Baroque Instruments Soundfont

• May 16, 2016 - 12:16

Ok. Let's just say that I made a Soundfont called "Baroque Instruments" and everyone wants to try it because they need a Soundfont for the early instruments in MuseScore.

Well, Here's the link to get it on Google Drive Here: https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/0B2I_8bgGH-Q3RWlPc3gyZExa…

If you have any questions about this Soundfont, you can ask me anytime and I will reply to you.

Enjoy this Soundfont.

Comments

• May 18, 2016 - 17:01

Thank for sharing! Can you mention where you found the samples? Are they all public domain or under a free licence? What about your soundfont, can one use it to render audio freely, can one take some samples and integrate them in her own soundfont? It's important that you mention all this right now, because in 10 years someone might want to use your soundfont and he won't be able to do so. It happens a lot with sf2 we can find online but can't use to improve the MuseScore soundfont since we don't know if we have the rights to do so.

If you do own the samples and the soundfont, I would propose to make it MIT licenced, like FluidR3. If you don't that's fine, just put it in your README so that next generations know what to do :)

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• Nov 21, 2016 - 20:22

Ok Iasocnic, Sorry for the delay in a lot of months, but I actually own the Violin and Viola da gamba samples I recorded, The Recorder-sound samples are for the Baroque Flute preset and these samples were from the Yamaha SoundFont GM Bank, The Solo Trumpet, French Horn, and Contrabassoon samples are from SSO, the Violone sound was actually from FluidR3 itself, The harpsichord and organ samples are from the Soni Musicae site, and the rest of the instrument samples are from GeneralUser. I forgot to mention that the Baroque Instruments SoundFont I created is actually a Free Creative Commons Zero License SoundFont that everyone can use.

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• Jun 23, 2016 - 09:53

Thanks for this Ariana,

Is there any chance of adding oboe, oboe d'amore and oboe da caccia to the woodwinds?
I've been looking for the latter for ages.

And what about a violoncello piccolo?
Another very difficult one to find.

I'm trying to render a number of Bach cantatas for accompaniment.

Kind regards,
John.

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• Jun 23, 2016 - 14:53

Oh!

Thanks for that, Jojo.
Is that just the baroque oboes, but not the d'amore or da caccia, or are all three already there?

I must admit I just looked at the diagram on the Google download page, which had no mention of oboes. I must try loading it into VST SynthFont.

Dear old Jo Seb B. sometimes used pairs of various oboes in a single aria.
I'm currently working ahead of time to do parts of the Christmas Oratorio.

Regards,
John.

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• Jun 23, 2016 - 15:02

In the Instruments dialog of MuseScore you have them all, just enter Oboe in the search field at the bottom of the dialog.
Piccolo Oboe, Oboe, Baroque Obore, Oboe d'Amour, Oboe da Caccia and Bartiton Oboe, by Default they use the Sounds Oboe, Oboe, English Horn, Oboe, Bariton Sax and Oboe, respectively

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• Jun 26, 2016 - 09:47

Thanks very much for the interest in my search for Baroque instruments.

I have a passable baroque oboe and oboe d'amore from the Garritan GPO4 library, the sound I am really searching for is an oboe da caccia. It is SO distinctly different from the sound of the cor Anglais that I would very much like to use it. One can hear it in a few 'HIP' recordings.

I'm not looking for a simulation, (the cor Anglais covers the same range) but the sound of the bell shaped metal mouth, as opposed to the open ball shape. I don't think the curved bodyy will make that much difference.

The other ones are the violoncello piccolo. Very distinctly different to the cello.

Lastly the authentic sounds of the viola d'amore and the viola da gamba. I suspect the latter is more likely to be available than the former with it's "sympathetic strings".

Not much to ask for, eh? ;-) ;-) ;-)

I've searched in vain for a couple of years.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Kind regards,
John.

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• Jun 26, 2016 - 16:24

That would be outstandingly wonderful!

I went to a concert in Northampton (UK) recently , near where I live.
They performed the B minor mass using authentic instruments from the time, the stringswere strung with gut, they used baroque bows to play them with, and old trumpets and oboes etc. plus a harpsichord. All tuned to a lower A and a non ET tuning.

Everyone I spoke to commented how different and more tuneful it all sounded.
For me it was only marginally short of sheer ecstasy!
I wish I'd known what temperament they were using.
Probably Werkmeister, or some such.

I'd love to be able to recreate something of that sound.

A self confessed Bachophile.
Regards,
John.

P.S. I've done the pilgrimage to Weimar and Leipzig, etc.

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• Jun 27, 2016 - 12:38

Well, A=415 Hz is fine for me. How about others though?

However, what I might do is to transfer them to SFZ format so that they can play within the ARIA sample player. In that case they would be better at 440 because ARIA can part implement the Scala temperament files. It's restricted to 12 tones per octave though.

So maybe have them at standard modern tuning A=440 and E.T. then people wanting to implement obscure quarter or sixth comma temperaments start from a known base point? I like to use the Lehman-Bach temperament, it sounds so sweet to my ear. Others, no doubt, differ.

Do you sample each note?
At different dynamic levels?
What about loop points, etc?

Thanks so much for asking. :-)

Kind regards,
John.

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• Jun 27, 2016 - 13:38

It would be a mistake to tune the soundfont to 415Hz.

It would then be incompatible with all soundfonts tuned to 440Hz.

415Hz is not authentic anyway. International standard pitch wasn't established until the 19th century, and in the 17th/18th century many local pitch standards existed.

The way forward would be to tune the soundfont to 415 and then use the soundfont player's ability to tune down to 415. That way you are not going to get two soundfonts clashing with each other.

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• Jun 29, 2016 - 09:19

So use MuseScore's ability to tune to 415 :)

You'll find it in the Synthesiser dialogue - strangely enough on the "Tuning" tab :)

EDIT
Ah - maybe I misunderstood?

The problem you perceive is that any samples you provide are at 415Hz?

That will not be a problem. It is a simple enough job to pitchshift the samples up to 440Hz, and as it is upwards and only (around) a semitone it should not have adverse effects on the sound quality.

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• Aug 24, 2016 - 01:33

Let me just say that a little more balancing would be nice.
I tried it on my transcription of Benda Grave, and noticed the Piano was dominating.

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• Apr 15, 2020 - 17:09

Your Google Drive must be clearly either broken or deleted. I can't access any of your SoundFont files. Dot Dropbox either. You might want to attach the folders to the post directly. I posted a midi file of mines as an example

Attachment Size
Blubflubber.mid 1.73 KB

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