Downloaded a soundfont, and now my Violin's a Timpani trill?
Hi all.
I downloaded the Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra sf2 file from MuseScore's official download page, but adding it to my project just caused my instruments to become completely messed up, where did I go wrong?
My Violin is a constant trill from timpani and my cellos have turned into xylophones or something. I'm quite lost on what happened here, as I followed perfectly fine tutorials to get this set up.
Comments
You'd need to assign the correct sound via Mixer. Sonatina is not General MIDI compliant, has the sounds in a different order.
In reply to You'd need to assign the… by Jojo-Schmitz
Very probably. This is an area where I feel MS could lead the way and come up with something new and hopefully helpful. It would probably need some form of indirection interface - and using a WYSIWYG (e.g using the Mixer) approach is not going to provide that.
Now that there are many new sample sounds available, both as Soundfonts and other virtual libraries, it's about time that notation software and DAWs came up with new interface schemes.
@PSclly Have you by any chance turned one or more of your instruments into a drum set?
If these were tutorials explaining how to use Sonatina with MuseScore - or analogously for any other software that follows the General MIDI standard - the last step should have been, go to the Mixer to tell MuseScore which sounds within Sonatina you wish to use for each instrument. normally it's the General MIDI standard that makes this all happen automatically, but when using a non-standard soundfont, there is no way for MuseScore to know which sound within it represents violin. For General MIDI soundfont, it's always program number 41, but in a non-GM soundfont it could be anything.
In reply to If these were tutorials… by Marc Sabatella
@Marc Sabatella
Indeed, but maybe there should now be a better way of doing things than just assuming that everything either conforms to GM or is an outlier which can be discounted or disregarded. GM was not AFAIK ever completely well defined, as there were several variants and different manufacturers used some different schemes - though the major instrument groups were generally the same between variants.
In reply to Indeed, but maybe there… by dave2020X
Consider that in paid notation software, you not only have to buy different libraries, but also pay for additional software to make them work. Having to reassign sounds in MS is an inconvenience, to be sure. I understand that MS 4 will handle things differently. I'm no programmer, but when you add a font, theorder of instruments is changed. It doesn't surprise me that I have to reassign.
Everyone has different ideas of what good sound is. I have downloaded all the major fonts that work with MS and found them wanting in some way. Some load the wrong instruments. Some do not hold out notes to there full value. Some have strange vibrato. None respond to SND. The default font does. Is it perfect? No. There is no solo horn or trumpet. So I have borrowed them from VPO. But I have to be careful because they do not respond to SND. Sure I can mess with velocity or CC changes. I'd rather not. It's not the same anyway. I have no interest in transcription, or arranging. Strictly composition. SND is the single biggest help for me,
In reply to Consider that in paid… by bobjp
What is SND?
In reply to What is SND? by dave2020X
Single Note Dynamics. For example, I can put a hairpin on a whole note. Volume will change. Works if there is a dynamic marking on the note before ( Let's say p) and on the note after (f).
In reply to Indeed, but maybe there… by dave2020X
I wouldn't say we are discounting or disregarding non-standard soundfonts, just observing that without a standard, it's literally impossible to know which sounds are which. That's the whole point of a standard. Perhaps MIDI 2.0 brings some expanded possibilities here and MuseScore 4.x will be able to take advantage of them. But for now, there is really no solution I can think.
GM might allow for some variation in how the standard is interpreted or expanded upon, but it's 100% well defined in terms of the basic set of sounds defined and which program numbers correspond to which sounds. Every single GM soundfont or synthesizer ever produced has violin at program number 41, without exception for the past 30 years the standard has been in effect. Actually, for the purposes of printed documentation, some might choose to list the sounds starting at 1 while others list them starting at 0, so you'll see that discrepancy in the printed documentation, but it's always the exact same sequence of data bytes to send to get a violin sound.
If it's not GM-compatible, we have no way to know where that violin might be hiding.