Question to Doom Soundtrack

Hi Doomers,

 

does anyone know how i can create a authentic sounding Doom Soundtrack? With SC 55 Sound?

I have a midi keyboard but no idea how to create a original Soundtrack. Are there any software or downloadable instruments from the SC 55 ??

 

Thanks

Sound Canvas VA sounds pretty close to the Sound Canvas modules it emulates (it has SC-55, 88, 88Pro and 8820 modes), and you can use the Roland Cloud version for free for 30 days. Unfortunately after that you need to pay for a subscription or buy the standalone version which is expensive enough that you could reallu just go and buy one of the real Sound Canvases from Internet auctions instead. The VSTi also has a very, very long startup time only because of the DRM.

 

For some reason they can sell the exact same softsynth perpetually licensed much cheaper if you get it on iOS instead...

thanks for the answer.... but thats not the way i was looking for

40 minutes ago, Mikey said:

thanks for the answer.... but thats not the way i was looking for

 

Well, to be honest the question was a bit hard to understand. I assumed you want to compose/play a song using your MIDI keyboard with instruments that sound similar to a SC-55. This is possible with SC-VA and it sounds a lot closer to the real thing than any other alternatives (such as SC-55 soundfonts) will.

1 hour ago, xttl said:

Sound Canvas VA sounds pretty close to the Sound Canvas modules it emulates (it has SC-55, 88, 88Pro and 8820 modes), and you can use the Roland Cloud version for free for 30 days. Unfortunately after that you need to pay for a subscription or buy the standalone version which is expensive enough that you could reallu just go and buy one of the real Sound Canvases from Internet auctions instead. The VSTi also has a very, very long startup time only because of the DRM.

 

For some reason they can sell the exact same softsynth perpetually licensed much cheaper if you get it on iOS instead...

I have no idea why anybody would buy sound canvas va. or real hardware unless they're a big nerd

22 minutes ago, xttl said:

 

Well, to be honest the question was a bit hard to understand. I assumed you want to compose/play a song using your MIDI keyboard with instruments that sound similar to a SC-55. This is possible with SC-VA and it sounds a lot closer to the real thing than any other alternatives (such as SC-55 soundfonts) will.Insert other media

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7ntR7VRcUecZkVkd042eTE0TWs/view?usp=sharing

The sc-55 soundfont from here seems to be pretty close to the sc-55. I'm pretty sure any inaccuracies it has are not worth 100 euros

19 hours ago, unpleasantmarine said:

I have no idea why anybody would buy sound canvas va. or real hardware unless they're a big nerd

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7ntR7VRcUecZkVkd042eTE0TWs/view?usp=sharing

The sc-55 soundfont from here seems to be pretty close to the sc-55. I'm pretty sure any inaccuracies it has are not worth 100 euros

 

Yeah the pricing of the softsynth is truly unfortunate unless you can use the iOS version which is only $20 or 22€.

^{(or you do something which can't be discussed here)}

 

Last I tried a SC-55 soundfont (using FluidSynth bundled with a PrBoom+ build) it did not sound very good at all. I'm not talking about tiny little differences only nitpickers will care about, it was shite on the level that practically even the MS Softsynth bundled with Windows sounded better except for the lower sample rate. That was a long time ago though and it might not have been this exact same attempt at a SC-55 soundfont, so I will try this one later. I own a CM-500 (basically CM-300 ≈ SC-55 and CM-64 CM-32LN ≈ improved MT-32 rolled into one box) so I could even post some comparison recordings here if the soundfont proves to be a not good approximation.

Edited June 25, 2019 by xttl

Just now, xttl said:

I'm not talking about tiny little differences only nitpickers will care about, it was shite on the level that practically even the MS Softsynth bundled with Windows sounded better except for the lower sample rate.

yeah the soundfont acknoledges things like that and says it is very good which is very good "The presets in above soundfonts are carefully programmed to sound like their hardware counterparts. Therefore the soundfonts will play your music in an organic way." . people must like it since the forum thread has nine pages 

1 hour ago, unpleasantmarine said:

I have no idea why anybody would buy sound canvas va. or real hardware unless they're a big nerd

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7ntR7VRcUecZkVkd042eTE0TWs/view?usp=sharing

The sc-55 soundfont from here seems to be pretty close to the sc-55. I'm pretty sure any inaccuracies it has are not worth 100 euros

Here's a better one (link in description):

 

46 minutes ago, Sgt Nate V said:

Here's a better one (link in description):

 

what makes that better

 

^{i would say "i wouldnt trust someone with a minecraft troll profile picture" but my profile picture is a cropped frame from a roblox video i made when i was 6 years old}

11 minutes ago, unpleasantmarine said:

what makes that better

 

^{i would say "i wouldnt trust someone with a minecraft troll profile picture" but my profile picture is a cropped frame from a roblox video i made when i was 6 years old}

The samples used are more accurate to a real SC-55

By the way, I'm not an expert on the subject (anyone who is feel free to correct me) but my guess is the legality of these soundfonts is dubious at best. So in that respect using these is not really any better than using SC-VA without a proper license. Nobody will almost certainly care though especially if your use is purely non-commercial and hobbyist.

 

I'm almost sure I saw something about sampling instruments being forbidden in the user's manual or other accompanying documentation of a Roland or Yamaha synth module I used to have (SC-88ST or MU80), and regardless it would only make sense that this is not allowed.

 

https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4588443

Microsoft GS Wavetable is extremely minimal version of SC-55 and laggy for composing, but possible for playing, balancing MIDIs.

VirtualMIDISynth with Scc1t2 soundfont (sounds like MS GS Wavetable) would be better option.

Real SC-55 was made 1991, so connecting it to new PC can be a nightmare or impossible. Also it has very limited polyphony: max 24 notes played at time.

YAMAHA made very cool SoftSynthesizer S-YXG50. Original versions require XP or older versions of Windows, but have very high polyphony: 512. Also sound effects from real synth modules: reverb, chorus, variation. Supports GM1, GM2, GS (Roland), XG modes. Has no sweat even with very fast MIDIs (VirtualMIDISynth and MS GS Wavetable were laggy with them). There's VST version of this synth, it requires few programs to set it up, but will work on new Windows.

6 minutes ago, Loud Silence said:

Microsoft GS Wavetable is extremely minimal version of SC-55 and laggy for composing, but possible for playing, balancing MIDIs.

VirtualMIDISynth with Scc1t2 soundfont (sounds like MS GS Wavetable) would be better option.

 Real SC-55 was made 1991, so connecting it to new PC can be a nightmare or impossible. Also it has very limited polyphony: max 24 notes played at time.

 YAMAHA made very cool SoftSynthesizer S-YXG50. Original versions require XP or older versions of Windows, but have very high polyphony: 512. Also sound effects from real synth modules: reverb, chorus, variation. Supports GM1, GM2, GS (Roland), XG modes. Has no sweat even with very fast MIDIs (VirtualMIDISynth and MS GS Wavetable were laggy with them). There's VST version of this synth, it requires few programs to set it up, but will work on new Windows.

 

True, all of this except maybe for the part that connecting the SC-55 to modern computers is difficult*. USB MIDI interfaces can work even without installing any special drivers, and if USB is not good enough then other options exist as well with support for current OSes. Some of cheapest USB MIDI interfaces unfortunately aren't very good even for just listening because they somehow manage to break SysEx messages.

 

The hacked VSTi version of S-YXG50 is obviously also not strictly legit if someone cares about that. If not, there's an even further hacked version of S-YXG50 with instruments ripped from modern Yamaha Tyros workstations. With some songs it can sound really good, almost like something from an official HD "remaster" of a game. Many songs from Duke3D worked really well with it. Sometimes it's better to stick to the old soundset though, similar to how SC-8820 or 88Pro (or some modern Roland synth with GM support still included) can sound worse on songs composed for SC-55.

 

^{(* and there's also the SC-55mkII which has slightly increased polyphony, 28 partials)}

Just use these.

 

http://sc55.duke4.net/games.php#

13 minutes ago, Nevander said:

Just use these.

 

http://sc55.duke4.net/games.php#

that's not a soundfont

13 minutes ago, Nevander said:

Just use these.

 

http://sc55.duke4.net/games.php#

 

Doesn't work for PWADs or composing. :)

OP wasn't exactly clear on what he was looking for.

Also in case the OP was really asking how to get the background music in game to sound like on a Sound Canvas (or someone else looking at the thread wants to know it): it is possible to use VSTi synths with DOSBox or source ports via MIDI loopback.

 

For Windows, loopMIDI is a good free loopback MIDI device driver and savihost is a simple freeware VST host for hosting SC-VA, S-YXG50 or whatever you want to use. CoolSoft MIDIMapper is also freeware and allows changing the default MIDI output device if necessary, since eg. Chocolate Doom (due to SDL limitations) cannot do it otherwise. PrBoom+ (via PortMidi), GZDoom and DOSBox allow selecting other output devices besides the default so MIDIMapper isn't strictly necessary with them.

 

In Linux, SC-VA and S-YXG50 running in savihost work fine under Wine (though I'm not sure about the Roland DRM... ;) and MIDI loopback is already set up in at least Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04 (don't have experience with other distros, but it should be possible to get this working in any distro somehow since the feature is provided by ALSA), the "MIDI thru" device functions as such. Unfortunately this does not work too well in ports which use SDL for music output, eg. Chocolate Doom under Linux can only send MIDI output to any arbitrary MIDI device under Linux by resorting to writing a temporary MIDI file somewhere and passing it to another external program (such as aplaymidi) which will cause issues with resets, looping and changing the song. It works great in DOSBox though which has direct support for ALSA MIDI output, and IIRC GZDoom can do this too (but it's been a while since I needed to use GZDoom for anything). PrBoom+ via PortMidi also works but is a bit buggy, some MIDIs from PWADs (eg. sunlust.wad) cause it to crash...

 

I've not used MacOS much, but I managed to set up this once there too, at least for DOSBox. I don't remember the details anymore, but the OS should come with an application called "Audio MIDI Setup" which allows adding a CoreAudio MIDI loopback device or "virtual MIDI cable". Then if the synth you want to use comes as an AudioUnit (like SC-VA does) you can use AU Lab from Apple's free developer tools pack to host and direct input from the "virtual MIDI cable" to it. Whether there's a usable free VSTi host like SAVIHost for other synths which don't have AU versions, I don't know.

 

AFAIK SC-VA on iOS can receive MIDI input via network or Lightning cable, so it should be possible to setup it too for this use but I have no experience with it. MacOS probably comes with the required software, for Windows see eg. https://www.tobias-erichsen.de/software/rtpmidi.html and http://musicioapp.com/downloads/

 

 

Actually, here are step-by-step instructions how to get this working in Windows:

 

1. First, install loopMIDI and start it:

 

2. Add a loopback device:

 

3. Download the zip of the right version of SAVIHost for your VSTi (32 or 64 bit? VST2 or VST3?), extract it, copy savihost.exe to the directory where your softsynth VSTi DLL is, and rename so the part before the file extension is same. If your synth is eg. "syxg50.dll" you rename "savihost.exe" to "syxg50.exe". If you do not have file name extensions (the part after the dot) visible in Explorer, then just rename the thing with the purple diamond icon to have the same name as the thing with the gear icon. In this example I have used the 32-bit x86 VST2 version of SAVIHost which is the correct choice for Yamaha S-YXG50. (SC-VA is also a VST2 instrument but comes in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions, either one is fine, but whichever version you choose, you must use a matching SAVIHost)

 

 

 

4. Run the application and open MIDI input device configuration:

 

5. Change one of the input ports to be the loopback device added previously:

 

6. Install CoolSoft MIDIMapper if it isn't installed already, and open the MIDIMapper Configurator:

 

7. Change default MIDI output device from Microsoft Synthesizer to the loopback device:

 

8. Run any source port which outputs MIDI to the default device (such as Chocolate Doom's Windows version with "native MIDI" selected from chocolate-doom-setup) and enjoy:

 

Another pic where SC-VA is running with the same setup:

 

 

Obviously it also works with any other VSTi which has General MIDI support.

Edited June 28, 2019 by xttl