Recommended Soundfonts?

[VGA]

57 minutes ago, IMX said:

 

Kinda off-topic (and sorry about that), but do we have a verifiable source for this? Because I recall reading this piece of trivia somewhere on the internet; that's the kind of DOOM trivia you don't hear every time someone does a "Top 10 DOOM Facts" video, and I'd really like to have a "reputable" source just for posterity's sake (and also because I couldn't find such piece of info. on the DoomWiki).

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

 

On that page you can download music packs recorded on real hardware and hear for yourself how they are supposed to sound on a real SC-55 which is what Robert Prince wrote the songs on. Go check out that song and tell us!

[Bryan T]

Not sure if it's been mentioned, I scanned the thread though.  I use 8MBGMSFX, I like the modern feel, makes a midi sound like an mp3 and doesn't seem to accentuate anything or drown out sounds.  Here's a link if you want to hear it: http://www.alsa-project.org/~james/sound-fonts/8MBGMSFX.SF2

 

Somebody made a nice video comparing soundfonts in doom which includes said soundfont.  

 

[TheUltimateDoomer666]

14 hours ago, Bryan T said:

makes a midi sound like an mp3

An MP3 can literally sound like anything, though.

 

 

Milton Paredes recently made a free Yamaha Tyros 4 GM soundfont (not to be confused with the commercial Black Tyros GM soundfont).  I think it sounds pretty cool, in some MIDIs anyway...E1M8, not so much.  The drums are extremely powerful and heavy but I like that percussion style.  I re-uploaded the soundfont to the Google Drive folder I linked earlier in this thread (the file is "just t4 fixed.sfpack").*  There is also a recently released free software synthesizer called Yamaha Tyrus, which has different sounds than the two aforementioned Yamaha soundfonts.

 

* Edit: Blargh, patch 5 (dx piano) in the soundfont had no samples mapped to key 58.  As of this edit, I have fixed this and uploaded the soundfont again.  If you don't want to download the whole thing again, then you can get Polyphone (which is free) and easily edit the soundfont (I mapped the dx 03 L/R samples to keys 58-71).

 

Tyros 4:

 

Black Tyros:

 

 

Tyrus:

 

 

Edited October 21, 2018 by TheUltimateDoomer666

[VGA]

@TheUltimateDoomer666

 

 

At 16:20 is that Voice Crystal soundfont. I am not impressed, do you think it sounds good?

[TheUltimateDoomer666]

Well yes, though nostalgia might have something to do with that.  It's an official soundfont of the GM patch set from a Gravis UltraSound Plug'n'Play sound card.  The original GUS patches (dgguspat.zip on idgames) were also made by the same company.

[VGA]

Oh, so you like it because it sounds like the Gravis Ultrasound cards from back in the day? OK.

 

I found your blog, can you tell me what the difference is between 8MBGM.SF2 and 8MBGMSFX.SF2 ? Which is better for usage with Doom ports? I mean I do see that the second has a SFX set but why are they the same size?

[TheUltimateDoomer666]

8MBGM.SF2 has 525 samples, 136 instruments, and 137 presets.  8MBGMSFX.SF2 has 526 samples, 136 instruments, and 138 presets.  The *SFX one has an SFX drumkit that contains sound effects (DOOM and most other games do not use this kit).  Another difference is that some instruments, such as the Oboe, have their samples mapped slightly differently in the *SFX soundfont for some reason; some samples are missing so other samples have been remapped to fill in the spaces.  It's possible that they removed such melodic instrument samples to make space for the SFX samples that they added (which is why both soundfonts are about the same size), so 8MBGM.SF2 would probably be better for GM usage.

 

Edit:  There are also a lot of subtle differences between the two soundfont's standard drumkits.  Different attenuation, volume envelopes, filter frequencies, etc.  As an example, the standard drumkit's Snare 2 sample (the one you hear in most of the DOOM music) has a filter frequency of 3,075 Hz in 8MBGM.SF2, but in 8MBGMSFX.SF2 that sample has a filter frequency of 1,844 Hz.  Lower filter frequencies make the samples sound more muffled.  However, 8MBGM.SF2 has a lower filter for the standard drumkit's 2nd kick drum, whereas 8MBGMSFX.SF2 has a much higher filter, so the kick drum in the regular 8MBGM.SF2 soundfont sounds very muffled when directly compared with the other soundfont.

 

Also, the Jazz drumkit instrument group is missing from the *SFX soundfont.  However, the Jazz drumkit's preset is still present in the soundfont, but it is just a duplicate of the standard drumkit instrument.

 

So...both soundfonts have issues.  Guess Creative was a little careless when they made those soundfonts.  The differences aren't likely to be all that noticeable during gameplay, however.

Edited October 21, 2018 by TheUltimateDoomer666 : Added more findings

[VGA]

Just spent some time testing stuff. First of all I enabled Coolsoft VirtualMIDISynth in GZDoom, Fluidsynth sucks.

 

The only soundfonts I found that don't mess the balance of the instruments, especially in songs like MAP01 of BTSX E1 are Scc1t2.sf2 and a modified version of Patch93's v2.2 of his SC-55 soundfont, I found it in this video, I hope it hasn't been discussed in this thread already:

 

Link in the video description. It is about 135 MBs! The author says:

 

"This soundfont is my fixed version of Patch93's Roland SC-55 Soundfont v2.2. Some samples were taken from JexuBandicoot527's SC-55 soundfont and Bill90's Masquerade 55 soundfont."

"I added SC-55 samples and fixed loop."

"... they sounds like in SC-55, because i'm taking samples from original Sound Canvas VA in SC-55 mode. Patch93's SC-55 soundfont contains drumset samples from Sound Canvas SC-88. My soundfont contains SC-88 Room toms, Electronic toms, shaker and brush slap."

 

EDIT:

 

Hear it here

 

 

Edited October 21, 2018 by VGA

[TheUltimateDoomer666]

On 10/20/2018 at 1:15 PM, IMX said:

 

Kinda off-topic (and sorry about that), but do we have a verifiable source for this? Because I recall reading this piece of trivia somewhere on the internet; that's the kind of DOOM trivia you don't hear every time someone does a "Top 10 DOOM Facts" video, and I'd really like to have a "reputable" source just for posterity's sake (and also because I couldn't find such piece of info. on the DoomWiki).

We do now.  :)

In Scott Tobin's Composers Play series, Bobby confirmed that the music is supposed to be saying "DOOM".   Interestingly, he mentions that he originally wrote it with FM sounds, and then translated it to wavetable sounds (the Roland SC-55).

It's at 2:55 in this video:
 

 

[Loud Silence]

@TheUltimateDoomer666GeneralUser GS is my favorite, but i think it plays some instruments wrong. For example synth bass in d_shawn and muted electric guitar in d_the_da. Since this SF is not SC-55, i understand it should sound different, but i want expert's opinion - is it really wrong or it's just how realistic soundfont should sound like?

[TheUltimateDoomer666]

The issue there is that the soundfont's instruments are unbalanced when compared to the SC-55, so the volume goes out of whack in those MIDIs.  In GUGS, Synth Bass 2 is too loud and overwhelms the other instruments, while the Muted Guitar is much too soft and is almost completely drowned out by other instruments.

[Gez]

On samedi 20 octobre 2018 at 5:26 AM, TheUltimateDoomer666 said:

Robert Prince would probably be the only one who can confirm it.  But considering the song is simply titled "DOOM", and the MIDI uses Voice Oohs with a Dulcimer rising to the end for an "mm" sound, it does sound like the music is saying "doom".

That really sounds like something Bobby Prince would have done -- just look at that video where he explains the Commander Keen vegetable song; or how he used the gunshot MIDI instrument to create the sound of goosestepping for the track that plays in the Wolfenstein easter egg.

[VGA]

@Gez

You missed the post 3 posts up where TheUltimateDoomer posted the timestamp where Bobby Prince confirms it!

[Loud Silence]

@TheUltimateDoomer666What do you think about Merlin soundfonts? I used commercial Merlin Vienna 100MB (downloaded from Tim Brechbill's Timidity site) before GUGS and it didn't play few instruments on some tracks. Now i downloaded free Merlin GMv32 (34MB) and i haven't noticed any issue, it even sounds better on some tracks than Merlin Vienna. I didn't believe my ears when i heard Doom's e1m2 track with Merlin GMv32...

[TheUltimateDoomer666]

The Merlin soundfonts seem to be enhanced versions of the Creative/E-mu soundfonts.  Same basic drums.  They do have quite different orchestral samples though, but they're not really suited for GM use in all cases.  Although not a DOOM track, the strings in Raptor's Wave 2 music sound really weird and artificial with Merlin GMv32.

[Loud Silence]

I just found that something is very wrong with Tubular-Bell in Merlin GMv32. It kills some Duke 3D tracks.

[VGA]

I have stopped messing around with soundfonts, the proper general one is scc1t2.sf2 for my usage (DOS games, custom midis in Doom wads etc)

 

I mean it's OK to try out some other soundfonts and they may sound great in a game or another game ... but it's only a matter of time until you discover they aren't fit for general usage in the way us retro players need.

 

(Also the best MIDI software is Coolsoft VirtualMIDISynth.)

[Loud Silence]

I saw in older thread you said that scc1t2 sounds flat and terrible and you prefer patch93's SC-55 soundfont. :) But i have to agree that none of soundfonts are perfect. I got tired of searching for the ONE-for-everything. So i will use scc1t2, it's slightly better than MS GS Wavetable. Coolsoft VirtualMIDISynth is really best.

[VGA]

I changed my mind since then because I realised it's more important to have proper instrument volume levels and to avoid music weirdness. That's why I didn't say scc1t2 sounds the best, I say it's the best for general usage :D

 

It's only a ~3MB soundfont, you can't expect deep sound.

[Loud Silence]

Real SC-55 fails to play Heretic's music properly. French Horn barely can be heard and guitars seems to be messed up.

GeneralUser GS plays this track perfectly IMO.

[TheUltimateDoomer666]

That's because Heretic's music wasn't written for an SC-55.  I posted more information about that here.

[Loud Silence]

YAMAHA XG WDM SoftSynthesizer ended my searching for any soundfonts. :)

Edited November 15, 2018 by Rimantas

[Loud Silence]

These are abandonware synths: Roland Virtual Sound Canvas and Yamaha XG SoftSynthesizer WDM S-YXG50. Yamaha's serial number is in readme. They are full and doesn't require any registration or activation.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1XwDB3sait-0Q8NU_eBcPJ6Mp4G-c2ZRQ

[Krull]

.

Edited September 2, 2023 by Krull

[VGA]

I recommend following the advice here:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=448862051

 

Not just about the driver updates but a bit later about setting the quality to 24bit 44100 (studio)

 

Then, because of bad Windows MIDI support, I advise to intall a MIDI driver, I prefer Coolsoft VirtualMIDISynth

https://coolsoft.altervista.org/it/virtualmidisynth

 

Make sure it is actually set to be the default device. Then you need a soundfont, so get the GeneralUser one for starters.

[TheUltimateDoomer666]

The same thing happens on Windows 10, so the problem is just the Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth--probably it has a polyphony issue or something.

 

The note dropouts do not occur in Sunder Map03 when using CoolSoft VirtualMIDISynth with scc1t2.sf2 loaded.  Scc1t2.sf2 contains the MS Synth's dls samples, but using that soundfont adds a new problem to the Sunder music:  The cymbals ring for too long and have very noticeable looping (to be fair, dls and sf2 files, although similar, are actually different formats, so conversions won't sound 100% identical).

[Urban Space Cowboy]

Another vote for GeneralUser GS here! I used to use Patch93's SC-55 soundalike soundfont version 2.2, but it seems to have compatibility problems with more recent versions of FluidSynth; no idea whether EmperorGrieferus's fork is any better.

 

(Side note for soundfont devs: STOP COMPRESSING YOUR SOUNDFONTS WITH SFARK AND SFPACK, GOSH. Getting either of those decompressed is a pain in the neck! I recommend using 7-zip or RAR.)

[TheUltimateDoomer666]

 

Soundfonts compress poorly with 7-Zip or WinRAR (even with maximum compression settings, which were used in the screenshot above), so using those can be a waste of upload and download bandwidth, especially for very large soundfonts where SFPack can save a lot of space.

 

 

SFArk is much slower than SFPack, and the compressed size in this case is only slightly smaller than the SFPack file, so SFPack is normally the best choice.

 

SFPack works fine on Windows 10, and is no more difficult to use than WinRAR, although it seems there aren't any soundfont compression tools natively available for other OSes like Linux.

[Loud Silence]

MS GS Wavetable Synth and Scc1t2.sf2 on VMS share the same problems when playing very fast midis (for example pogchamp.mid acoustic bass always get interrupted by own fast notes).

I think only Roland GS compatible synths can play cymbals correctly. I have read that Doom music have some GS commands to stop cymbals.

pogchamp.7z

Edited February 17, 2019 by Rimantas

[NightFright]

How about H. Bredel's 8MBGM Enhanced v1.8 from 2008? It's based on the Merlin 8mbgm_plus13, and the guy put a lot of effort into it in order to optimize it for Descent, Monkey Island and Indiana Jones. For a soundfont under 30 MB it sounds pretty good in my opinion. I checked it in Doom, ROTT and Duke3D and it seems to do a pretty good job there, too. Orchestral tracks like e.g. in Dark Forces also don't seem to be a problem. However, I cannot tell how it is doing regarding instrument balance/volume.

 

I also recently purchased the famous vcgs4mb4.sf2. It's not bad at all for its size, however since I am used to instruments having a fuller and more defined sound, I have trouble getting used to it.

 

Another interesting soundfont could be DomiDam's CHORIUM: Professional v2.4, a remastered version of the Chorium Rev A. It's also quite recent, latest version is from December 2018. It may have a bit too much reverb and hall effects for some people's taste, though. stewboy's "Jade Empire" sounds very appealing with it, I gotta admit.

Edited March 29, 2019 by NightFright