Don Allen's Timbres of Heaven Soundfont 3.0 is out
Hello Everybody.
I know how I mentioned ToH 2.02 being a fantastic GM,GS and XG font. This one leaves it far behind in terms of quality of the individual samples and balance.
Ive been using beta versions of the font for months with musescore2 betas and as far as I can see it works perfectly with all the instruments.
All the samples are properly normalized, so unlike FluidR3_GM you don't have to raise the gain just to hear it. All for only 369mb
I really believe this deserves to be mentioned in the handbook!
http://www.mediafire.com/download/6u6x2j6iw0azqet/Timbres+Of+Heaven+GM_…
Comments
So go ahead and add it to the handbook...
In reply to So go ahead and add it to the by Jojo-Schmitz
I had no idea I had access to write to it, ok then
In reply to I had no idea I had access to by Joshua Pettus
Upon Preview or Save, It says Illegal action detected. Contact admin.
In reply to Upon Preview or Save, It says by Joshua Pettus
I guess you tried to add it to the 1.x handbook (http://musescore.org/en/handbook/soundfont), try the 2.0 one, http://musescore.org/en/node/36171, instead.
Edit: done
In reply to I guess you tried to add it by Jojo-Schmitz
Thankyou!
I am looking forward to trying this out! I really liked the previous version a lot in many ways, just a few complaints that cause me to keep going back to Fluid. I suppose I should have registered them with the developer, but I didn't realize it was in active development. If my concerns aren't addressed in this version, maybe he can consider them for the next.
FWIW, the two biggest reservations I had were the slowness of the attack of several of the instruments (which causes short / fast notes to sound unnaturally quiet) and poor balance within the winds - trombones in particular I recall standing out (literally :-). There are of course similar problems with Fluid and with most other soundfonts, so it's mostly just a matter of picking your poison I guess. But to me, a version of Timbres of Heaven with these issues resolved would instantly put it at the top of the class.
In reply to I am looking forward to by Marc Sabatella
Well I know he put many months of work into this update. Many samples have been completely redone including the pianos, and I'm pretty sure the balance has been fixed for the woodwinds and brass.
I hope your concern's have been addressed anyway. :) Otherwise he said he will be taking a break from this for a while.
In reply to Well I know he put many by Joshua Pettus
Balance is indeed much better. Really good in fact. I'll need to spend more time with it to get a sense for how it works in a wider variety of scores. So far, I'm still hearing too-slow attacks in the violins, causing fast/short violin notes to be much quieter than everything else. I'll have to put that into context with all the very good things I am hearing. If it really comes down to just this one thing, I might have to bite the bullet and learn to edit soundfonts just to see if I can produce a customized version for my own use. The trick, I think, will be to do this without compromising the nice legato quality that the slow attack helps support.
In reply to Balance is indeed much by Marc Sabatella
Being able to load up multiple soundfonts in MuseScore 2.0 has been a big help to me when I get annoyed by one soundfont's sounds. Most soundfonts have awful choral voices, so i have to mix and match.
I seriously suggest that Don Allen changes his fileserver from MediaFire.
I had to cancel the download because it was going to take 5 hours! For a file less than 300MB in size that is ridiculous!
In reply to I seriously suggest that Don by ChurchOrganist
Must depend on load and download location. It took a few minutes for me (which at work, minutes is unusual), but certainly not hours.
I can put it up temporarily on my server...
In reply to I seriously suggest that Don by ChurchOrganist
Ah it was a Firefox peculiarity.
If you're going to download it use another browser!
Chrome is currently eating it up with a promised 4 minute download :)
In reply to Ah it was a Firefox by ChurchOrganist
IE was about the same, a few minutes, glad its working now.
In reply to Ah it was a Firefox by ChurchOrganist
Might be interesting to see how small it gets when converted into sf3...
In reply to Might be interesting to see by Jojo-Schmitz
Well mediafire is beats dropbox, which was his original solution, and the ftp place at midkar (which drops people mid download, and requires a download manager).
In reply to Well mediafire is beats by Joshua Pettus
I'm not sure what sense there might be in which MediaFire beats Dropbox? I actively dislike having to download thingd from MediaFire, and have never understood why anyone uses it.
In reply to I'm not sure what sense there by Marc Sabatella
I do know what you mean. It's a great service for backing up your files, giving them to others, and syncing with team members. But dropbox was never meant to distribute files to the masses. There is a limit on how much a file may be downloaded, especially a large one. Once you hit it, that's it.
In reply to I do know what you mean. by Joshua Pettus
OK, makes sense.
How do I add this soundfont into Musescore? Should I extract them into the sounds file, or should I just place the file itself into it?
This seemed exciting, so I thought that I'd try out a soundfont.
In reply to How do I add this soundfont by HiddenIllusion
Figured it out! To add a SoundFont to Musescore, all you need to do is add it to the SoundFonts folder. Then, open your synthesizer, double click the button named "Add" next to the Synthesizer's box, and add it! Also, I moved it 'up' to give it priority, right?
This came in handy, too: http://musescore.org/en/handbook/soundfont
In reply to How do I add this soundfont by HiddenIllusion
You may find this video showing how to add a custom soundfont folder to MuseScore 2 Beta 1 helpful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-xJqBHGuds
Make sure you have unzipped/extracted the soundfont first so the SF2 file is in the folder, not the archive.
For the record, ""Timbres Of Heaven" is created and developed by Don Allen, and may not be distributed on any site without the express written permission of Don Allen, or Midkar.com.
© 2013, 2015; All Rights Reserved."
Timbres of Heaven official website seems to be http://midkar.com/soundfonts/
A pity that the soundfont doesn't have a more liberal license. Anyone has a way to contact Don Allen?
In reply to For the record, ""Timbres Of by [DELETED] 5
Well he is available at the midkartech yahoo group. Also I can pm you his email if you like. I already sent it to Marc. I don't know if he got in contact with him already regarding the bug find.
In reply to Well he is available at the by Joshua Pettus
I haven't yet. It's not a "bug", really - the slow attack makes for some lovely legato passages. it just means that fast passage come off too quiet. And unfortunately, I don't know that General MIDI and/or fluidsynth would easily support any sort of automatic switching between two variants if they were provided (although if this is feasible, it could be a way to go).
In reply to I haven't yet. It's not a by Marc Sabatella
There is a lot more in there then just the GM set. I'd get in contact with him, maybe he has an idea which patch would be better. And then you can patch your version of fluidsynth to use it whenever there are 32nd notes or something.
In reply to I haven't yet. It's not a by Marc Sabatella
Velocity switching is inbuilt into the soundfont format Marc, in fact FluidR3 uses this technique quite a bit, although mainly to control amplitude envelope and filter parameters.
It would be perfectly possible though to use it to switch between samples, or, as General User GS does bring in a second short attack sample at higher velocities.
The only problem then is dealing with rapid soft passages which require precise articulation whilst remaining low in volume.
In reply to Velocity switching is inbuilt by ChurchOrganist
It's the existence of velocity switching I was questioning; it's whether it is feasible to use it (or some other mechanism) as a means of switching between sounds based on note *duration* (which is the issue here, not velocity per se). You surely can't just tell fluidsynth, "use patch X for notes longer than 200ms, patch Y for notes shorter than 200ms" because it won't know the length of the note at the moment you send the "note on" message. So MuseScore would presumably have to manage this switching itself - keeping track of the length in real time of every note and issues appropriate changes. Whether those switches were then accomplished by actual "program change" messages or some sort of velocity switching trickery shenanigans is kind of beside the point - we'd still have to implement the guts of the system ourselves as far as I can tell.
Probably better just to use a violin sample with a more usefully fast attack by default.
In reply to It's the existence of by Marc Sabatella
Well he is back and working on a version 3.1, I made sure to pass the violin issue along. Was it just the violins? Did any other strings have the same issue? He put a beta up on the MidkarTech yahoo group with other fixes.
In reply to Well he is back and working by Joshua Pettus
That's good to hear! I didn't do an exhaustive test; I just played a few of my score to see how they sounded and that it was jumped out at me as the most glaringly obvious problem. I'll try to find time to test a little more and pass him feedback. Thanks for the update!
In reply to That's good to hear! I by Marc Sabatella
Hey Don put up a beta2, he played with the violin, so hopefully it's fixed.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/iwezutr63ziv534/Timbres%20Of%20Heaven%20GM_GS…
In reply to Hey Don put up a beta2, he by Joshua Pettus
Yes, it's much better. Still legato enough, but staccato notes are audible now, which they really weren't before.
It would still take a while to go through and really see what other issues there might be. I do really like this soundfont overall, and wonder if others are trying it out too?
Here are some things I hear in the scores I am trying:
The piano is too quiet relative to other instruments.
It seems there isn't much velocity switching going on, and this is especially noticeable with wind instruments, which really should sound pretty noticeably different in tone quality between "pp", "mf", and "ff". The overall sense I get is that many of the samples are of someone playing "f" or greater even when the dynamic is "mf".
In reply to Yes, it's much better. Still by Marc Sabatella
I sent him what you had said. He did an amazing amount of work in the past 24 hours, and did another beta. (Restructured the GM flute, replaced electric piano, and played with the harpsichord and other pianos)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/eig3g4a1b3pu1rc/Timbres%20Of%20Heaven%20GM_GS…
Regarding license, he made a statement that it was Free and Open Source, and you are free to edit it so long as the name is kept. That said, I would still get in contact with him, let him in on the loop. He is a really nice and amazing guy, who always tries to listen to others.
In reply to I sent him what you had said. by Joshua Pettus
If he is regarding it as Open Source, then he needs to change the licensing info in the archive.
I am currently using the MIT licence on the advice of Thomas and Lasconic for my changes to Fluid R3, although any beta versions are always Creative Commons Non-Commercial.
I suggest MIT might be a suitable licence for Don too?
I would like to try the Timbres of Heaven soundfont, but every venue to download it comes with extras that want to change my homepage, alter my browser, install addware, etc. Is there a way to get a "clean" download?
In reply to I would like to try the by marty strasinger
Wow where are you trying to download it? That does sound sketchy. The best place is the homepage on the midkar website. http://midkar.com/soundfonts/
In reply to Wow where are you trying to by Joshua Pettus
Thanks, I'll give that a shot and let you know.
In reply to Thanks, I'll give that a shot by marty strasinger
I should say, it has known issues with fluidsynth (instruments cutting out in large scores, occasional balance issues and the like). It works better with basically every other softsynth...although I have never tried timidity++
In reply to Thanks, I'll give that a shot by marty strasinger
At midkar.com/soundfonts, click on "Timbres of Heaven v 3.1 Final" link.
Browser window changes, click "I'm not a robot", then click "Authorize download".
New browser window appears "your download is ready", click on "Start download".
Installer "setupnow.exe" is downloaded, click it to begin; "do you want to allow the program to make changes", click "yes".
"Please wait while setup is loading"; all browser windows automatically close.
OSU (Open Software Updater) window appears.
If you decline at this point, you're kicked out, end of installation. The "Taplika" default is to allow it to make changes to your browser etc, so use advanced instead, uncheck all 3 options, click "Accept and Install".
Cancel the next 3 software installation packages, then the final one is "Treejam" that specifically says it will monitor your on-line activity. If you decline that one, you're kicked out, end of installation.
Any other ideas?
In reply to At midkar.com/soundfonts, by marty strasinger
Yes, you have malware hijaking your browser. Try Avira + Spybot S+D to get other types of malware. Actually I use clamav on my mac, but that might be difficult to install for most as it requires you to compile it yourself.
[edit]
Actually there is a windows version of clamav. http://www.clamwin.com/content/view/71/1/ I recommend it because Avira is a tad militant about getting you to buy the full version. (to the point of being as bad as the viruses)
Here is what is suppose to happen
click the link and it takes you to mediafire.
click I'm not a robot or whatever other capcha scheme they have. (use to be enter letters from a picture)
And click Authorize.
it will take you to the download page
click the big green download button and you should be good.
I have no idea what was done to fluidsynth since Musescore 2.02 but 2.03 happened to fix a lot of the balance issues I was getting when using ToH (balance issues that didn't happen in other applications of the font). The last one Don Allen did before going on hiatus, 3.3beta, is just gorgeous.
Shame the link is down, I'll ask him to put it back up.
[EDIT] Ah, there was a second release of the "beta"! I'm told it will be up soon on
http://midkar.com/soundfonts/index.html
For those interested, Don put out a 3rd beta for version 2.03. It features a new "Velo Nylon Guitar" patch. As many of you are aware, ToH features many more instruments then just the GM, XG, or GS standards and includes many for his own artistic needs.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/d7jc18aij4yroy3/Timbres%20Of%20Heaven%20GM_GS…