Creation of an Oriental Percussion Kit

• Jan 29, 2022 - 14:33

Hello,

I am currently trying to create a soundfont for oriental percussions (Darbouka, bendir etc ...)
The documentation is really bad about creating a soundfont.

I used Polyphone to create set percussion group according to the MuseScore_General.sf3
I created a first instrument called tabila which is exactly linke a bongo into musescore, there are only 2 sounds, low and high.
I really dont understand the role of the pitch attribute in Drum (I guessed it is the midi note) code 61 is D♭3 for example)
sf3 and instruments.xml loaded into MuseScore but in dont get any sound for tbila high sample
I dont understand where the samples physically are either....
I have spend hours and it is still quite obscure ....

thanks a lot in advance

Attachment Size
OrientalPercussionsKit1.xml 2.31 KB

Comments

Samples and drum preset are included in the soundfont.
References provided in instruments.xml are to GM instrument numbers and drum-maps.

The pitch values here represent the MIDI key number in the soundfont. example: #60 and #61 indicate the notes c4 and c#4 on the piano keyboard. This means: the percussion sounds assigned to these keys in the soundfont will be used. As these keys are set to #60:Hi-Bongo and #61:Lo-Bongo in the GM standard drum map, these sounds will be played.
So the references in the xml point to the a: Program-Value(Program change number) and b:(pitch)note-number in the soundfont.

If program-value is 49, it points to Ethnic Drumset (GS). And its Map is different from Standard map.
In (GS) Ethnic Drumset, the tabla instrument is set up like this:
57 Table Te
58 Table Na
59 Table Tun
60 Table Ge
61 Table Ge Hi
Musescore's soundfont (Musescore general) doesn't contain an Ethnic drumset.
You will probably have to use an external soundfont.

In reply to by Ziya Mete Demircan

Hello Ziya,
Thank you very much for this clear answer.

I finally understood that Key range in Polyphone is indexed form 0 but from 1 in Musescore.
So when my keyrange si C3 in polyphone it will appear as C4 in Musescore.
I also understood that the picth parameter in the xml instruments files définition should be the value of the note in MuseScore.
That's quite weird at the beginning and I dont really understand why they ake such a choice in polyphone, it seems to be akward reagding the midi standard.
I will release a Arabic soundfount with many instruments and sounds for each of them soon.
Thanks a lot.

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