My MIDI files still sound terrible with soundfonts?

Please let our ADS show!

This sites offers only FREE software and it's supported by a few advertisement boxes (no intrusive popups).
Please:

  • disable your AdBlocker by adding CoolSoft website to whitelist
  • give the proper cookie consent
  • enable JavaScript for this website

This seconds wait is to let you update your browser configuration...

Ok, I've done the required changes... now show me your content!
!!! Please enable JavaScript !!!
Posts: 1
Joined: January 23, 2022 - 02:42
My MIDI files still sound terrible with soundfonts?

Hi, hoping you can clear my mind as I'm having a heck of a lot of trouble putting all this information together in my head.

I have an old Roland SD-35 floppy disk hardware MIDI player that I still like to use for playing MIDI files I made years ago in The Jammer, and Band in a Box on the gig (guitarist). However, as the unit is getting old, as backup, I'd like to set up my laptop to be able to play those files. First I thought I was supposed to use soundfonts. I downloaded no less than 2 dozen soundfonts ranging in size from a few MB to over 1.5GB. When I choose the soundfont in VLC player, and play the MIDI file back, it sounds like absolute trash on all soundfonts, could I be doing something wrong?

Upon further searching, I came across a post on a forum where someone said:

"Soundfonts will never sound convincing with GM / GS / XG MIDI-files, because those files rely on MIDI Control Change Messages – Continuous Controllers  e.g.:
71 = Filter Resonance
74 = Filter Cutoff Frequency
73 = Attack time
84 = Portamento amount
91 = Reverb send
93 = Chorus send
95 = Phaser send
... and the list goes on and on.

This is not possible to program into Soundfonts. You need a proper GM-Sound-Module from Yamaha or Roland or Korg with complete implementation of MIDI messages. (Hardware or now better software-pendants) Otherwise the files will never sound right, just ok if you are lucky and the file does not rely too much on controllers."

So I downloaded this 5mb Yamaha S-YXG50 Portable VSTi, along with the foobar2000 application, and played my midi file through it and it sounded better, not great, but better than any of the soundfonts I previously tried. Then I read somewhere that the same soundfont could sound different depending on what it's played through?!

I've seen that Roland makes a VST of their sound canvas (what the SD35 uses), however, it's part of their cloud subscription service. I'd prefer either a one time purchase VST, or even a free one if there are good free ones available.

For the playback, I have no interest in some complicated full blown DAW. As I mentioned, this will be for live performance so my needs are simple, play, stop, load another song, change tempo, change key.

Then I keep seeing sforzando mentioned. I still have no clue what that's used for, but I wrote them to ask if it works with general midi files and they replied and said "sforzando does not support General MIDI soundbanks. GM needs a whole lot of features to be implemented." 

I just want to be able to play my MIDI file backing tracks and have them sound good. It seems crazy that in 2022, I can't achieve the sound via software that I was able to achieve with a simple floppy disk midi player 20+ years ago. Is MIDI just dead these days? Should I just convert all the files to wav format?

Can you point me in the right direction? As you can tell from my email, I'm getting bits and pieces of data from everywhere, and I can't connect the dots or figure out what I need to do.

Posts: 1
Joined: January 26, 2022 - 16:00
Re: My MIDI files still sound terrible with soundfonts?

The original version of the Roland Virtual Sound Canvas, from the Windows 9x/XP days, has been cracked and is out there in the wild, as a downloadable VSTi. In fact, it's often included in discussions that mention the Yamaha equivalent that you already obtained, so you shouldn't have much trouble finding it. The only issue is that it has to be configured for GS mode and maximum polyphony in the setup panel, before each use, but it otherwise works very well. It should be a good approximation of what your old SD-35 can do, but it won't be anywhere near as great as the current version of the VSC, which has superior sounds and performance.