Who was the person who chose general midi sounds

[Oopi]

Lately I have been thinking GM midi sounds and I’m not entirely satisfied with them. Why so many organ, saxophone or orchestral sounds? Shouldn’t they all have been synth sounds? Why there are so many stupid sound effects but not so many classic synth sounds at all? There are like two synth basses and brasses and squarewave and sawtooth lead. It doesn’t cut it anymore.

And many sounds sounds like they are from Roland-50 or some new age machine. So I think the important question is who selected these sounds and why? What was the process of choosing these sounds and were there any sounds that were left out for some reason? I mean there could have been any number of sounds so why choose 128? Why not like two or three thousand sounds for example. It doesn’t make that much sense when you think about it.

[experimental.crow]

it was me ...
i don't like to talk about it ...

i needed the money ...

[ghettosynth]

IBTL!

[Watchful]

If I recall... Korg first proposed the idea of GM back in the early 1990s, but Roland picked the sounds...and they pretty much went with their MT-32 module as it was aimed at the home user just getting into MIDI for music and games. And most were based on the Roland D-50, so good call. The MT-32 was intended to be used by everybody for anything, so sounds were picked to be as cross-interest as possible...hence, you have a lot of orchestral and not many overly synth-like sounds. Plus, it's easier for other manufacturers to match familiar sounds than to try to emulate synth-specific sounds.

[chk071]

it was me ...
i don't like to talk about it ...

i needed the money ...

[dark water]

@OP: Hard to say, but I'd be surprised if Ikutaro Kakehashi and Dave Smith didn't have some (artistic) overview of it.

[DJErmac]

it was me ...
i don't like to talk about it ...

i needed the money ...

Beat me to it, but your answer is better !

[Teksonik]

Why so many organ, saxophone or orchestral sounds?

Because a lot of people used Organs and Saxophone etc in their Music in the late 80's early 90's ? Not a lot of "Producers" making Mad Beatz.....there were actually still Musicians back then.

Shouldn’t they all have been synth sounds? Why there are so many stupid sound effects but not so many classic synth sounds at all? There are like two synth basses and brasses and squarewave and sawtooth lead.

Because those sounds weren't "classic" back then and analogs were still available without having to sell a kidney. Analog actually fell out of favor back then at least around here when the Digital Synths came out that could do more than a Saw Wave through a Low Pass Filter.

And many sounds sounds like they are from Roland-50 or some new age machine.

It may come as a shock to the youth of today but New Age was actually quite popular for a while.

You're looking at the issue with 2018 eyes not 1990 eyes.

[thecontrolcentre]

IIRC it was General Midi himself who chose those sounds ... they rock for military style stuff

[noiseboyuk]

Fun thread. Good reply from Watchful. Back in the day, the idea was to have these cheap chips that would be in every PC etc, so that games, CD ROMs etc could play any kind of music just stored as super-efficient midi data and it would play back and sound pretty much the same everywhere (yeah, I know, but that was the idea). So they had to cover everything - just maybe stuff like the gunshot was part of that, that games could use sound effects from the synth engine too to save on resources (?)

Its a quirk of history and developing technology that freeze us in time. I'm not sure what useful function GM serves now really, except my brain is programmed to hit the GM layout for drum kits. Maybe stage musicians still vaguely remember the layout so when they are at a gig with an unfamiliar workstation they can find their way around?

I don't know that a modern version would offer anything useful either, its simply a redundant concept.

[Acid Mitch]

I'm not sure what useful function GM serves now really,

If you are playing covers in pubs,etc or running kareoke nights it means you can buy MIDI files of hit songs and it’ll play back the correct sounds. You're not going to end up with piano parts playing back sax sounds ,etc.

[noiseboyuk]

Does Karaoke ever still use midi?! Thought it was all video-based now, let alone audio...

[Acid Mitch]

Yes.

[Tj Shredder]

Back then, synthesizers wanted to mimik real instruments. The idea was to make it cheaper than a real orchestra. Synth sounds as we understand in electronica are new and per definition hard to categorize... Categorisation was the main aim and acoustic instruments would fit to what musicians are familiar with...
You can still use GM and only use synth sounds and a classical piece would sound sort of correct...

[Oopi]

Thanks for the answers, I’m delighted. But I think gm midi soundset is kind of dated. I mean I now understand that orchestral sounds are kind of timeless so you can have these. And other acoustic instruments thats fine. But why then include new age synth like sounds which is very specific style and it dates it clearly. I mean who gave the right to Roland to put these sounds in it? Was it the president?

Where is supersaw, well there is none. And wub-wub sounds these unmusical dubsteb -like sounds are nowhere to be found. It just not forward thinking enough. What I would have proposed is okey fine let’s have these kind of dated sounds and then supersaw and wub-wub. And lastly classic analog type sounds like you have in Syntronik or Uvi’s Vintage fault collection. At least 2000 sounds, that would have been great.