Symphonic Sounds - update 13/10/2019

• Oct 13, 2019 - 01:29

I would like to share some edits I've made in this SoundFont to make it possible to work with Single Note Dynamics (SND). It is a work in progress, but it is already usable. The updated file can be downloaded from: https://www.4shared.com/file/t0wqcR_Vea/Symphonic_Sounds.html
Pleas tell me if you have issues in downloading or using this file.

I know – clouds are not an appropriate place to share, files there are usually not so safe there. Another problem is with versioning: sf2 files are a big pack of many instruments. If people perform updates and share them, it's hard to track and merge all updates together. A good solution for these both problems would be GitHub, for example, but I only did a tiny part of the development, so I'm not sure if I could start a repository there so everyone could contribute. But SF2 files are also not as good as SFZ files for opensource projects.

Details:
I basically created new presets and configured them to operate with MIDI Continuous Controller 2 (CC2). There is no new instrument or sample in this pack. But I had to change some parameters on some instruments to make, for example, fake velocity layering on cc2 (cc2 layering, actually ;) ) possible. But it doesn't affect the original instruments. Some instruments I didn't consider because of poor quality of the samples, but rare instruments (like Eb Clarinet, Euphonium, Flügelhorn) I included regardless of the quality. I still want to include the Alto Flute, but it has some defect samples I'll try to repair manually later.

Whenever I update something I'll post it here. Please do it as well :)

Comments

• Apr 5, 2020 - 22:33

Either you put the file in your MuseScore folder, which should be: Documents/MuseScore3/SoundFonts
Or you leave it in another folder and add it to the search path: on MuseScore edit -> preferences -> General tab -> Folders section -> SounFonts – click on the pencil and add the search path.
I think that either way you have to restart MuseScore. To load the file, go to view -> synthesiser and add it on the tab Fluid.

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• May 10, 2020 - 20:49

Another question. When I use the pizz in the string instruments, instead of the pizz sound it sounds like brass or something like that, What do I have to do to make it not sound like this?

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• Mar 18, 2021 - 23:43

This sound library is not GM compatible. My suggestion is to use alongside MuseScore General HQ and perhaps others, keeping MuseScore General HQ always at the first position in the synthesiser (Fluid tab) to avoid having to set up all patches in mixer again. Then you can manually choose in the mixer which instruments will have a sound from this pack.

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• Oct 30, 2020 - 12:00

Thank you for this great soundfont, but i have a weird problem with it. When i open a project the playback wont work at first. I have to click on a note to have that particular instrument function with the playback. That means I have to click on notes from every single instrument in the partiture so I can hear the full playback. Do you know what might cause that?

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• Mar 18, 2021 - 00:00

New update (18/03/2021): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I0Vq21jdM1coorSS0VycKmuQMcUjI1Gq/view?…

A new cc2 variant for most wind instruments using 1 layer and low-pass filter with cutoff frequency linked to cc2, instead of 2 faked velocity layers. The new variants are named cc2f.
Advantages:
- Much better quality for wind instruments, especially some brighter ones, like clarinet, English horn and all the brasses, especially the French horns. I didn't do for strings and other instruments because it generally doesn't work well with them. For some instruments, the results are not so good because the samples were recorded too much piano – so there is no much to do.
- Better dynamic linearity.

The drawback is that it might be a bit more processor consuming. So, I kept both versions there.

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• May 31, 2021 - 14:20

Hello, thank you for this great effort to make this soundfront! I have downloaded it!

I have one issue and I don't know what to do: when I download and open it, it asks to install the sound front, which I hit yes. But afterwards, when I check the synthesizer under fluid, it isn't there. Usually it would display a text box that says "soundfront finished installing, please go to synthesizer to use it" but that screen hasn't appeared at all. What should I do to solve this? Thank you

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• Jul 1, 2021 - 19:57

Hi, I never used that option "install sound font". What I do is the following: when you go to Edit --> Prefrerences…, on the tab General on field Folders there is one named SoundFonts. Click the pencil and edit the list of folders where MuseScore should look for SFZ and SF2 files. If you place your SF2 in one of those folders listed there, MuseScore will find it. I think this is infallible. Try it and enjoy!
Cheers!

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• Sep 26, 2021 - 10:39

Good day everyone. Thank you so much for the work you have been doing on Symphonic Sounds. Have you considered creating a page for your soundfonts under https://musescore.org/en/tutorials ? (For background, I I created pages for Accordion playback and notation (my own content) and Wind instrument fingering (basically links to various plugins). That way people have one place to check instructions, FAQ, issues/workarounds. A current search for Symphonic Sounds Musescore produces hits to multiple forum posts.

(I have cross-posted this to the two main posts I could find on Symphonic sounds.)

There is also the Howto section, https://musescore.org/en/howto (which contains a summary field), but I decided to put my pages under tutorials because it provides a cleaner layout, has more information (author, created, last updated, which version it applies to).

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• Sep 26, 2021 - 18:14

Hello Riaan, thanks for your effort on trying to organise this library. I also noticed it is not easy at all to find out what is the most recent version. Unfortunately, SF2 is a one-big-file format and not a script with separated audio samples. This makes versioning unpractical. But anyway we could do it better. I never used those sections tutorials and Howto though. Do you think one of them could make it easier to track versions of this file? I already have some small updates since my last upload here…

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• Sep 27, 2021 - 16:53

Hi Ludwig. I understand what you are saying w.r.t. versioning and big files. They may not make it easier to track versions, however, they are more free-form, e.g. if you want to update an existing link to a new directory or new files, you can do that in the tutorial, no reason to create a new forum post or reply on an existing thread. You could even "version" them by date, e.g. start a section with a new date and everything that has been updated in the font (e.g. this would be similar to a changeling). The forums don't lean themselves to that. A forum post make sense for announcing some changes, but it could be a lot more structured if the tutorial page is the ultimate source of truth of the state of the sound font.

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• Nov 22, 2021 - 03:05

Hello I have a problem with the latest version of this soundfont. Some of the instrument samples are not looping. For example when I want a trombone to hold out a long note it stops about 4 or 5 counts in. Is there a way you can fix this? Thank you.

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• Dec 26, 2021 - 04:32

I want to make a pizz. part but it just turns into brass, and the mixer has pizz but as the whole thing, which would turn the whole part into pizz which is not what I want. Is there anything I can do to get the pizzicato sound when putting it on my string parts?

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• Dec 26, 2021 - 17:44

Assuming you created your score with a recent (within the last several years) version of MuseScore, and assuming you added actual stringed instruments to your score as opposed to adding some other instrument then changing its MIDI playback sound to strings without actually changing the instrument itself, then simply adding the "pizz" text from the palette should work perfectly. If you are encountering a case where simply adding that doesn't work, then either it's an older score, or the instrument is not one with pizzicato defined. Either way, the solution is to right-click the staff, Change Instrument, and select an actual stringed instrument (even changing from violin to violin fixes this if your score was using an "old" violin).

If you are using a non-standard soundfont, you may have to use View / Mixer to select the playback sounds for all your instruments, not just pizzicato strings.

If you continue to have trouble, please attach your score and tell us which staff you set to be a stringed instrument and where you added the "pizz" text from the palette but are still finding it not working, and which soundfont you are using (the one discussed here is indeed one where you need to sue the Mixer for a number of instruments as far as I know). Then we can understand and assist better.

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• Dec 28, 2021 - 03:26

This was a score made a week ago using the latest version with the newest string parts. I already knew about the mixer thing and assigned the fonts to the instruments and picking there's "violins" and "pizz violins" which ever I choose will make it always sound pizz or just normal strings. And when pizz. is added the sound becomes a trumpet. (I had a video of the sounds but it says file is too large)

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• Dec 29, 2021 - 04:22

In the Mixer, the arrow pointing to the right at in the top left corner of each channel strip. It will be grayed out for most channels, but for instruments like violins that define sub-channels for pizzicato and tremolo, the arrow will expand the channel strip to display the subchannels.

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• Dec 27, 2021 - 02:00

Is there any type of clarinet, flute, sax or trumpet sounds in this sound font yet. Considering that when it's the flute or clarinet it plays as a violin. Then Sax plays as the harp for some reason. Trumpet then doesn't really play any notes below a G Natural concert.

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• May 9, 2022 - 22:29

Hey, I'm just curious about the compatibility of single note dynamics with the latest release, because hairpins do not work as they would with the default soundfont. I tried changing the velocity settings in the Dynamics tab to CC events only and setting the controls to C11 but still to no avail.

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