Plucked Strings Font
Folks I'd like some feedback on whether this is worth pursuing or not. I've been experimenting with a dedicated soundfont for plucked strings: my focus is on mandolin family instruments because that's what I play, but there's some guitars sampled as well. Here's some test renderings (all dry with no effects):
Fingerstyle acoustic steel string guitar.
Plectrum acoustic steel string guitar.
Ensemble mandolin piece (2 mandolins, mandola, and Octave Mandolin).
The soundfont itself is in my dropbox (caution: very large file!!)
If you examine the font you'll see that the guitars have two presets each: one of these has a "_h" suffix and is a humanized version: each note has had a random amount of delay and volume attenuation added. This is of course a poor substitute for a real humanization program, and the effect is quite subtle, but my gut feeling is that it makes a difference on chords or where there are multiple instruments as the notes don't all sound exactly together. It's a bit of an experiment so I'd welcome feedback.
It's also worth noting, that while tremolo is an essential part of mandolin technique, tremolo rendered with these fonts is so excruciatingly awful that there are no examples presented above (it sounds like a machine gun going off in case you're wondering). I've tried a number of workarounds including sampling actual tremolo, but I don't have anything I'm happy with yet. If anyone has any better ideas I'm all ears.
Anyhow let me know what you think: good bad or indifferent!
Comments
I really liked the arrangements. I think what always makes Sound Fonts sound poor is not the font, but the lack of after touch and velocity when using software like Muscore. I would suggest bringing your pieces into a dedicated MIDI sequencer to affect the various properties that will help bring out the natural sound of the instrument. Otherwise I think what you've done sounds great!
I tried using the plectrum mandolin from your earlier mandolin soundfont in a bluegrass piece that you can listen to it here: https://soundcloud.com/christopha1/arkansas-traveler
Thanks for the good work!
Hi
Is this soundfont still available? The dropbox link doesn't work.
Thanks
In reply to Hi Is this soundfont still by bobparker
I have a copy should the original author not reply.
It is licensed as CC0 (Creative Commons Zero) so it would be perfectly legal to set it up for download in my Google Drive soundfonts area.
In reply to Hi Is this soundfont still by bobparker
Apologies for the broken link, unfortunately I don't have a permanent home for the file so it is liable to get lost from time to time :(
For now it's back on dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/s/fyy06nxzvt4d9s6/PluckedStrings.7z?dl=0
And just for the record, it's may be freely modified or redistributed by anyone interested.
Let me know how you get on, John.
In reply to Apologies for the broken by TavyMusic
Thanks John. All worked fine. Now I just have to learn the Vivaldi piece.
In reply to Apologies for the broken by TavyMusic
Would it help if I mirrored it on my Google Drive with the soundfonts I make available there?
In reply to Apologies for the broken by TavyMusic
Love to try it out, but link seems to broken again!
Cannot get this to work on Musescore 2 on my MAC. No sound output any idea?
Alcluith
In reply to Cannot get this to work on by mradson68@gmail.com
I don't use a Mac so my help will be rather limited, but I have noticed sporadic no sound with current musescore that didn't happen with the old version 2 beta. The fix is to go to the mixer, select a different instrument within the font, and then change it back again. It would be interesting to know whether folks see this with other sound fonts or not?
In reply to I don't use a Mac so my help by TavyMusic
Thanks for your reply, my fault entirely I had not set the mixer to the correct instrument, in this case mandolin, but I have done it now and it works fine.
Thanks again
Alcluith
Thanks - your samples are great. I had a very similar need and was quite frustrated.
There is a way to create semi-convincing tremolo from an individual pluck, if you have a DAW/editor and a LOT of patience. Basically overlapping multiple samples (say 8) in an appropriate pattern and looping it. It sounds better than you would expect, at least better than the machine gun. (I'm a guitarist and not a mandolin player.) "Worth pursuing" is relative...
My usual software uses sfz rather than sf2, but the principle should apply.
Dear TavyMusic.
Clicked on the link for the soundfont and just got a picture of a little sad doggie with an empty bowl! What am I doing wrong (dumbass Internet user alert.)
Yours respectfully
Chris
ulrichburke@hotmail.com
In reply to Dear TavyMusic. Clicked on… by ulrichburke
Unfortunately the link went to my dropbox account, which has long since ceased to function!
If you know of anywhere I can upload the thing, I can probably find it on the hard drive somewhere...