Cakewalk has a nice free SFZ player.

That is the rgc:audio one Lynne mentions. It's very old and is limited to SFZ format 1. Sforzando does both format 1 and 2 (as well as loading SF2 and GIG files).

Personally, I would avoid Soundfont (SF2) files entirely as they are generally poor quality and you spend an awful lot of wasted time being disappointed. Sample packs, either in SFZ (1 or 2) format or for another samplers (such as Kontakt) are usually more carefully constructed from higher quality sounds.

8 GB RAM, 2.94 Ghz processor seem like great specs to me, but am ignorant about the degree to which the live processing of the samples will tax my CPU.

Processing samples is much less taxing of a CPU than synthesising complex sounds - it's starting from a later point in the process, so there is less work to do. 8GB (in 64bit mode) will get you a long way. However, I would watch for the CPU anyway - only two cores is always going to struggle. MuLab defaults to using half the available cores (i.e. 4 on an 8 core machine) but I would suggest you let it use both your cores.

[liquidsound]

This is on sale for $99.00 from $249.00.
It seems to be the closest to your needs and some.

http://www.store.cakewalk.com/b2cus/Pro ... DM1.50-30E

And this is a good review
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/may06/a ... ension.htm

@pljones
you're spot on about SFZ 1 and 2.

[sbj]

Hi Lynne

You might wanna take a look at these: http://www.opensound.com/proaudio-download.html

There is a Piano - A bass - A Rhodes piano and an E-Piano

When/if you download them there will be two files.

Since you're on 64 bit it is the one that says x64 you should use.

Place it in your vst folder and load it from MuLab.

Cheers

[pljones]

@pljones
you're spot on about SFZ 1 and 2.

I'll just add for historical interest...

rgc:audio produced sfz0.xx as a test bed for developing (the best for a long time) SoundFont player, SFZ+ (with a plus). SFZ+ has a larger UI designed around the SoundFont standard and lets you load up to 16 different SF2 files. However, it knows nothing about SFZ format files at all -- sfz0.xx was SoundFont only. sfz1.xx (which did SFZ v1 format) went on to form the engine in Dimension Pro, which is Cakewalk's first SFZ v2 format-based "synth".

(Yes, that's been nagging at me all day... )

[MuTools_User]

Hi folks!
pljones
liquidsound
sbj

Thank you all for the great information! I did put on Sforzando last night, and was able to try it out, playing three tracks -- one with a built-in sound from MuLab, one with a flute sound (from the Sonatina Symphony Orchestra) using Sforzando, and another track with trombone from the same S.S.O. just mentioned, also using Sforzando. And no additional tracks or effects were running, nothing from MuX. I set the CPU monitor to display the max percentage, and it topped out at about 14%, which seems like a lot for just three tracks. I had set the CPU limit specifically to "1" when I set up MuLab, based on the cautions in the support doc's, but can certainly specify it as "2" instead, as you recommend, pljones.

This is really great! I feel very ready to proceed now, and will be looking for other sfz and sfz2 files to use. I am so optimistic now and am REALLY looking forward to making music with MuLab. It's a genuine relief to look forward to hearing something that is so much better than the dreadfully cheezy General MIDI sounds that I worked with for years. There were many times that I thought, "Man, this is music that 'only a mother could love'! Good thing that I'm writing for music school concerts, attended by only students and family." I quickly identified the General MIDI patches that were the least offensive and tended to use them a lot -- flute, clarinet, harp, acoustic bass, jazz guitar, vibes, piano, electric pianos, and some others. In particular, the trumpet (my husband's a teacher), bowed strings, and sax (I played through high school) were truly ghastly! I always THOUGHT that I couldn't afford to get anything that sounded better, and that even if I could get something better, it would also be a technical nightmare to work with.

It will be fun, gradually getting acquainted with all of the effects that are built into MuLab/MuX. I'll try them out with lots of experiments! And will keep checking online for doc's, and here are on the forum, when I need help!

Thank you!
Lynne
in north Texas

[liquidsound]

@pljones
you're spot on about SFZ 1 and 2.

I'll just add for historical interest...

rgc:audio produced sfz0.xx as a test bed for developing (the best for a long time) SoundFont player, SFZ+ (with a plus). SFZ+ has a larger UI designed around the SoundFont standard and lets you load up to 16 different SF2 files. However, it knows nothing about SFZ format files at all -- sfz0.xx was SoundFont only. sfz1.xx (which did SFZ v1 format) went on to form the engine in Dimension Pro, which is Cakewalk's first SFZ v2 format-based "synth".

(Yes, that's been nagging at me all day... )

You mean SF2 right?

[pljones]

Yes, SF2 is the file extension for SoundFont 2.x files -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoundFont