Zebra GM Sound set?

[HaganeSteel]

I suspect Goblin, Brightness, Atmosphere, Soundtrack, Crystal, etc. were all done on D-50 or something. Just a shot in the dark.

I think it's safe to assume that.

The first GM synth was the Roland SC-55.

The D50 was the originator of the Fantasia sound that later became part of the GM standard (Microsoft GS just calls this "Pad 1 (New Age)".

[jdoo]

Yikes.. this thread reminded me I have an SC-33 in a box, collecting dust. Just pulled it out and fired it up. Daaaang ... memories. The thing still works after nearly 30 years! It still has velcro on the base, where i used to attach it to my DX7.

[aaron aardvark]

I still own my SC-55. Haven't used it in years.

[bbaggins]

My understanding has been that the first synth to implement General MIDI was not a Roland product, but rather the Prophet 600 from Sequential Circuits. The GM sound set would have been programmed using its own all-analog voice modules.

No, that's not General MIDI, that's just MIDI. Dave Smith worked with Roland and others to create the MIDI standard. General MIDI is something else.

You're right. It was Roland. I looked it up. The Prophet was the first MIDI implementation, the Roland Sound Canvas was the first GM. In fact, the 600 was out of production 6 years before GM existed.

Pay no mind to the old dude in the corner, he doesn't remember much of what happened after 1985.

[Breeze]

I like the idea of a community project.

It would also be a nice way to show how the midi preset folder works.

There are many free sounds that could fit in nicely already and that sound as good or better as most GM sets anyway
"Real" shouldn't be the main point here IMO. If you use "Zebra GM", you aren't after samples anyway - I'd see that as a strength rather than a limitation.

Also, instead of trying to copy an existing set perfectly, I would find it more interesting and motivating to have a quite specific Zebra version of GM or GS with some real character and quality.

I guess most authors would be okay with including their sounds?
And maybe even some commercial sets would donate a sound or two?

As questionable as the whole GM idea is (especially in the synth area - in the acoustic area it makes more sense IMO) such a set could be helpful if you just want to drop in some standard sounds for starters without going through a huge list of presets, fledge out an idea and concentrate on sound design later.

Just my 2 cents though

Cheers,

Tom

I think this is an excellent idea. I was actually going to propose it earlier in the thread, but got discouraged thinking of how it could be managed. The main problem is where this would be hosted (U-he have enough on their hands!). Then there's the selection of the best offered preset for each GM patch; there could be several available for each of course... And sure, credz would have to be given to preset authors that end up on the list.

There are enough free presets out there to start filling out a good number of slots. For drums and SFX we could just use a simple SFZ player (Plogue or Cakewalk) with public domain, or user provided, wavs. It might be useful to use the old Roland SC GM patches as guidelines.

Zebra is flexible enough to create reasonably good emulations of many acoustic instruments. It would be interesting to hear some of the more evolved MIDI tracks (Jazz and Classical) rendered on a Zebra Orchestra... and to see how much CPU that would burn through...