PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Suggestion for PG Music about the Synthfont VST Developer

A while ago, I posted in the synthfont VST forum about a problem with synthfont playing only piano sound on all channels when loaded inside IL Minihost, using IL minihost as default synth. He says that he does not have a BiaB, so he can test it. Ref; http://www.synthfont.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=318&p=1226#p1226

IMHO, he should be offered a free version of BiaB, since he, after all, offered HIS software to be distributet with BiaB.
For testing purposes..

I may be wrong (my old age and everything) but VSTSynhtfont does not come bundled with BIAB - that is Sforzando by Plogue that is supplied with, and installed by default (unless unchecked during the install), with BIAB. Nothing wrong with VSTsynthfont but it is just not the same thing as Sforzando.

That aside, have you tried loading up IL Minihost with VSTsynthfont into another host (DAW) besides BIAB?

I just tried using IL Minihost in Mixcraft (current version 9) with VSTSynthfont loaded in IL Minihost - and get nothing but pianos on all channels (parts) - but not unexpected behavior by a GM module or GM soundfont loaded into something like VSTsynthfont until you send VSTsynthfont a program (aka patch) change - that's what you'll get (default patch 1 or 0 depending on program begin zero or one based). However, I could NOT get GM patch (program) changes out of Mixcraft though IL Minihost into VSTSynthfont - so yes all pianos all the time.

If I load VSTsynthfont directly into BAIB (or Mixcraft) as a VSTi it responds to GM patch changes, and works, as expected just like a GM “module” like TTS-1, Coyote FORTE, or other GM complaint module would act.

But as you have already observed as soon as I load VSTSynhtfont into IL Minihost and then call IL Minihost up as a VSTi in BIAB it ignores the GM patch changes and then VSTsynthfont plays nothing but pianos. SO IL Minihost appears to be FILTERTING, not allowing, or ignoring (pick your term) somehow the patch changes and not sending them into VSTsynhtfont.

BTW you know you can set up different patches (instruments) into ALL 16 channels of VSTSynthfont, and save as a new default .vstarr file 9that’s a VSTSyntfont file). Then when you load VSTsynthfont into IL Minihost (or load VSTSynthfont anywhere) it will load that default config .vstarr file. Of course this doesn’t fix the issue of not allowing patch changes in real-time to get though IL Minihost into VSTSynthfont. And that is NOT a BIAB Issue, it’s not even a VSTSYnthfont issue it’s a IL Minihost issue, at least as far as I can tell with the little bit of trouble shooting I just did.

Good Luck
Larry

Yeah, this old age thing balders and tricks my memory all the time. FOR, in MY memory Synthfont VST came with either 2018 or 2019... Or am I totally wrong here? I have no recall of downloading it from anywhere else.. So I have since believed it came bundled with BiaB. That's why I mentioned that suggestion to give a free BiaB to the developer for testing purpose.. I had in mind it could be IL minihost also, but good to have it "confirmed"...

Anyway, I encouraged him to implement VSTi as substitutes for any of the soundfont, and he promised to think about it. He HAD made a test version with VSTfx earlier, so he though it could be easy for him to also do instruments.. That, I guess will be the first GM compatible VST with an option like that..;) Or is it anything like that out there?

No, I did not know that, so thank's a lot for that..

I couldn't get it to work in MiniHost, you can ask in the IL forum.
Worked in SaviHost.
It works in BlueCat's PatchWork and you can add other Virtual Instruments after on the channel you want.

Thank's a lot again Pipeline ! You are the MAN !

Isn't synthfont VST licenced for biab and maybe RB only, and to use it in other applications you have to buy a licence at 15 euro I believe.

Yes, I think so, because remember a few years back, I tried to use it in Reaper, and was surprised that a message come up asking to pay for it. So I paid for it and got the stand alone version also...

To keep various applications clearly identified I want to verify that subject item we are discussing is VSTsynthfont and NOT Synthfont (either version - Version 1 which is free or version 2 which is not). One of these applications is already a VSTi and that would be VSTsynthfont, the other is NOT Synthfont is simply an executable that does similar things as its VSTi sibling but it does more.

Now I went back from now, BIAB 2020, through all BIAB installers and bonus paks (and I have all of them) and lists of what was included in each bonus pak, to BAIB 2016 - that was the LAST year of "SampleTank free" inclusion – so no included sound font players at all in 2016. So it has been only Sforzando since 2017, which makes it actually first available with BIAB since Nov-Dec 2016 when BIAB 2017 went on sale, and nothing else.

Ignoring all possible older discussion on the topic of GM and sound fonts, starting in 2017 when Sforzando was first offered (and BTW Sforzando has always been free - didn’t need BIAB to offer or include it) to play BIAB the Hi-Q sounds there was a flurry of discussion about VSTsynthfont, as well as its bigger brother Synthfont version 1 (the free version). Note, the newer version 2 of Synthfont is not free ditto the current version of VSTSynthfont which is version 3 it is not free but you can get both for one 15 euro fee.

To further add possible sources of sound font players and recommendations made here in the forums later that year, fall of 2017, is when Gibson dropped Sonar product line and that caused lots of discussions about still being able to obtain TTS-1, a GM soundest and player, either TTS-1 included with Sonar proper or included in its smaller sibling Music Creator, which was also dropped. That set of discussions invariably led to an upswing in discussions about GM, GM sound sets, various sound font sets, and sound font players for use with BIAB.

So I suspect at some point you went out and tried one of the forum user supplied links or looked it up yourself and downloaded VSTSynthfont , and why not it was free and proven and used by folks here. I have it and I’ve got dozens OF GM solutions both HW and SW for use with BIAB.

However, I'm still curious as to why you are even trying to use IL Minihost (or even any of the 3rd party apps that pipeline mentioned) to play a VSTi that already works in BIAB "natively," VSTsynthfont works in BIAB.

Good Luck
Larry

Larry; Yes, it IS VSTsynthfont and NOT Synthfont...

"Why you are even trying to use IL Minihost (or even any of the 3rd party apps that pipeline mentioned) to play a VSTi that already works in BIAB "natively," VSTsynthfont works in BIAB." Well, I can only answer for my self. I use Midi files a lot for various project. Many with up to 16 tracks, Classical symphonies and such. When loading those, all the 16 channels go to the melody tracks, as u know. Using ILminihost and VST synthfont, I was hoping that VSTsynthfont could play most of the channels, with a decent sound and I could load Kontakt in there to play channels that the Kontakt instrument I have sounds a LOT better. instead of have to load kontakt in to the melody and/or solotrack every time I load a new midifile, I prefer to have it all set up as the default synth, so that I don¨t have to do that every time I load a new midifile. Then this problem occurred, that VSTsoundfont played only piano for all the channels.

However, after a lot of googling last weekend, I think I found the best solution yesterday. At lest for us Kontakt owners. I guy over in the NI forum had did a great job, making a Kontakt substitute for Bandstand, calling it Handstand. It's a GM/GM2/GS/XGLite bank with 632 instruments bank, loaded it on each slot. See here;
https://www.native-instruments.com/forum/threads/kontakt-general-midi.225353/

His 'Handstand' as coquetry to 'Bandstand' here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/u3s5eq8i9wxky2m/AABGR08yG_pWPmKCo9Jqc71ma

I downloaded it yesterday, and it was easy for me to replace many of the instruments there with my best Kontakt instruments and save it as the default Kontakt library. It takes a little time to load it, but, when loaded, it plays everything in BiaB now with a LOT better general sound, EVERY TIME I load a new midifile...

However, this genius Pipeline always coming up with even better solution to almost all limitation in BiaB. So now instead of using ILminihost, he came up with Blue Cat Patchwork. So now I can also ad chains of other stuff, like FX, and plugins native to Reason, and whatever, all as the default synth in BiaB, that loads automatically when starting BiaB, and stays there for every new file loaded... Can't be much better than that...

Trygve,
That is a sort of solution, however I do not believe it will do program changes right.

Your situation is very close to what I was/am battling with. This is echoing Mario's request/cry to open up mixer to more MIDI channels.

Once, I posted a request in wishlist to have an independent midi channel that can host 16 tracks of midi, not the awkward way that it is now (goes into to melody... and you know the rest ) but actually a dedicated channel that will host a midi file that will follow chord grid / changes and which can be connected to VSTsynthfont, Sonic or sky is the limit, without interfering or taking over tracks that can be used for RT's/Rd's

I had a drawing, but unfortunately tinypic hosting went belly up, but here is the thread:

https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=519297&Searchpage=1&Main=74814&Words=mixer&Search=true#Post519297

In any case, VSTsynthfont is an excellent and compact, one of a kind tool that allows for some heavy duty SF2 banks to be loaded. It will be very useful if BIAB will allow independent MIDI track to make use of all 16 channels, not touching other mixer things.

And what makes u disbelieve that?

Ur other solution/suggestion sound about right to me, so I gave it a + over in the other forum...

The midi tracks in RapidComposerVSTi will follow the chord changes.
The MIDI Output from RapidComposerVSTi goes to VstSynthFont or anything else.
If you have Midi tracks in BB you can send the Host midi to another VSTi in BlueCat's PatchWork.

Full Screen Pic

It seems to work pretty solid with BlueCat's PatchWork.
As it's set as default synth it will load RapiComposer and VstSynthFont at startup.

Full Screen UHD Pic

HI ALL

Don’t want to muddy the water here but I think what may be causing some confusion is:

When the 64 bit version of BIAB came out that’s the 2019 version released Dec 2018
It came with and installs VSTSoundFont64, this had a set of gm voices but you can load your own sound font (I use Timbres of Heaven)
This works fine if you use the 64 bit version of Biab.
It may well work in the 32 bit version if you have J bridge which I do not, so cant try.
Point is if you go through an annual upgrade over the top of your previous build you would have picked this up on the way.
Not certain what happens if you skipped that year.

pic of MIDI file in BIAB Melody track VSTSoundFont64,/Timbres of Heaven

Just my thoughts
Mike

Pipeline

I was hesitant to discuss BC Patchworks because up until now the apps seemed to be the free kind - VSTsynthfont and IL MiniHost and I guess lastly Kontakt player.

BC Patchworks is $99 - and of all the BC stuff that one app never seems to go on sale anywhere. But it is a handy as heck app!

Larry

Yes, that was what I also though... Thank's for confirming it...

AND, that's why I also suggest to PGMusic to give him a free BiaB for testing purpose. Especially now when he seriously consider to implement support for VST in it as a supplement to soundfonts.

I have searched n searched for a free vst chainer like MiniHost and found
https://kushview.net/free-vst-host/
they say: "And yes it really is completely free!"
worked great until I restarted it and a Activate window came up.

It was just the standalone Elements SE I had the issue with the vst seems to work.
Here's a link for just the VST 64bit
EDIT: vst3 added
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qughfo4wi6rb8mz/KV_Element-Synth-FX-vst2-3.zip?dl=1

you simply drag n drop your vst2 or vst3 into the Elements SE VST.
Ctrl+click remove connections.
Once hooked up Save Group.
EXT for host input.
Let me know if it works for you.

If you have issues here's the download link for the complete Standalone and VST
foe Win 32 64 & Mac version also
https://github.com/kushview/Element/releases/tag/0.41.1

Pipeline, that looks like a one kick #ss plugin.
It seems it has some graphic scaling issues with some plugs, but minor and probably could be dealt with. This thing needs some serious exploring!
Thank you for sharing!

P.S. Seems like there is a newer version and donation could be as little as $1 to get it.

You and Mike are correct it is included and "installed." It was not listed in the files, add-ons, or delineated during the install process in the list of things to install or not so I completely missed it, but no excuse since it says it right in the New features readme

“..We include a 64-bit GM MIDI synth VSTSynthFont64
with default GM soundfont, allowing you to specify any GM soundfont even larger ones over 2 GB...”

So PG might want to give over a basic copy of BIAB to the VSTSynthfont developer for future use, if needed, but not for this "issue" because at this point we know it is FL’s IL Minihost that is dropping the ball not PG or VSTSynthfont.

For those reading along - if you look PG include both 64 and 32-bit versions of VSTSynhtfont in the “driveletter:\..BB\data\libx” and “driveletter:\..BB\data\lib” respectively. Not exactly where I would normally look for any plugins but immaterial it is where PG included them.

Larry