Samples websites question

• May 17, 2022 - 07:04

Does somebody know some websites of free samples? How much you can^^
Thanks a lot

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• May 18, 2022 - 16:59

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1TbLOvr6GwqrxteWH8RD7Z7Q7t8q-vsIe
https://archive.org/download/free-soundfonts-sf2-2019-04
Most of the files are common to both links.
(I have nothing to do with these listings, i just found them)

An other good site with a lot sf2/soundfonts is "4shared", but i have no more access to it, i don't know if they closed, or if it is a problem with my pc settings.
It is a little special there, though. You must be careful closing some commercial "dirty" windows before downloading, in other words click on the proper "download" window.

Edit: i am not sure if you meant only "raw" samples, or if soundfonts are included in your request.

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• May 18, 2022 - 17:28

I searched soundfonts in 150 different websites (popular, unpopular, hidden, archivied), and found +600 soundfonts (without counting the bad or useless soundfonts, if i count them se arrive at about +1000). So I was wondering about samples (wav., flac., etc.) of istruments that I could unify in a soundfont. So yes, about websites with samples, samples pack (and maybe also soundfont).
However, if you also have more hidden and uncommon but not private and illegal soundfont links (such as hidden sites, hidden files, more hidden drive links) you could send them.

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• May 18, 2022 - 21:18

I think I already said but "I searched soundfonts in 150 different websites (popular, unpopular, hidden, archivied), and found +600 soundfonts (without counting the bad or useless soundfonts, if i count them se arrive at about +1000). So I was wondering about samples..." So I am asking about samples not soundfont. However thanks!

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• May 18, 2022 - 23:15

I mentioned samples in my first reply but you subsequently asked about soundfonts – hence my follow up.

The Philharmonia site linked above has thousands of free samples. I have downloaded the set for classical guitar and they are high quality recordings.

I wouldn't spend too much time and effort on soundfonts as it's an old technology and is becoming obsolete.

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• May 18, 2022 - 23:33

Thank you for the link it is very useful to me but I also said more than 1.
However, I have seen, as I always say and always will say, the sound fonts (at least the sf2s) are cheaper, smaller, easier to handle, have good audio, it is easy to apply modifications and the result is excellent (if you have some good samples). You can get really good results even with up to 2 GB of Sf2 instead of 100 GB of VST or raw samples.
Old technology doesn't mean bad technology.

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• May 20, 2022 - 16:31

As I said before, I have viewed around 1000+ soundfonts and if we count all the soundfonts in every site I viewed, around 100-150 websites per soundfont, the number maybe even goes up to 3000-4000+ (I have a torrent file with 38 GB of old soundfont of Sf2midi, Hammersounds and other old sites). My intention is to get the best and the best legal, free, etc raw samples and then identify the best instruments, update them to the max with the polyphone, and ultimately combine them into one, fantastic and really good soundfont.

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• May 20, 2022 - 16:39

These are the steps:
1) find all existing sites on the web with soundfonts and raw samples; ~95% completion
2) analyze the soundfonts and raw samples and see the good ones or those with potential; ~50% completion
(OPTIONAL: 3) rank the best of these and the average-lousy ones do not count them or give them a simple and unique low review that is the same for all) 0% completion
4) modify and / or improve if needed the soundfont using applications such as polyphone; 0% completion
5) put them in a single soundfont (GM?) BUT IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER, for an easier search; 0% completion
6) review everything. 0% completion

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• May 20, 2022 - 20:55

I'll tell you no, I've been in this field since September last year, so I'm relatively new, although I knew more sites, looks and soundfont in general. About creating one from 0 using the samples I have videos on youtube, the Polyphone manual, the Polyphone tutorial, I can understand how it is created and the dynamics by analyzing the soundfont internally with polyphone and obviously the tools from life to understand how to make them more realistic.
I have seen the GM and although it is certainly useful, it was invented almost 20 years ago and the instruments I would add to the single soundfont would go beyond the normal standard, in addition to not having sounds like Synth Lead, Synth Pad, Synth Effects and others useless stuff for a real orchestra soundfont (but sounds like electric guitar, electric piano, rhodes would be there). Usually the Sf2 does not have its "vibrato", "tremolo", "staccato" which are useful because normally even a good app cannot synthesize a good sound from a single instrument. The usefulness of the alphabetical order would lie in its practicality and simplicity. I don't care if other people, sorry if I say it, don't like this order, but nowadays the classic one is old and useless, especially with this soundfont, with so many instruments (about 200+ and not 128).
Deciding whether to share it or not then I will decide in the future, with all the work that I am putting into it and for sure not to draw anything from it I would not like so much as an idea.

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• May 21, 2022 - 00:01

I wish you well with your endeavour. It is no quick task looping samples and providing velocity layers to your instruments, as well as optimising the various sound envelope parameters. There are also modulators to play with if you want to.

A soundfont can have more than 128 presets by making use of different banks. For example the GM preset for Nylon Guitar is 24 but my custom soundfont has 6 different nylon guitars by making use of preset 24 with banks 0-5. This would give you scope to go beyond the standard 128 whilst retaining GM compatibility.

I can see the advantage of alphabetic naming, (although it would be language specific), but one disadvantage is that the instrument grouping would be lost. This order may be old but it's definitely not useless. Old does not necessarily mean bad.

Polyphone is an excellent tool for making soundfonts and you may also find Audacity's features useful too.

(One limitation which you have little control over is the quality of the playback synthesizer.)

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• May 21, 2022 - 13:10

Oh my gosh, how many comments xD, it's time to answer!
About the time to create the soundfont I know it would take me a lot of time and it's not easy, bbut with patience, and in case with some help if someone wants to give it to me, I will arrive at a more or less hoped-for result.
In which sense banks? I thought there were samples, instruments and presets on SF2.
The language would be obviously english, the common language of these things. Italian would be cool (my language but also because there are "staccato", "adagio, "tempo" that are all italian words) but nobody probably could not understand it.
The instrument grouping it's good but if you know the name of the instrument you could easy find it with the alphabetic naming (my opinion). "Old does not necessarily mean bad." this sound familiar xD. However you are right and I am wrong, this was my opinion to be efficient and easy to use even for those people who are not experts.
I heard about Audacity but I never used it.
The control over the quality of the playback synthesizer, i can't control it.

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• May 21, 2022 - 00:31

Well, you misunderstood my comment about extracting samples. I get that you want to make the best sounding font. We all want the best sounding fonts. I, too, wish you luck. I understand not knowing if you will share it. After all, it is often the case that what one person thinks is great sound, is not at all to another person. Regarding alphabetical order. Just how will that work? You might have Electric Piano, Electric Guitar and English Horn together. And is it French Horn, Horn, or Solo Horn? I realise that you have to work within certain constraints. of the Mixer would be better. Like a tree that starts out with general sections (like Strings or Brass) , then breaks into individual instruments. Just thinking out loud.

And don't forget SND compatibility.

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• May 21, 2022 - 13:38

Single note dynamics are where a note can be increased in volume after the sound starts. For an acoustic guitar the note is loudest at the pluck release and then decays. For a wind instrument the volume of a single note can increased/decreased by the player blowing harder or softer.

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• May 21, 2022 - 16:21

No, they are variants of a preset. So in my font, preset 24 has multiple variants by using banks. I have: Classical guitar, MuseScore Nylon, Microsoft Nylon, Tyros Nylon, Microsoft Nylon Soft and Microsoft Nylon Long Ring all on preset 24. Because of GM sort order these are listed next to each other in the mixer.

I think that what is really needed for alphabetical order is for the feature to be part of Musescore's mixer capabilities rather than hard-coding it into the soundfont. This way the soundfont could be kept GM and the mixer could present a language specific, (or even custom), sort order as an option.

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• May 21, 2022 - 16:47

Uhm interesting, if you can, could you share the soundfont with guitars, so that I can understand better? (And if you want a maybe good guitar nylon soundfont I suggest you to get Protrax Classical pro Guitar, it's nice. You can get without searching on old archivied websites (I already did), but simply going to the know Soundfont4U and downloading the Nylon and Steeel Guitars-4U-v2 (It was me to advise him to put it in the soundfont))

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• May 21, 2022 - 17:20

Thanks, I'll check it out. I can't really share the soundfont because the Microsoft guitar is not public domain. I'll make a cut-down version with MuseScore Nylon and Protrax and upload it here so you can see how it works.

My entire soundfont is based around guitars with the only exception being a piano, so I have kept GM order but left dozens of gaps for instruments that I can simply use MuseScore's HQ font to plug in the mixer.

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• May 21, 2022 - 18:34

I checked the Nylon-and-Steel and it's pretty good but not better, (for me), than my existing collection.
I can show in pictures what I mean by banks.

Here are my presets in Polyphone:

NiceGuitars2.png

and here is a nylon string guitar being assigned to Preset 24, Bank 8:

NiceGuitars3.png
This is the result in Musescore's mixer:

NiceGuitars1.png

Grand Piano (1) is where the standard MuseScore presets begin.

So it looks as though an SF2 file can support 127 presets x 127 bands = 16,129

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• May 22, 2022 - 13:15

So, just in case you don't already have them:

You can find the Microsoft Windows soundfont here:
https://musical-artifacts.com/artifacts/713

(My fonts starting MS are hand-tweaked versions of Microsoft Nylon and the Jazz + Hawaiian presets are straight from this font.)

The Gibson variants are from:
https://www.hedsound.com/p/fs-gibson-les-paul-i5-hedsound.html

and Tyros Nylon is here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4_6p-MMrzwLVUJTRnVUaEtfVjA/view?usp=s…

(My extra Tyros fonts are just hand tweaked for use with Let Ring options)

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• May 21, 2022 - 13:20

We all want the best sounding fonts, but they all always use the same soundfonts from the same sites as if they don't know other soundfont or sites (which is actually true I noticed except for some exceptional cases). These at least the people who write on the forums, the external ones I can not know. Speaking of sounds, you're right, but you can't tell me that a Stradivarius sucks someone, there may be someone who doesn't appreciate it but to say that it doesn't have good audio I don't think so. Also the fact of having sounds extrapolated from objectively good and real instruments with good microphones, a good environment and good methods and having good parameters in the soundfont, I think make the soundfont pleasant to practically everyone.
Speaking of alphabetical order, we will simply start from A to Z, if there are words like Electric Piano, Electric Guitar and English Horn these will be placed in alphabetical order like all, so there will be the one that will go before and after, in this case first Electric Guitar, then Electric Piano and finally English Horn.
If there are different instruments such as French Horn, Horn, and Solo Horn these will be placed with their name and / or nickname always in alphabetical order.
About what you said later I did not understand much so if you explain me again you would do me a favor. ^^

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• May 21, 2022 - 18:31

I think that it would be really nice if the Musescore mixer gave the user a choice of sort options, regardless of how the order is defined within the font. It would be programatically possible to allow sorting by GM numbers or by alphabetic preset name or by a custom value. This would give everyone the ideal sort order for their particular purpose at any one time.

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• May 21, 2022 - 18:50

I can tell you that if I played a Stradivarius, it would sound bad:)
I write mostly for playback. I might have an oboe staff that I want to hear on English Horn instead. Because "O" and "E" are so far apart, it takes a few keystrokes to change. If instruments are grouped by family, Oboe and English Horn are often right next to each other in a font list. Very fast to switch. I write for orchestra. Often a different set of instruments each time I start a new score. It is easier for me if instruments are grouped by family.
Part of the problem is how notation software uses a font. Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra is often used in many fonts. I don't think it works that well in notation software. But I have heard it used in a DAW and if sounds really good.

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• May 21, 2022 - 19:54

"Stradivari" not "Stradivarius" xD
You are right to change instruments of the same family but what if I want to play with the piano or with cymbals or with violas? It's the same problem, I think. Anyway some time to figure out how it works and then go fast, but alphabetical order is much quicker to understand.
Sonatina is good but not the best (I have tried over 60 orchestral soundfonts, and there are some with amazing strings but with bugs);

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