Musyng Kite 990MB GM/GS soundfont. Former Evanessence overhaul! 2011-2014 June 21st 2014

[Sarcyan]

Links to download Musyng soundfont

The Soundfont weighs 339MB -compressed SFPACK format- and it's about 990MB uncompressed.

Download links:

http://1drv.ms/1ijfGeh (link to download it from my Onedrive account. Onedrive is free now, you don't need to use a Hotmail or Live account to download files from there as of currently)

The soundfont has been compressed with the Soundfont compression utility SFPACK, which you can download in the original webpage here:

http://www.personalcopy.com/sfpack.htm

For MAC users, in order to uncompress the file Wine Bottler works perfectly with sfpack.. You just have to put the Sfpack file in the extracted folder of sfpack app anywhere on your drive, if you have Winebottler installed it will automatically open with that, choose "Open within winebottler" not to leave any windows stuff lying around in memory, extract the soundfont in it's entirety (1.62GB), exit winbebottler, all traces gone, sf2 intact. (much obliged ttoz!!!!!!!!)

MIDI Test files for Musyng have been included in an individual file. Whether you use them for testing or not, there aren't many files there, and some of them are among the best MIDI files I have!

You can get the 20 something MIDI files I zipped here:

http://1drv.ms/1hNrkrR

Feel free edit the soundfont. I hope you enjoy Musyng.

-Cose

[AstralExistence]

please don't get upset, but does anybody actually use soundfonts anymore? why would one want to use a soundfont vs a plugin in todays day of dirt cheap pcs.

[Sarcyan]

please don't get upset, but does anybody actually use soundfonts anymore? why would one want to use a soundfont vs a plugin in todays day of dirt cheap pcs.

Comments, opinions, and rants are welcome... so no worries about that AstralExistence!

In regards to your question, I think you might be surprised at how many people use them. I have about everything, DXis (Roland TTS1, ForteDXi), romplers, samplers, instrument libraries from Cakewalk and the like, VTSis… like 5 DAWs (and I suck at DAWs) ‘cos I am far from being rich but spent a fair amount of money on those, and of course I still use soundfonts! I just love them.

Additionally, classic gaming enthusiasts use soundfonts for the most part to enhance the sound of old games, and I have a friend on youtube who was made music for indie games and uses soundfonts. A developer also asked to use the former Musical Box –previous version of this soundfont, it was called like that 2 years ago- to compose music for the games of the company he works for –they are indie developers, but you get the idea.

If you add to that that they aren’t CPU mongers, then they can come in handy, and if you use a soundfont which is nicely balanced it can be a great resource to draft your music --like the wonderful Roland TTS1 soft synth, although this one is a DXi.

Some of the soundfonts limitations like lack of key switching, random sample triggering and stuff like that can be overcome with external utilities.

Plus you can get similar effects to the best samplers out there with Fruity Soundfont Player (FL Studio) and DirectWave (FL Studio), because of the rich generators they have, better than most VSTs, as they are really high quality.

Also it is very easy to transform a melodic preset from a soundfont into a DirectWave file to add to your library, and some of them are plenty fine.

Besides that, Jazman PRO GM 24-bit is a very recent professional and commercial soundfont and it is crazy good!

The author/authors are working on a new version meant to be released somewhere between the current date and 2020, which will be called Jazman Pro 32-bit.

FL Studio accepts soundfonts but only in their most expensive, full featured version (the Signature Bundle) –if you don’t buy it separately-, which I guess means that it is popular and there is a demand for that feature.

Sure that there are many soundfonts that were okay in the past and are now showing their age. For some people though those old Soundfonts can have a lot of charm with their classic, old school style.

Gotta admit that some are full of cheese by today’s standards but it reminds you of your childhood when you played Doom.

Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo was my first Street Fighter game and if you listen to the superb balanced, old style MIDI of the songs in its previous iteration, SSF2, you can get why that sound can be so good too.

(music starts at the 6 minutes in mark)

It’s catchy and MIDI and memorable, it’s tough to describe it, but maybe that’s just me.

Some old soundfonts are just bad though, not very balanced and with poor sounds, but then you have FluidR3 GM, which is also quite old and it’s an amazing soundfont!

Or the Roland SC-55 soundfont, which is based on the real hardware, I am in love with that one. It’s so well done.

Anyways, to give you an idea on what you can achieve with modern soundfonts, I made this video days ago, and I wasn’t even trying (the video is Unlisted, it was meant to just be shared with friends).

Using some effects from FL Studio and recording it in real time I got this. (it’s rave music, you have been warned)…



I wasn’t even using soundfonts with specific sounds, I just used two General MIDI compatible soundfonts!

My favourite soundfont, Jazman PRO GM, plus another GM Soundfont which has some nice samples for dance music, the EdgeSounds SoniqBear GM120Pro.

Finally, I think I will keep using Soundfonts for as long as I can, forever I guess, but I won’t be working on a soundfont anymore -just using the newer ones that come out when I can-, this one was too much of a time hog. Sound wise I just want to focus on my music. And most importantly, real life priorities.

Cheers AstralExperience!

[Sarcyan]

edit: (links updated)

[bigcat1969]

Since this is creative commons 3, do you mind if I mess around with releasing it in other formats like Kontakt or VSTi?

[Sarcyan]

Since this is creative commons 3, do you mind if I mess around with releasing it in other formats like Kontakt or VSTi?

Sure, of course you can, I would only ask you please to agree with a single term, being it that please link to the first page of this thread, for info, when using the soundfont. Thanks!

[bigcat1969]

Sure thing. Thanks.

[WOK]

please don't get upset, but does anybody actually use soundfonts anymore? why would one want to use a soundfont vs a plugin in todays day of dirt cheap pcs.

Why not? Whats the difference between this SF or using Hypersonic or Halion Sonic ?
Or do you still think about SF as to be loaded into a Soundblaster card?

P.S.: Thanks for this.

[Sarcyan]

P.S.: Thanks for this.

You're welcome. WOK.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Minor last minute tweaks, which aren’t essential for those who downloaded the previous version but they are interesting --especially the one regarding the Jazz Drums kit.

- I added the same snare and hand clap from the Standard kit to the Jazz Kit, which I had forgotten to do before.
- Removed layers from the Alto Sax preset. They were unnecessary and I improved the sound in the process.
- Enhanced 4 GS Presets, typical and very useful effects like Screaming, Laser Gun, etc.
- Removed 5 samples, and added 2. The total account of samples sits at 5739 now.

That's all the soundfont needed for me. As you can see, the changes are minor and it doesn’t make a huge difference for those who have the soundfont, but it is interesting, plus I am not changing the soundfont anymore from now on, as I wanted to leave it there for posterity, and the previous download links won’t work anyways.

You can get the definitive version of Musyng here. I put all the love I could into it:

http://1drv.ms/1ijfGeh (Onedrive)

Enjoy Musyng and thanks for your support!

[Sarcyan]

Time ago I wanted to make a light version of Evanessence/Musyng, and my intention was to have a soundfont with a more palatable size, around 700MB. I worked on a few alternative presets, just keeping the best of the best, despite knowing it wold never see the light of day.

It was just that the idea was there. So I removed now 630MB worth of data (got rid of super large presets that could be matched with less data) from Musyng and with those sounds and refinements I saved Musyng Kite -pun from Musyng lite (I just like nature and birds of prey)-.

This soundfont has what I consider the best Acoustic Grand Piano soundfont ever made. (and I almost tried them all, from the little ones to the 256MB, 900MB ones) At least the best piano (soundfont format) I've had the pleasure to listen to.

It's a 16MB piano.

By that I mean the Fazioli.

Additionally, Musyng Kite has tweaks and refinements that Musyng never got, never will! Like the lower notes of the electronic drum kits with their corresponding sound, something they were lacking before --Electronic, TR808, TR909 and Techno-.

Plus there are deep changes in the presets, but they are for good. (example, got rid of a Electric Piano 2 layer and gave life to the original ones I had but muted for some reason).

Musyng Kite can be downloaded here:

http://1drv.ms/1qjCIRy (OneDrive DL link)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6caGN ... sp=sharing (google drive DL link)

I'd recommend Musyng Kite over the original and larger Musyng, it's more polished and refined. Additionally, Musyng Kite also works flawlessly with programs like FL Studio, which refused to load the original Musyng because of its size. (I think FL Studio loads up to 1.2GB soundfonts in size)

Musyng Kite is 990MB in size (339MB compressed in SFPACK format) and has quite a few more improved, refined and sybaritic presets.

The melodic presets changed in a few ways... But to sum it up, I'd give it a try if only for the piano! Plus other presets...

p.s. both versions will be available for download, but while the original Musyng has more samples, it's not as polished as Musyng Kite when comparing the same samples and presets, so I WHOLEHEARTEDLY recommend the latter.

[Sarcyan]

Synthfont's creator, Kenneth, has uploaded the soundfont to Synthfont's homepage. You can also download it there. Link:

http://www.synthfont.com/SoundFonts/Musyng_Kite.sfpack

[kode54]

It is also possible to compress the SoundFont using FLAC, with BASSMIDI's sf2pack tool and flac.exe. Or the packer included with BASSMIDI Driver and a flac.exe somewhere in your system path, or in the directory you specify.

The resulting file will be only 10MB larger than the sfpack, and still usable as-is with BASSMIDI Driver, XMPlay, and foo_midi.

Now to report some problems I'm having with the latest version, as of this post:

Bank 0 preset 46, the orchestral harp, seems to cut out too quickly. The same goes for one of the cymbal sounds. Harp cutting out can be clearly heard in this MIDI file: http://cl.ly/1y191E2W372t/OVERSNOW.HMI.mid

And cymbal cutting out in this MIDI file: http://cl.ly/0H112A2F270y/D_STALKS.MUS.mid

And one of the instruments in this file is out of tune: http://cl.ly/360C2I20281N/MM5_Gravity_Man-KM-GS.mid

I'll be happy if whatever fix for this is made available as a bsdiff or xdelta3 patch against this current release, with checksum:

MD5(Musyng Kite.sf2)= b5e47ed81be2dafc280c8b6997661bee

Perhaps it would be a good idea to test this with BASSMIDI, XMPlay, an X-Fi card, or even Apple's DLS/SF2 AudioUnit, and not SynthFont.

I'll see about tweaking some of this stuff, but it looks like I'll have to nag the author of Polyphontics to finally get his update out after more than a year, in which I requested support for importing existing banks for editing, as the current release only supports importing its own project format and merely exporting SF2 banks from the result.

[Sarcyan]

It is also possible to compress the SoundFont using FLAC, with BASSMIDI's sf2pack tool and flac.exe. Or the packer included with BASSMIDI Driver and a flac.exe somewhere in your system path, or in the directory you specify.

The resulting file will be only 10MB larger than the sfpack, and still usable as-is with BASSMIDI Driver, XMPlay, and foo_midi.

Now to report some problems I'm having with the latest version, as of this post:

Bank 0 preset 46, the orchestral harp, seems to cut out too quickly. The same goes for one of the cymbal sounds. Harp cutting out can be clearly heard in this MIDI file: http://cl.ly/1y191E2W372t/OVERSNOW.HMI.mid

And cymbal cutting out in this MIDI file: http://cl.ly/0H112A2F270y/D_STALKS.MUS.mid

And one of the instruments in this file is out of tune: http://cl.ly/360C2I20281N/MM5_Gravity_Man-KM-GS.mid

I'll be happy if whatever fix for this is made available as a bsdiff or xdelta3 patch against this current release, with checksum:

MD5(Musyng Kite.sf2)= b5e47ed81be2dafc280c8b6997661bee

Perhaps it would be a good idea to test this with BASSMIDI, XMPlay, an X-Fi card, or even Apple's DLS/SF2 AudioUnit, and not SynthFont.

I'll see about tweaking some of this stuff, but it looks like I'll have to nag the author of Polyphontics to finally get his update out after more than a year, in which I requested support for importing existing banks for editing, as the current release only supports importing its own project format and merely exporting SF2 banks from the result.

Many, many thanks for the feedback kode54. Those issues shouldn't take too much time to fix --uploading the file with my slow connection speed is actually more of the issue. I shall look into those things. The cymbal thing is very difficult to find, thanks for sharing --you got me there, I thought it was fine.

As for using FLAC I have BassMIDI and there is a SFPacker but never used it. Most probably I am going to try to upload a SFPack file for compatibility reasons or even SFArk though, 'cos I don't know if the users who don't have a PC can decompress it or if BassMIDI driver works with other OSes.

Additionally, in regards to Synthfont, I love it for several reasons -no need to ramble- and because of its sound engine, which is really nice. I have XMPlay, plus Spider Player and quite a few DAWs, although not the X-Fi. With the amount of DAWs and utilities I have I should be able to isolate the issue, so no worries kode54.

I found a bug on a DAW though when trying to load the D_Stalks.mid file you shared with me. I shall share with the author.

You are right, the Acoustic Sine Wave is out of tune, I realised that days after releasing the file, but considered it a very minor issue.

Gotta need some days to fix that, ooooh bby, the vacation time. B) I am going to have some free time til early July, I hope. THANKS kode54, I'd never found that tbh -save the clearly obvious Ac Sine Wave (a GS preset) being noticeably off issue-.

p.s. I know what a checksum is, but I wonder why it is important, as it sounds all greek to me with all the numeration and letters. cheers!

[kode54]

What I meant was that you can generate a delta patch with the cumulative fixes, and it will come out to less than 200KB. Unfortunately, if you're not hosting the file on a machine where you have shell access, you can't just apply a patch on the remote site. However, you can provide a patch to speed up users downloading minor updates.

http://xdelta.org <- this is XDelta, a delta patch tool.

From a cmd.exe prompt, you would:

xdelta3 -e -s "Musyng Kite.sf2.orig" "Musyng Kite.sf2.new" "Musyng Kite - date_of_original_file - date_of_update.xdelta"

And within about 20-30 seconds, you'll have a small patch file, depending on how much you actually changed in the bank. Obviously, changing samples would cause a larger update than merely changing parameters.

And to apply the patch to an existing bank and produce an updated bank:

xdelta3 -d -s "Musyng Kite.sf2.orig" "Musyng Kite patch.xdelta" "Musyng Kite.sf2.new"

There are probably GUIs for this as well, but I haven't really dealt with those much. Also, it's probably best for patch size to work with the uncompressed banks, as delta patching pre-compressed data doesn't really work all that well, as far as I can guess.

sf2pack format can be packed and unpacked with tools included with the BASSMIDI SDK distribution, or with the GUI tool that mudlord made and bundled with the BASSMIDI Driver. I will package up a stand-alone version of the un/packer as well, in case anyone would like to use that format with tools that require unpacked banks.

sf2pack is also sort of handy for making lossy preview banks. You simply pack up the samples with either Musepack or even Opus, and the loops usually come out mostly intact, considering that it's compressing the entire sdat chunk as a single audio clip. Same tool can unpack it on the other side, and you can use foo_midi or XMPlay (with the latest release of the relevant sound plugin installed, such as xmp-flac.dll, xmp-opus.dll, etc.) to preview how it sounds before uploading the preview anywhere. Of course, this assumes you wish to saddle your hosting with something still fairly large, but not quite as large as the FLAC version.

Oh yeah, here, let me elaborate on the drum and harp issue. The issue is that the drum instruments in question don't have a release time set, so in BASSMIDI and XMPlay, as well as Apple's DLS/SF2 AU, the notes cut out immediately when released. At least for the harp, it's as simple as setting a global release time for both instruments. For the drums, it depends on how much of the drum kit requires release time bumping, as opposed to some samples requiring shorter release times for more natural behavior than simply playing out the whole sample.

Oh, and playing this file: http://cl.ly/3H280o2F1M10/KMK66_88.MID there seem to be some missing instruments, including obviously the water running sound that it plays in the background for the first third or so of the song. Unless that's another envelope issue with BASSMIDI. Unless this is merely an issue of using the Lite version of the bank instead of the full sized version.

While I do trust SynthFont's engine, I tend to trust BASSMIDI's as being more mature, thanks to a giant topic full of user feedback and test files. If in doubt, compare test MIDI files against foo_midi or XMPlay with xmp-midi, equipped with your latest unpacked bank. For one thing, foo_midi and XMPlay support a wide variety of GS and XG features. Maybe some day, it will even support the host of XG variation effects, with a backmap from XG to GS based on the TG300B instrument map, since SF2 doesn't really support mapping both MSB and LSB bank values in the same bank, due to the standard being limited to banks 0-127 and 128 being melodic, even though the field in the file format is 16 bits wide.

[Sarcyan]

What I meant was that you can generate a delta patch with the cumulative fixes, and it will come out to less than 200KB. Unfortunately, if you're not hosting the file on a machine where you have shell access, you can't just apply a patch on the remote site. However, you can provide a patch to speed up users downloading minor updates.

http://xdelta.org <- this is XDelta, a delta patch tool.

From a cmd.exe prompt, you would:

xdelta3 -e -s "Musyng Kite.sf2.orig" "Musyng Kite.sf2.new" "Musyng Kite - date_of_original_file - date_of_update.xdelta"

And within about 20-30 seconds, you'll have a small patch file, depending on how much you actually changed in the bank. Obviously, changing samples would cause a larger update than merely changing parameters.

And to apply the patch to an existing bank and produce an updated bank:

xdelta3 -d -s "Musyng Kite.sf2.orig" "Musyng Kite patch.xdelta" "Musyng Kite.sf2.new"

There are probably GUIs for this as well, but I haven't really dealt with those much. Also, it's probably best for patch size to work with the uncompressed banks, as delta patching pre-compressed data doesn't really work all that well, as far as I can guess.

sf2pack format can be packed and unpacked with tools included with the BASSMIDI SDK distribution, or with the GUI tool that mudlord made and bundled with the BASSMIDI Driver. I will package up a stand-alone version of the un/packer as well, in case anyone would like to use that format with tools that require unpacked banks.

sf2pack is also sort of handy for making lossy preview banks. You simply pack up the samples with either Musepack or even Opus, and the loops usually come out mostly intact, considering that it's compressing the entire sdat chunk as a single audio clip. Same tool can unpack it on the other side, and you can use foo_midi or XMPlay (with the latest release of the relevant sound plugin installed, such as xmp-flac.dll, xmp-opus.dll, etc.) to preview how it sounds before uploading the preview anywhere. Of course, this assumes you wish to saddle your hosting with something still fairly large, but not quite as large as the FLAC version.

Oh yeah, here, let me elaborate on the drum and harp issue. The issue is that the drum instruments in question don't have a release time set, so in BASSMIDI and XMPlay, as well as Apple's DLS/SF2 AU, the notes cut out immediately when released. At least for the harp, it's as simple as setting a global release time for both instruments. For the drums, it depends on how much of the drum kit requires release time bumping, as opposed to some samples requiring shorter release times for more natural behavior than simply playing out the whole sample.

Oh, and playing this file: http://cl.ly/3H280o2F1M10/KMK66_88.MID there seem to be some missing instruments, including obviously the water running sound that it plays in the background for the first third or so of the song. Unless that's another envelope issue with BASSMIDI. Unless this is merely an issue of using the Lite version of the bank instead of the full sized version.

While I do trust SynthFont's engine, I tend to trust BASSMIDI's as being more mature, thanks to a giant topic full of user feedback and test files. If in doubt, compare test MIDI files against foo_midi or XMPlay with xmp-midi, equipped with your latest unpacked bank. For one thing, foo_midi and XMPlay support a wide variety of GS and XG features. Maybe some day, it will even support the host of XG variation effects, with a backmap from XG to GS based on the TG300B instrument map, since SF2 doesn't really support mapping both MSB and LSB bank values in the same bank, due to the standard being limited to banks 0-127 and 128 being melodic, even though the field in the file format is 16 bits wide.

Well, I downloaded the Xdelta program, although as you pointed out already I can't apply a patch on the site, 'cos I have no shell access to the file. That's something Synthfont author could find useful to upload the file in his site.

I agree with you that a nice GUI would be quite convenient for a program like that, although trust me that I inserted more complex parameters using cmd.exe.

In addition, what you mention about patching a compressed file is another important and interesting issue that could lead to some kind of a bugged file. Still upoloading a 990MB uncompressed SF2 file could take me like 18 hours, without patching it. Anyways I hope to never update it.

Your feedback has been quite critical though, and helps a LOT to provide a very neat touch to help the soundfont being basically foolproof.

You have found some things that most mere mortals wouldn't find, I am VERY thankful for that.

I can have my laptop working all the time and turn it on at my own leisure, listen to music for hours. Just like a proofreader I tried to find every single issue but didn't at times (HARHARHARHAR, irony). So... again, many thanks.

On a different note, in defense of BassMIDI and VirtualMIDISynth they implement features that like 95%+ of DAWs don't feature, like applying MIDI effects right --for instance, the Portamento, which doesn't work in any DAW I have (and I have most of them!). But it is essential for the song from Corona "Baby baby", for instance, where the real song, professionally made, uses the MIDI Portamento during the intro.

For those who know the original song from their childhood, like me, "Baby baby" never sounds right in any DAW that doesn't use BassMIDIdriver or VirtualMIDISynth driver because the MIDI Portamento effect is not supported in them -professional hardware synths support it, afaik, though-.

On the Harp and Drums issue. I have fixed that already. I spent the entire night fixing those issues. It could be done in less time but I checked every single stereo sample from the Celtic Harp so the values of the Global layer should affect every single sample.

It was kind of a pita 'cos I began to check every single sample individually, which I didn't need to had I knew they were untouched in the Envelops part. There went some valuable time, but it was necessary checking them out just in case, as the Global split doesn't affect individually modified samples, of course.

As for the Drums, the cause of the early cut off is simply that I imported the samples directly as WAV files into the Soundfont editor. This sets everything to default values. BUT within the soundfont editor a single click or press on a note played the whole sample, so that was okay in my eyes. That was the idea and the thing that worried me the most when I imported the WAV files, but since they sounded for the full duration of the sample I thought everything was correct.

Some individual samples got particular Envelope values, but quite a few samples didn't get any love. Thanks to you I fixed that and with that simple change the drums sound more lively.

I had to modify every single drum kit, but it was worth it.

The issue with the Ac Sine Wave and the noticeable off tune notes was fixed too.

Finally, the Stream sound doesn't have much of a fix when the MIDI file itself sets the sound volume of the Stream to 30, which is a very low value compared to the rest of the instruments in the harmony. I think the file is meant for a SC-88 and maybe a SySex /meaning system exclusive/ message tells the synth to internally enhance the sound.

Still, I edited the WAV file and increased the output rate to 48000Hz, plus I used the Soundfont editor internal equalizer, with a high pass and a low pass filter, and enhanced the sound with the mid/high equaliser values and now the Stream can be heard in the mix using Musyng Kite.

There are bird sounds there, and I had set the sound to the right for the two layers of the Bird's sound, instead of left/right for some reason. Now it has more presence, and Bird 1 and Bird 2 are not as attenuated.

I uploaded the definitive version here. (the links have been updated, the old one doesn't work)

http://1drv.ms/1ijfGeh

Finally, I just want to insist on my eternal thanks to you for this. Your intelligent input helped me out with this. It was also at the right moment, since time is going to be at a prime for me, at least for a while. Plus, I am trying to get used to some DAWs I have and make the most out of them, among other things.

Thanks kode54 for this. I will make sure I mention you wherever I can, the soundfont just got a tad better thanks to you!! Hope you are having a nice day and take care of you.