That embarrasing static cling

[teledyn]

In the Old Forum there's a comment that you can't really recommend a good sound font unless you know the type of music, and another that explains how one may be better at short-sounds than another. So now I'm confused, and I'll tell you right off that I only just barely understand conceptually what a soundfont is.

here's my problem: I wanted to use Timidity++ to create passible renderings of orchestral and chamber orchestra scores, but on my first experiment, using the FluidR3 sound fonts, most of the score sounds pretty good (compared to the default gravis patches) but when the instrumental density gets to a certain point (not sure what that is, whether it's shortness or just 19 voices) I get a great deal of very distinct static sounds, like an old vinyl record.

you can here the result in the Ogg file at www.teledyn.com/pub/garym/ -- I tried using the Linux gramofile to filter these noises, but it had no real effect.

Is there something I've done wrong? Would some other soundfont help? Not having a 19-piece orchestra at my disposal (or Cakewalk or any other high-end midi gear) I don't expect the moon, but I would love to get the best possible rendering of my works.

[Admin]

Click on FREE Soundfonts in the Quick Links at the top of the page. I think the Big Merlin soundfont is the best overall.

[teledyn]

I tried the Merlin fonts, and there are oh so many to choose from so I only tried the one that seemed the best fit, the Grand edition just released last month, but the sound was too techno for my purpose (although the sound was cleaner vis a vis static pops). It all sounded way too Korg-ish

I found I got the best compromise results using a soundfont called Unison or a related PersonalCopy soundfont called PC51-f www.personalcopy.com/sfarkfonts1.htm, but these two both sounded too thin and airy; the sound quality was pretty good, but to my surprise and horror, the piece itself lost a great deal of it's power! That was unexpected (ok, the whole piece is all about being unexpected, but nonetheless) -- without the strong dark tones of the orchestral bottom end, the basses and french horns primarily, it reminded me of the way Ted Macero would record early-Funk Miles Davis with all the horns on top and the bass and drums way in the back, totally upside down to the way the music would have appeared live.

I expect that this balance effect is fixable given a good MIDI sequence editor (any recommendations for Linux) but what it also taught me is how the static cling problem really is an artifact of the soundfont and not something that can be configured away through the use of TiMidity options or post-production filtering. Even the Unison soundfont gives some static, it is just less pronounced, less like a campfire crackle.

But there should be a software fix, some option that allows applying a waveform (ADSR?) envelope to particular instruments or to tone durations below some minimum length or whatever it is that is causing these plosives to pop. When I look at the waveform produced, these aren't psychological effects of cold-cut samples juxtaposed, but real dynamic ticks bristling from the otherwise smooth wave, so it must be an artifact of the synthesis and therefore there must be a fix.

All that said and done, thanks for the tip and I'll try out the Merlin-Pro off the main page just in case it's better than the Merlin fonts I found on Hammersound.www.hammersound.net/

[teledyn]

An excellent essay on the details of soundfonts, device compatibility, and the relationship of soundfont settings and noise: www.sccmusic.250x.com/sfont/sfdiagnostic/index.htm