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BassMidi VSTi

Synth (Wavetable) Plugin by Falcosoft
MyKVRFAVORITE26WANT17
BassMidi VSTi
BassMidi VSTi by Falcosoft is a Virtual Instrument Audio Plugin for Windows. It functions as a VST Plugin.
Product
Version
1.6
Instrument
Formats
Sample Formats
Loads and/or Saves
SF2 (SoundFont), sfz
Copy Protection
None

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BassMidi VSTi is a portable VST 2.4 instrument/software MIDI synthesizer for Windows that is based on the Bass/BassMidi libraries by Un4Seen.

You need some SF2/SFZ soundfont(s) and a VST Host/DAW to use it. In the package both x86 and x64 versions are included for different x86/x64 hosts. Using x86/x64 host bridges are not recommended.

Bass.dll and Bassmidi.dll have to be copied to the same (VST) directory as BassMidiVsti.dll. Copying BassMidiVsti.vstxml is optional. It's only included for easier parameter customization. Bassflac.dll is also optional, it's only needed when FLAC compressed SFZ files are used.

Supported MIDI events/controllers can be found in BassMidi documentation.

Features:

  • Fast and lightweight.
  • Supports both 32 and 64-bit processing.
  • Supports up to 5 different stacked soundfonts even on different banks (16384 maximum instruments).
  • Supports 12 different Reverb/Chorus effect types.
  • Supports 14 parameters for options that are not (or not easily) MIDI controllable.
  • Can send MIDIProgramNames to hosts that support it.

version 1.6:

1. Added option to disable Sound Blaster hardware limits emulation.

2. Added option to use bank 127 in XG mode as XG drum bank.

3. Added SF3 format support to file select dialog.

4. Fixed Bassmidi regression that resulted in wrong preset names of bank 126 in XG mode.

5. Fixed rare visual glitch in right click context menu of reset button.

6. Added basswv.dll to support WavPack compressed samples.

7. Updated other Bass libraries.

Latest User Reviews

Average user rating of 5.00 from 5 reviews
BassMidi VSTi

Reviewed By lukzinho [all]
October 27th, 2021
Version reviewed: VSTi 1.4 on Windows

the best font player in the universe thanks for the great work
very good, it recognizes all channels with sound bank, everything perfectly I just have to thank the good work of the developer(S).

Read Review
BassMidi VSTi

Reviewed By VSTiUser [all]
August 1st, 2020
Version reviewed: 1.4 on Windows

Early days, but this is the best VST soundfont player I have found. Better than SFZ an d SFZ+.

I ant believe its such a well kept secret., .

Read Review
BassMidi VSTi

Reviewed By karmapala [all]
May 17th, 2020
Version reviewed: 1.4 on Windows

Hi Falcosoft,

I've just downloaded BassMidi VSTi and use it with Waveform 11 free edition as the host app.
I use a multi-instruments sound font file from my old Creative SoundBlaster : 4GMGSMT.SF2.

After I imported a MIDI file to a track of Waveform and put BassMidi plugin in this track,
at first I don't understand why after I change the instrument from the BassMidi panel while it's being played,
the sound is changed also.... but after I stop the play in hit the play again, it always come back to a specific instrument sound.
I'm quite sure that there is no program change in the MIDI file, because when I open the MIDI file in Cakewalk's "Event List",
there is no "patch" with an instrument at all in the list.

But then much later on, I realized that in Cakewalk tracks panel, in the "patch" column there is an instrument name.
After I choose "NONE" for the instrument in the "patch" column, save the file in Cakewalk, then drop it to Wavefrom11 track,
now I can change the sound from BassMidi panel to whatever I want and it never change to specific instrument sound anymore after I hit stop then hit play again.

And I love your plugin more, because I can just re-route the output from all the separated MIDI track to a blank track, then only use ONE BassMidi plugin in this blank track. Then assign each track with different instrument from BassMidi panel according to what MIDI channel on each track. The plugin plays seamlessly, all the instrument on each track (channel) from 4GMGSMT.SF2 sounds together without any glitch. (What I've tried so far is having five different channel with different instrument. One of the channel is channel 10 for the drum kit).

I'm very happy with this plugin.
Thank you very much Falcosoft.

PS :
only one thing that it seems by default BassMidi put the transpose to +1, causing the MIDI played in one semi tone up.
But it's not a big deal as I can just put the transpose to 0, save it as a preset, then everything has a correct sound.

Read Review
BassMidi VSTi

Reviewed By dtrq [all]
June 12th, 2018
Version reviewed: 1.2 on Windows

AFAIK it's the only available free 64-bit SF2 VSTi that tries to support soundfont internal specifications right now. All others ether only import samples and key mappings, sometimes even without ADSRs, or are buggy and discounted.
I only wish there were options for using multiple instruments with one MIDI channel and multiple audio outputs. In many multitimbral plugins there are slots for instruments, for each of them a 'midi in' and 'audio out' can be assigned.

Read Review
BassMidi VSTi

Reviewed By Archer6621 [all]
May 12th, 2018
Version reviewed: 1.2 on Windows

So happy this exists, finally a VSTi that faithfully plays soundfonts, was almost tempted to make something like this myself, since everything else out there is either outdated, unsupported, broken or fake.

Read Review

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Comments & Discussion for Falcosoft BassMidi VSTi

Discussion
Discussion: Active
Vospi
Vospi
26 January 2017 at 7:41am

I've seen bass.dll present in numerous games' folders. I'm trying to wrap my head around this VST — what's it for, how it could be useful? Is it different from an SF2/SFZ player in terms of features or structure?

Falcosoft
Falcosoft
26 January 2017 at 12:48pm

Hi, .

Do you remember Cakewalk/rgc:audio SFZ? It's something like that but tries to correct some of its issues:

1. It cannot run reliable on systems with more than 2GB of RAM.

2. It can only load 1 SF2/SFZ file at once.

3. It uses a buggy XG/GM2 addressing mode that is weird since Sondfonts are inherently more GS like.

4. It's does not follow the SF2 specification. Bassmidi library is much more reliable in this respect, ans it's still constantly evolving.

But the most important one: there is a need for it :)

https://schristiancollins.wordpress.com/2016/03/02/using-soundfonts-in-2016/.

THIS POST HAS BEEN REMOVED

Archer6621
Archer6621
12 June 2018 at 5:49pm

So I've been using this for a bit, but I'm sometimes experiencing a recurring crash when I try to load a soundfont.

I'm using Ableton Live 9, 32-bit, on Windows 10 Educational. I have an instrument track using this VSTi with a soundfont loaded into it. When I go into its control panel to load a different soundfont, the plugin and Ableton Live crash when the explorer window for selecting a soundfont appears. This problem will persist when re-opening the arrangement. In fact, I'm unable to open any sort of soundfont anymore now it seems... Even when making new instances of the plugin on different tracks, or even in entirely new arrangements.

The weird thing is, when I try to load additional soundfonts (the load buttons and fields further down below) instead of the main soundfont on the soundfont selection screen, it doesn't crash.

Any idea what it could be?

Archer6621
Archer6621
12 June 2018 at 5:54pm

Actually, now it also starts to crash using those buttons...

Archer6621
Archer6621
12 June 2018 at 6:01pm

Unable to use this plugin for anything anymore... So far this bug is ocurring on two computers, both running Windows 10.

Falcosoft
Falcosoft
15 June 2018 at 8:29pm

Hi, .

Since I cannot test with Windows 10 Educational I can only give you some tips about testing what can be the problem.

1. Try another VST host. A very simple one like SAVIHost can be useful here. If the issue also occurs with other hosts then it can be concluded that your issue is system wide, else it's most likely host related.

2. Try to disable your AV solution temporarily. Many AV software are notoriously paranoid nowadays an tend to falsely detect Bass/Bassmidi libraries as harmful.

3. If the issue started to appeared at the same time when Windows 10 upgraded itself to a new version/ installed a bigger update, try to restore your Windows 10 a previous system state.

Report back, and based on your results I may able to find some workarounds.

Archer6621
Archer6621
15 June 2018 at 8:41pm

Hi, thanks for your response.

I also had this happen on another system (my main system, the other one with Educational is a laptop) running Windows 10 Professional. As far as I know, Windows 10 Educational's feature set is nearly identical, so I don't think it is related to that.

It's also unlikely to be related to the anti-virus, as I have none on the laptop (though I have AVG on my desktop), in both cases the issue occurred.

Never really upgraded Windows between when I started using the plugin and now, so that can be ruled out as well.

It could possibly be the VST host, but the problem is that it happens pretty much at random, but when it occurs once, it will keep happening indefinitely. I haven't checked whether a system reboot fixes it, but I can also try some other VST hosts to see whether they remain stable over time.

I'll let you know.

Archer6621
Archer6621
15 June 2018 at 8:48pm

So one identical thing I had when the crashes happened, was that the soundfonts were located on an external harddrive which can be quite slow at times (in fact, on the same drive, as I moved it to my laptop). Could this be related?

Right now the plugin seems to work on my main rig again, but it's a different version of the plugin (64-bit one), and the soundfont I load is on my SSD. I'll try adding some more soundfonts to see what will happen.

Falcosoft
Falcosoft
15 June 2018 at 9:18pm

I understood. But unfortunately I cannot reproduce the problem on Windows 10 Professional either with the 32 or 64-bit version of the plugin. You can also try drag&drop the affected soundfont file to the plugin's interface instead of opening it by the file select dialog. This way you can figure out if the problem mysteriously related to the file select dialog or actually the reading/interpreting process of the soundfont file by the plugin's engine. Also it would be good to know if only special soundfont files are affected or all of them. If only special ones please try to upload them somewhere so I could inspect them.

Falcosoft
Falcosoft
15 June 2018 at 9:33pm

Also as a useful info: there's a memory size limitation of the 32-bit plugin version. Namely you cannot load reliably soundfonts if the overall used sample sizes are equal/bigger than 2GB. Actually some stability problems can happen even close to this absolute 2GB limit. This problem manifests itself sooner if you also enable the 'Preload Soundfonts' or 'Map Soundfonts into Memory' options.

Archer6621
Archer6621
17 June 2018 at 9:38am

Good one, forgot about the drag and drop feature. I'll try to use this on the problematic device tomorrow, when I move back to it. There I have the case that it always crashes, 32-bit version indeed, and I may have happened to tick those boxes that you mentioned due to hickups when reading from the external drive.

I will let you know.

Archer6621
Archer6621
18 June 2018 at 10:30pm

So it seems that it no longer crashes now, after not having used the laptop for a while. I'll have to wait until the issue occurs again before I can trace it down properly.

THIS POST HAS BEEN REMOVED

vekdigital
vekdigital
19 August 2018 at 7:51am

I have tried, to no avail, to natively save the plugin state (settings) so that I don't have to set it up with my chosen defaults every time I use it in a project. Apparently the plugin isn't capable of this on its own and requires outside assistance (via the plugin host). Is this correct? Or am I missing something.

BTW, thanks a ton for making this plugin. Aside from the above noted issue, it works flawlessly in my DAW (REAPER) on my Windows 7 Pro system. I recently resurrected my 20 year old MIDI system (AMD K6II+/500MHz, 128MB RAM, Win98se) which has a (STILL WORKING) 16-bit ISA Sound Blaster AWE 64 Gold (4MB SoundFont memory onboard) with an 8MB daughter board. Yay me.

Your Bassmidi VSTi allows me to similarly "resurrect" my old SoundFont-based MIDI files on my new production system with REAPER and really add new life to them. So a million thanks for your ingenuity and gracious efforts.

Falcosoft
Falcosoft
22 October 2018 at 10:00am

Hi, .

Sorry for late reply.

In VST world in general there is a standard mechanism to save plugin settings. Namely the VST Host asks the plugin to save/load its state by getChunk()/setChunk() functions. Usually this happens automatically when you save/load a project but in most VST host you can ask the host to save the plugin's 'Bank' manually and then you will get an '.fxb' file. Later you can also load this fxb file manually by the Host. This is because ini file/registry based saving would not work good in a VST environment since there can be many active instances of the same plugin in a project that would constantly overwrite each others settings (globally). But manual fxb file saving/loading works in Cubase/Reaper/SAVIhost and in my own player (Falcosoft MIDI Player) among others.

Also fxb files are defined in VST specification so they are Host independent, meaning an fxb file saved by a Host can be loaded by another Host (for the same plugin).

vekdigital
vekdigital
22 October 2018 at 1:44pm

Hey Falcosoft, .

No apologies necessary. Actually, I should apologize for not updating my original post to reflect that I DID do the research and discovered FXB bank file/plugin state saving in REAPER. And if you dive even deeper in Reapers VST plugin load settings, you'll find that you can set a particular .fxb settings file to default load every time you load that VST. PROBLEM (more than) SOLVED.

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my initial query and as well flesh out the reasoning as to why it's better that the host application save the plugin settings rather than the plugin itself.

Cheers, .

VEKdigital.

THIS POST HAS BEEN REMOVED

Dram9564
Dram9564
28 February 2020 at 12:21pm

Hi, a complete newbie here hoping you can help with a small problem -

I'm using BassMidi VSTi 1.4 as the soundfont loader into Reaper v6.04/x64 under Windows 10 Pro 64. No matter which soundfont I load through the BM interface as soon as I play the MIDI track the BM Program (patch) changes, usually to 052 which is empty. If I change the program while the track is playing I get the correct instrument for the remaining duration of the track. But when I rewind the track to the beginning and hit play, the patch changes back to (eg) 052 again. The MIDI files do play correctly in Reaper if I use VST instruments instead of soundfonts.

I'll be really grateful if someone can explain what I'm doing wrong and how I can prevent the unwanted BM Program (patch) changes.

Cheers.

Dram9564.

Falcosoft
Falcosoft
28 February 2020 at 3:09pm

Hi, .

Th problem must be that you have accidentally inserted a Program Change 52 MIDI message into your MIDI track. It's also possible that some imported MIDI file contained this unwanted Program Change message and it became part of your project. In case of normal VST Instruments it's usually not a problem since many VST Instruments do not react to MIDI program Change messages at all. So you should open your MIDI track in MIDI event view and look for existing Program Change messages at the beginning of your MIDI track. If I remember correctly at the left hand side of Reaper's MIDI event dialog there is a filter that you should set to Program/Bank Change messages to see this kind of messages:

THIS POST HAS BEEN REMOVED

Dram9564
Dram9564
28 February 2020 at 3:53pm

Hi Falcosoft, .

And many thanks for your prompt reply.

I think I have followed your instructions, but please check: Double-clicked on the MIDI track to open the in-line MIDI editor. View > Filter Events / Event type = Program Change. Tick "show only events that pass filter". Nothing shows.

Also, this problem does not occur if I use Sforzando as the soundfont loader - if it was caused by a PC MIDI message, I would have expected Sforzando to give the same output as BassMidi?

Cheers.

Dram9564.

Falcosoft
Falcosoft
29 February 2020 at 7:45pm

Hi, .

No, since Sforzando is also among the VSTi plugins that does not respond to MIDI Program Change messages at all. Maybe it's because first and foremost it's an SFZ player and contrary to SF2 soundfonts, SFZ files can only contain a single instrument. Sforzando (unlike Bassmidi Vsti) is not multitimbral plugin, so it cannot be used to play standard multi channel MIDI files that use Bank/Program Change messages. It plays the same instrument on all channels and instruments have to be selected on the user interface.

So as I said before:
There must be some Program Change messages sent to Bassmidi Vsti from your project (or Reaper). There is no other explanation.
You should upload your reaper project somewhere so I could take a look at it.

Dram9564
Dram9564
1 March 2020 at 11:44am

Good morning Falcosoft, .

You are, of course, completely correct. It seems that because I monitored the notation with Choir Aahs, Sibelius inserted this PC into the MIDI file when exporting .sib as .mid. I didn't see it in the Reaper on-line MIDI editor but it showed up on the full MIDI events list. So all is well.

Many thanks for your patience and kind assistance.

Cheers.

kinwie
kinwie
29 October 2021 at 3:35am

Just to correct this a bit.

"No, since Sforzando is also among the VSTi plugins that does not respond to MIDI Program Change messages at all"

Yes sforzando can't operate as multi-timbral within single instance, but it respond to MIDI Program Change and also Bank Change. The opcodes are there in the SFZ version 2.0 specs and implemented in sforzando.

ladybugs
ladybugs
16 October 2020 at 7:53pm

Great job, Falcosoft. This just works. 64-bit, no fussying, no setting up per-channel mappings, full multitimbral and compliant with GM program changes. It sounds as good as the soundfonts you load into it. I wonder why it is not widely well-known as the best option for multitimbral, quick-and-easy GM MIDI playback.

Wonderful job and THANK YOU.

ebby
ebby
4 May 2021 at 9:10am

Thank you, Falcosoft. Works very well in Reaper. However, one thing I haven't been able to discover is whether I can create a glissando of more than 4 semitones. Ideally, I'd like to be able to gliss over a range of 3 octaves. Normally, this means using the Pitch Wheel (I'm using ReaControlMIDI ahead of BassMidiVsti in Repear) but with the Pitch Wheel *range* in the VSTi set to 36 semitones (rather than the default 4, actually +/- 2). It is this 36 semitone range that I don't know how to set in BassMidiVsti. Is it currently possible? It seems to relate to CC100, CC101 and CC6 but may be also RPN 0.

Falcosoft
Falcosoft
8 June 2021 at 9:51pm

Hi, .

Sorry for the late reply but I have not visited this site for a long time and did no get any notifications.

Back to topic. Yes, you can modify the Pitch bend range as defined in GM specification.That is you have to send RPN (0,0) and the range in semitones. The default is +/- 2 semitones as defined by GM/GS. To modify this sequence of messages should be sent to desired channels in Reaper: Control change 100,0; Control change 101,0; Controller 6, 'semitones'.

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