Trevor0402's SC-55 soundfont

[LuciferSam86]

On 2/20/2022 at 3:57 PM, NightFright said:

I decided to spend those 70 bucks for the SCVA and have at least an acceptable SC-55 approximation

 

I am tempted to buy SCVA, too. But games like GZdoom or something else can use it as MIDI output?

 

EDIT : Yes, it's possible. I found this precious guide https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=979771#p979771

Edited March 19, 2022 by LuciferSam86

[TheUltimateDoomer666]

57 minutes ago, LuciferSam86 said:

I am tempted to buy SCVA, too. But games like GZdoom or something else can use it as MIDI output?

Yes, you just need both a virtual loopback cable (such as loopMIDI) and a VSTi loader (such as Falcosoft Midi player) running. LoopMIDI will need to be set as the input port from within Midi Player and the output device from within the game.

 

Do be aware that SCVA is very expensive, and you still won't be getting native SC-55 emulation. Instead you'll be getting a reasonably good virtual SC-8820. The SC-8820 includes maps from previous SC models such as the SC-55, but some instruments sound different.

[OpenRift]

4 hours ago, LuciferSam86 said:

 

I am tempted to buy SCVA, too. But games like GZdoom or something else can use it as MIDI output?

Don't buy SCVA, it's really inaccurate. Its SC-55 emulation is based on the SC-55 mode found on the SC-88 pro, which has several inaccurate instruments.

 

EDIT: Oh wait I'm blind, UltimateDoomer already said that.

[NightFright]

Until the SC-55 emulator is ready, it's as close as it can get. Certainly closer than any soundfont that's currently out there. However, not everyone is a purist that needs 100% accuracy. To some it just needs to sound good, and for those there are free solutions that work just fine. The S-YXG50 is an excellent alternative and doesn't cost a cent.

 

What I don't like about the SCVA is its annoying DRM that requires you to install that idiotic bloatware which has only one purpose: Verifying activation on a regular basis. There are illegal solutions for that which make it work a lot better and easier, but well...

[brick]

2 hours ago, NightFright said:

The S-YXG50 is an excellent alternative and doesn't cost a cent.

How did I not know about this! Thanks for mentioning it. I think the majority of game MIDI soundtracks were composed on/for Roland modules, but I know there are some that used the Yamaha XG specific extensions, and I have been suspicious of others that are allegedly just GM but display "instrument not found" errors on an SC-55.

[Woolie Wool]

On 3/19/2022 at 9:33 AM, TheUltimateDoomer666 said:

Yes, you just need both a virtual loopback cable (such as loopMIDI) and a VSTi loader (such as Falcosoft Midi player) running. LoopMIDI will need to be set as the input port from within Midi Player and the output device from within the game.

 

Do be aware that SCVA is very expensive, and you still won't be getting native SC-55 emulation. Instead you'll be getting a reasonably good virtual SC-8820. The SC-8820 includes maps from previous SC models such as the SC-55, but some instruments sound different.

How close is the SC-8820 to the original SC-88? I live in constant terror of my SC-88 (which is already a bit flaky and temperamental, and has been serviced for blown caps before) dying, and cannot currently afford a replacement. The SCVA would, though not cheap, be more affordable than a new SC-88.

 

(I also have an SC-55 MkII which is far more reliable, but I prefer the 88)

[brick]

2 hours ago, Woolie Wool said:

How close is the SC-8820 to the original SC-88?

I don't own either but have heard comparison recordings made on both. The instruments sound different, sometimes subtly, sometimes quite obviously. I think Roland changed the instruments quite heavily between the SC-88 and the SC-88Pro, and all future modules inherited this change.

I know what you mean about the differences, I'm always worried my SC-55mkII will eventually die on me too, and for how cheap I got it and how expensive they've become I worry too. Kinda wish I also bought an SC-88 at the time too, as those were also much cheaper than now.

[Grieferus]

Oh, hi Marc.

[OpenRift]

6 hours ago, Grieferus said:

Oh, hi Marc.

Oh hey it's the other soundfont guy

[pantheon]

I have to say, as someone who was very happy with my set of soundfonts, switching to SCVA was a big upgrade for games. It just sounds a lot better and the SC-55 mode is accurate enough. I'm not knowledgeable enough to pick out many inaccuracies in the SC-55 style soundfonts anyways. It works very nicely in combination with loopMIDI and Falcosoft MIDI Player. I'd say it's worth giving the free trial version a shot, having to install the Roland software is a pain though.

Edited May 8, 2022 by pantheon

[Grieferus]

2 hours ago, OpenRift said:

Oh hey it's the other soundfont guy

After brief checking out this soundfont (I didn't even know about it and the whole project behind it until recently) I have to say that it still needs some work.

[OpenRift]

9 hours ago, Grieferus said:

After brief checking out this soundfont (I didn't even know about it and the whole project behind it until recently) I have to say that it still needs some work.

Yeah, @Trevor0402 has been working on it on and off for um....

(checks OP date)

A little over a year now. From the sounds of it he's sort of stagnated due to the recent developments of the upcoming EmuSC.

[Grieferus]

3 hours ago, OpenRift said:

Yeah, @Trevor0402 has been working on it on and off for um....

(checks OP date)

A little over a year now. From the sounds of it he's sort of stagnated due to the recent developments of the upcoming EmuSC.

I don't care about being late, Snively!

[Kappa971]

23 hours ago, pantheon said:

I have to say, as someone who was very happy with my set of soundfonts, switching to SCVA was a big upgrade for games. It just sounds a lot better and the SC-55 mode is accurate enough. I'm not knowledgeable enough to pick out many inaccuracies in the SC-55 style soundfonts anyways. It works very nicely in combination with loopMIDI and Falcosoft MIDI Player. I'd say it's worth giving the free trial version a shot, having to install the Roland software is a pain though.

You will notice differences between the Sound Canvas VA cymbals (in SC-55 mode) and a real SC-55 in Doom 1. For example in e1m1.mid, you will notice that in SCVA the cymbals are not "cut". I think I read that it was a limitation of the original SC-55 that SCVA doesn't emulate at all, and that the composers of Doom's music have used in other songs in the game as well. Then there are differences with some instruments, I think the cymbals themselves have a different sound than the original. I don't own a SC-55, I was able to hear the differences thanks to the various videos on YouTube.

[TheUltimateDoomer666]

10 hours ago, Kappa971 said:

I think I read that it was a limitation of the original SC-55 that SCVA doesn't emulate at all

It was an intentional limitation designed for realism. There is some information about it in the original SC-55 manual. There are even different percussion sounds that can't be played at the same time (as it would be impossible to do so in real life with a single instrument). SCVA not emulating that feature is an oversight from the programmers.

[Kappa971]

12 hours ago, TheUltimateDoomer666 said:

It was an intentional limitation designed for realism.

I'm not a music expert but e1m1 doesn't sound realistic at all (but paradoxically it sounds better with that limitation). I don't think that in real life the sound of cymbals can be interrupted like that (and maybe that's why SCVA doesn't emulate this feature/limitation).

Anyway I would have expected Roland to emulate the device perfectly, with all its limitations.

 

Maybe the original SC-8820 also removed these limitations with the SC-55 instrument map?

Edited May 10, 2022 by Kappa971

[Grieferus]

I made a bit of a quick-fix update for this soundfont: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pLyodRR5NKh-wric9ntho72HfNm3wjZz/view?usp=sharing

[TheUltimateDoomer666]

11 hours ago, Kappa971 said:

I'm not a music expert but e1m1 doesn't sound realistic at all (but paradoxically it sounds better with that limitation). I don't think that in real life the sound of cymbals can be interrupted like that (and maybe that's why SCVA doesn't emulate this feature/limitation).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cymbal_choke

[Grieferus]

16 hours ago, Kappa971 said:

I'm not a music expert but e1m1 doesn't sound realistic at all (but paradoxically it sounds better with that limitation). I don't think that in real life the sound of cymbals can be interrupted like that (and maybe that's why SCVA doesn't emulate this feature/limitation).

Anyway I would have expected Roland to emulate the device perfectly, with all its limitations.

 

Maybe the original SC-8820 also removed these limitations with the SC-55 instrument map?

No, the hardware SC-8820 also had cymbal choke effect.

It's just Roland who couldn't repeat this effect in SCVA.

[Kappa971]

2 hours ago, Grieferus said:

No, the hardware SC-8820 also had cymbal choke effect.

It's just Roland who couldn't repeat this effect in SCVA.

It's a shame. Even the Microsoft GS Wavetable synth has this effect but not SCVA.

[PsychEyeball]

On 3/29/2022 at 7:06 PM, Woolie Wool said:

How close is the SC-8820 to the original SC-88? I live in constant terror of my SC-88 (which is already a bit flaky and temperamental, and has been serviced for blown caps before) dying, and cannot currently afford a replacement. The SCVA would, though not cheap, be more affordable than a new SC-88.

 

(I also have an SC-55 MkII which is far more reliable, but I prefer the 88)

The SC-8820 is closer in tone to the SC-88 Pro and comes with about 500+ extra patches. It does have the ability to emulate the SC-55, SC-88 and SC-88 Pro, with slight differences.

 

I myself bought a SC-88 for general MIDI playback over the SC-55 mk2 because while the latter will do wonders to play back the original Doom soundtracks, the limited polyphony does kill its appeal a bit when comes the time to play more complex music. I'll gladly take 64 voices over 28.

 

(also the SC-88 is much cheaper to buy nowadays, with it sandwiched between the much more successful SC-55 mk2 and SC-88 Pro)

[RevAngel]

Thank you for this! It already sounds very nice and 10MB is a really great size. The SG-55 one I got has 130MB and sounds somewhat better in some parts, somewhat worse in other parts. SCVA in comparison is very good as well in SC-55 mapping, but still too much as a SC-88. For Descent midis, which were programmed on SC-88 it is perfect - but the price is a nasty thing to declare for such vintage systems.

Ah yes, btw. tested with Falcosoft Midi Player 6.1 in BASS VSTi-Mode and/or with bassmidi 1.4 VSTi with loopmidi and VSTHost from H. Seib with various game midi files ripped from that era.

[zz_denis]

I made a simple script that can auto sampling General MIDI (128 Instruments + 8 Drum sets / GS) to SFZ quickly with just only one command.
I will plan to test it to sampling SC55mkii and SCVA.

 

Step1:
Corrected MIDIOUT setting in GO_INST & GO_DRUM batch files.

Step2:
Execute GO_INST & GO_DRUM.

Step3:
Now you can post-edit every *.sfz with sfz editor such as "Polyphone" or convert them to sf2 format (GO_SF2).

 

This file "024_AcousticGuitar.sf2" is the sample made by my script without editing and tuning. (only converted to sf2)

 

I want to thank:
SoX: http://sox.sourceforge.net/
Geert Bevin's SendMIDI: https://github.com/gbevin/SendMIDI

 

024_ AcousticGuitar.zip

GM_AutoSamplingScript_v0.7full.zip

Edited June 4, 2022 by zz_denis

[DoomGater]

On 5/30/2022 at 5:49 AM, zz_denis said:

I made a simple script that can auto sampling General MIDI (128 Instruments + 8 Drum sets / GS) to SFZ quickly with just only one command.

 

 

Sounds interesting. So, it's similar to Samplerobot?
https://samplerobot.com/

 

[zz_denis]

On 6/1/2022 at 4:05 AM, DoomGater said:

 

 

Sounds interesting. So, it's similar to Samplerobot?
https://samplerobot.com/

 

Hi DoomGater:

    Samplerobot is a total solution for automated sampling, and it has many functions like sample editing & looping / format conversion....
My script only has the basic part that sampling each instrument/drum with auto cropping and map the sfz files to the samples.
Samplerobot is suitable for professional sampling, but my script may be more suitable for sampling old GM sound module (SC55/X5DR....) and all GM128+Drums samples can be "one-click completion". :)

[zz_denis]

On 5/30/2022 at 11:49 AM, zz_denis said:

I made a simple script that can auto sampling General MIDI (128 Instruments + 8 Drum sets / GS) to SFZ quickly with just only one command.
I will plan to test it to sampling SC55mkii and SCVA.

 

Step1:
Corrected MIDIOUT setting in GO_INST & GO_DRUM batch files.

Step2:
Execute GO_INST & GO_DRUM.

Step3:
Now you can post-edit every *.sfz with sfz editor such as "Polyphone" or convert them to sf2 format (GO_SF2).

 

This file "024_AcousticGuitar.sf2" is the sample made by my script without editing and tuning. (only converted to sf2)

 

I want to thank:
SoX: http://sox.sourceforge.net/
Geert Bevin's SendMIDI: https://github.com/gbevin/SendMIDI

 

I have sampled my sc55mkii / ra90 and packed to "GMSC_test.7z".

 

GMSC_test.7z (unpack password is gmsc):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DgWeZ7-3mM-amh0tCiLmYC4BpuU3erH7/view?usp=sharing

GMRA_test.7z (unpack password is gmra):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OACrb3v0ysBkgZwX2IC3tDSa1rSD_v9a/view?usp=sharing

 

And I sampled my korg i3 (same as x3, similar to ag10/05r/x5dr, but seems to have better analog output) to "GMi3_test.7z".

 

GMi3_test.7z (unpack password is gmi3):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13y5kD78gk2BtqrdvQodKdmggTMela1e9/view?usp=sharing

 

Those sfz are just prototypes, anyone can go ahead and edit / tweak it to become a final sf2 file (GO_SF2.bat is in my v0.6+ package).

 

https://www.polyphone-soundfonts.com/forum/support-bug-reports/546-batch-convert-sfz-to-sf2-no-changes-i-give-up

 

The total workflow is about

1a. GO_INST -> Make 128 Instrument SFZ files.
1b. GO_DRUM -> Make 9 Drum set SFZ files.

2. Edit 128+9 SFZs via Polyphone. (optional)

3. GO_SF2 -> Convert 128+9 SFZs to 128+9 SF2s.

4. Edit 128+9 SF2s via Polyphone. (optional)

5. Combine 128+9 SF2s into one big SF2 (like SC55 soundfont) by "SF2 Patcher".
https://archive.org/details/sf-2-patcher

 

"doom1_gmsc.ogg" is played by fluidsynth + my gmsc sfz.

doom1_gmsc.zip

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxk8ewA1tAE

Edited June 11, 2022 by zz_denis

[Trevor0402]

On 5/29/2022 at 10:49 PM, zz_denis said:

I made a simple script that can auto sampling General MIDI (128 Instruments + 8 Drum sets / GS) to SFZ quickly with just only one command.
I will plan to test it to sampling SC55mkii and SCVA.

 

Step1:
Corrected MIDIOUT setting in GO_INST & GO_DRUM batch files.

Step2:
Execute GO_INST & GO_DRUM.

Step3:
Now you can post-edit every *.sfz with sfz editor such as "Polyphone" or convert them to sf2 format (GO_SF2).

 

This file "024_AcousticGuitar.sf2" is the sample made by my script without editing and tuning. (only converted to sf2)

 

I want to thank:
SoX: http://sox.sourceforge.net/
Geert Bevin's SendMIDI: https://github.com/gbevin/SendMIDI

 

024_ AcousticGuitar.zip

GM_AutoSamplingScript_v0.7full.zip

I've got more than half of the unit recorded thanks to this tool. I'm making another SC-55 SoundFont, though the size is way too big even while incomplete currently.

Here's what it sounds like currently however. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5EknzhGqgc

[zz_denis]

Hi Trevor0402:
I'm glad we can help each other.

Did you notice some details of my script?

CC 07 (Volume) -> set to 127 (max)
CC 11 (Expression) -> set to 127 (max)
CC 91 (Reverb) -> set to 0 (no reverb)
CC 93 (Chours) -> set to 0 (no chorus)
CC 10 (Pan) -> set to 0 (only left)

 

Because I think that the samples of these sets is clean. (dry)

 

bin\sendmidi dev %MIDIOUT% dec cc 10 0 cc 7 127 cc 11 127 cc 91 0 cc 93 0 panic

[DoomGater]

On 6/2/2022 at 9:08 AM, zz_denis said:

Hi DoomGater:

    Samplerobot is a total solution for automated sampling, and it has many functions like sample editing & looping / format conversion....
My script only has the basic part that sampling each instrument/drum with auto cropping and map the sfz files to the samples.
Samplerobot is suitable for professional sampling, but my script may be more suitable for sampling old GM sound module (SC55/X5DR....) and all GM128+Drums samples can be "one-click completion". :)

 

Yeah, I know SR quite well (I had the luck to meet Christian (the brain behind SR) during SuperBooth 2018 and played lots of Vectrex with him. (Vectrex graphic was the patron of the Sample Robot Logo..:-)

 

But your scripts are working quite well, nice job so far ...:-)

 

[zz_denis]

I have merged all my sc55 sfzs into one soundfont and all samples are 44.1k.
The sf2 is not final (in progress) because none of the samples have established loops.
But it can still be test playing many midi songs.

 

SC55_gmass.sf2:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AHquBL1mEpQOVvfqLFIiJzDb2yTCYXEJ/view?usp=sharing

 

The soundfont is too big, you can use the configuration of the fluidsynth:
set synth.dynamic-sample-loading 1

Edited June 21, 2022 by zz_denis