MIDI issues under Linux

[Jayman]

I've become really frustrated trying to get MIDI to sound right under Linux. VLC plays MIDI files fine, but every game I've tried (Doom ports, DXX-Rebirth, OpenTTD, you name it) seems to produce different results despite my efforts to make their configurations identical. For a comparison, take a listen to the audio in the attached archive. More info about how I recorded the two audio files see the spoiler below.

 

Spoiler

For this test, I used the song Flee from Ancient Aliens, and the SGM SoundFont. I recorded audio from GZDoom using Audacity. I used VLC's FluidSynth plugin to play the audio, and VLC's "Convert / Save" feature to produce the Ogg file. I configured the two programs as follows.

GZDoom settings:
Options>Sound Options>
    Music volume: 1.00
    Midi Device: FluidSynth
    Sound Backend: OpenAL
    Advanced Options>Sample Rate: 44100 hz
    MIDI Player Options>FluidSynth>
        fluid_patchset: /home/jayman/.local/share/soundfonts/sgm.sf2
        Gain: 0.5
        Reverb: off
        Chorus: on
        MIDI Voices: 4096

VLC Settings:
Volume: 100%
Advanced Preferences>Input / Codecs>Audio Codecs>FluidSynth>
    SoundFont file: /home/jayman/.local/share/soundfonts/sgm.sf2
    Chorus: on
    Synthesis gain: 0.50
    Polyphony: 4096
    Reverb: off
    Sample rate: 44100

For reference, the composer as prerecorded version on Bandcamp.

 

Is there something I'm missing? If I use the same synthesizer, and the same SoundFont, shouldn't I get pretty much the same results? I know that it might seem small, but I genuinely think that it hinders my ability to enjoy certain songs.

Flee Compatison.zip

[TheUltimateDoomer666]

The GZDoom recording sounds different because it isn't using the SGM soundfont at all, meaning something is causing it to fail to load.