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I am currently using Win 7 x64. I purchased Coyote Forte DXI since Roland VSC isn’t supported by Win 7 x64. The midi drums, bass and piano sound pretty good on Coyote Forte, but the acoustic steel string guitar and mandolin sound like crap. The Roland VSC sounds much better on these two instruments, but it isn’t supported on Win 7 x64. The Real Styles and Real Tracks aren’t an option since almost all of them are programmed in 16th note styles, (for acoustic, “aka bluegrass” music), when they are actually written in 8th notes. Does anyone out there have an idea about how to get a decent sound out of the acoustic steel string guitar and mandolin, short of going to the Ketron SD2, while using midi and Coyote Forte? I'm hoping that PG will implement a "fix" or a "patch" to the Real Tracks and Real Styles concerning 16th notes, when they should be 8th notes, but this hasn't happened yet. Peter said in a previous post that he would address it in the future, but I'm looking for something that will work now. Suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks. Bob P.S. When you see the word or "style" of bluegrass, all that means is acoustic instruments. It does include drums, (aka, a beat), and it doesn't have to be "hillbilly". It's how music was played before amplification or effects. 
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Hi Bob, Have you tried using a soundfont player? I'm not sure if you know about these but soundfonts are live recordings that, through a soundfont player are used to interpret MIDI data. I use SFZ (it's free): here's the link. There are some really good, free soundfonts around on the internet although sometimes you've got to sift through a few bad ones to find those good ones. BIAB is an amazing MIDI generator, when you couple this with soundfonts, my experience is that the results can be excellent. Regards, Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2025
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Mac,
The only problem is, I'm running BIAB 2009 Ultra Pak, patched to 2009.5, (without the new styles).
I should have included that in my description of my OS. As the kids are are now saying, "my bad".
The update says it's for BIAB 2010.
I'll try to give a better description of what I'm using in future posts. I know the more information I give, the easier it is to give advice.
Thanks,
Bob
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Bob,
I like Noel's suggestion, with the caveat that you use Real Band. In that regard, you can use the Coyote Forte on some tracks, and use the SoundFont player on other tracks. Since BIAB doesn't offer multiple synth support, you really need to go outside.
Now, the other thing is that there is the thread with the Dimension synth and Garritan Pocket Orchestra. There are a number of sound banks available for the Dimension which you can purchase, although I don't see any for bluegrass.
Also, check out Sonivox's DVIs. Not DXis', but something slightly different. I'll let you know if they work out.
Gary
I'm blessed watching God do what He does best. I've had a few rough years, and I'm still not back to where I want to be, but I'm on the way and things are looking far better now than what they were!
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Bob,
Skip the Sonivox DVI, it's only a single instrument device, and not multitimbral.
Gary
I'm blessed watching God do what He does best. I've had a few rough years, and I'm still not back to where I want to be, but I'm on the way and things are looking far better now than what they were!
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Assuming you're doing mostly BG music you don't even use most of the instruments in a GM set. I now use RTs exclusively however when I was using MIDI I used a soundfont player. You can search the net for free single instruments and then using Soundfont librarian put together a custom bank AND if you download the free Vienna Soundfont Studio you can make your own fonts just the way you like them to sound. You obviously have a guitar and I'm sure you have acess to a mandolin. You don't even have to know how to play as you're just going to record single notes and do some tweaking. I did this many moons ago for bass & the famous DX7 sound and some other instruments. Well worth doing.
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John,
I've never used soundfonts so I'm really not familiar with them. I did go to the site for Vienna Soundfont Studio and saw where they had tutorials.
I'm just curious about who in the PG community is using soundfonts instead of GM.
I may start a seperate thread to get some feedback before I spend a lot of time researching it.
Thanks for the tip.
Bob
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bobcflatpicker--
i recommend that you contact PGMusic directly and ask them if they can point you to a download of the Coyote Wavetable synth.
--Mac
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Bob, I've always had hardware synths, but even then, when I had my Audigy 2 card in my computer, I downloaded and bought a whole bunch of SoundFonts, and many of them were wonderful. Then, some of them were crap. One of the things that many here have forgotten, and I've never done it, so I don't know how, is that the Forte synth supports Giga files, so if you could find a set of Giga files, you should be able to import them. Here's one place where you can buy a membership and download some Giga files. http://www.nikkoid.com/gigfiles/visit.phpThere are others, you can look around. Gary
I'm blessed watching God do what He does best. I've had a few rough years, and I'm still not back to where I want to be, but I'm on the way and things are looking far better now than what they were!
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Quote:
I'm just curious about who in the PG community is using soundfonts instead of GM.
I still use mostly soundfonts, and I know there are a few others here. Ten years back, it was sensationally common practice, but people now seem mostly to have lost the art. Soundfonts are old sampling technology, more than good enough for unexposed accompaniment. But often, they're not detailed enough to make satisfying solo instruments. You'll have something to learn if you decide to use them, but it has advantages.
You're going to stay confused, though, unless you correct that one bit oif terminology in your mind: General Midi is a way of organizing 128 sounds in a multitimbral bank intended to cover basic needs. It's not any particular type of sound-producer, and it is not a class of sound, good or bad. It's a just a filing scheme.
The VSC was a General MIDI device, and so is the Ketron SD 2. You can easily find a nice-quality General MIDI Soundfont, then use it as is; it contains all the commonly needed instruments. Vienna -- among other things -- enables you to replace individual instruments later with ones you like better. Heavy editing of each sound is possible. In these respects, a Soundfont bank is flexible, unlike a Hardware module, whose sounds must generally stay as they came from the factory.
Another approach: If you did really like the VSC, you can cheaply upgrade for your new OS with a much-improved Edirol version that has gone under two names, each with the same soundset:
Edirol Hyper Canvas (discontinued but upgradeable to 64 bit if you already have an old copy around)
Cakewalk TTS-1 (64 bit, provided as a freeby add-in to Cakewalk products like the $40 Music Creator 5 sold by PG Music)
Last edited by allis; 04/24/10 03:58 PM.
Larry
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Quote:
Heavy editing of each sound is possible. In these respects, a Soundfont bank is flexible, unlike a Hardware module, whose sounds must generally stay as they came from the factory.
I disagree with that assumption. Many new hardware modules allow changing and adding samples. The Juno-G is one of the most expandable synths I have owned.
I still have soundfonts in systems here. I have a couple I actually still like to this day. It can get involved, especially creating your own. I used to really enjoy doing that and made a few fonts, but these days time is too pressing. It was a very cool and powerful format, just a little involved.
I still have a custom GM font on one system here that is still holding an SBLive card in a second or third slot... man I'm going to miss PCI slots, I had quite a bit of time and money into those... I should have learned from the old ISA slots.
I recently found an odd system with an ISA slot that runs XP. I have yet to dig out the old Roland Audio Production card to see if it works in there. That was a fun card and software. I think the samples on it were better versions of the VSC samples Roland used for so many products. Wonder if the drivers are still available.. I doubt the original floppies are still good (but I have 'em, all 6 of them!)
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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Quote:
Many new hardware modules allow changing and adding samples. The Juno-G is one of the most expandable synths I have owned.
That's nice to hear, and a step in the right direction for synth development. You'll agree it's fairly advanced behavior, though.
Quote:
I still have a custom GM font on one system here that is still holding an SBLive card in a second or third slot... man I'm going to miss PCI slots...
The funeral has to be postponed for PCI slots, year after year. I recently upgraded a motherboard and found that boards with 3 PCI slots were considerably more easily available that they were three years ago! Lots of them now. There was a truly huge choice of mini boards with 2 such slots, and a bunch of super-cheap junkers with one slot. Virtually nothing except a few expensive, futuristic boards lacked PCI slots entirely. I'm convinced PCI slots are going to be available for years longer.
I was also interested to see that virtually every board still has PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports, too. That's another thing they keep telling us is obsolete. But it isn't.
Larry
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Quote:
I'm just curious about who in the PG community is using soundfonts instead of GM.
Hello...
Um, so a GM Soundfont Bank doesn't count?
Look, GM, "General MIDI" is simply a definition of the first bank of 129 patches, what their names should be and which number corresponds to that instrument.
Don't fall for the notion that "GM" means something other than that.
You can have a very fine sounding GM bank, or you could have a very cheezy sounding GM bank, the fact that the instruments are assigned to the GM standard has nothing whatsoever to do with that.
--Mac
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Allis,
BOth of my Korg Professional Arrangers allow significant sound alteration. Admittedly, you're not going to create a new sound from oscillators, filters and modulation as you would in the 'good old days' of analog synth, but, within the confines of PCM sampling, I can do an amazing amount of tweaking on the sounds I have on board.
However, for me, since I play primarily standards, jazz, latin, and 'lounge music', I look for authenticity in acoustic sounds, not the ability to turn a new sound. But, that's just me.
My latest PA, the PA800, will allow me to import my own sample data, and create my own sounds completely, and that's an ARRANGER keyboard.
Gary
I'm blessed watching God do what He does best. I've had a few rough years, and I'm still not back to where I want to be, but I'm on the way and things are looking far better now than what they were!
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Nice.
I have heard some tunes from your website, Gary, and that Korg sounds great, too! I hadn't realized what a sampler it is. Over time, I drifted into playing mostly software instruments, so I have lost track of where proper synths have got to.
Larry
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Mac, My experience with midi is limited to what little I've been exposed to it in BIAB. I realize that midi itself doesn't have sounds, it simply sends commands. From Wikipedia: Quote:
SoundFont banks are tightly integrated with MIDI devices and can be seamlessly used in place of General MIDI (GM) patches in many computer music sequencers. The sound quality of SoundFont banks is generally regarded as superior to standard GM banks, and many SoundFont banks have been created specifically to replace GM banks with samples of each corresponding musical instrument.
Based on this, I figured that soundfonts were more likely to be based on real instruments, (aka acoustic), and that GM patches were more likely to be based on samples of electronic instruments. Especially in light of how bad acoustic instruments like steel string guitar, mandolin, fiddle and banjo sound using the GM patches.
Whenever I can afford to, I'll fork over for a Ketron SD2 so I can get some decent sounds.
Bob
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Be advised that one can sample an acousic guitar out the wazoo, get perfect loops, etc. -- yet when played back in a MIDI file, they can still sound quite unrealistic.
This is because there are simply far more parameters to the playing of a guitar than the MIDI standard addresses.
Still, you can usually find something that doesn't rub you totally the wrong way.
We all tend to be more critical about the MIDI instrument(s) that we actually play and love than the other sounds. That's typical. A pianist hates the MIDI piano, most guitar players find the piano to be authentic to their ears, etc.
--Mac
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Mac, Quote:
i recommend that you contact PGMusic directly and ask them if they can point you to a download of the Coyote Wavetable synth.
I talked to PG today and they said the Coyote Wavetable synth was only for BIAB 2010, not the BIAB 2009 that I'm running. He also said that it was far inferior to Coyote Forte DXi, which I already have.
He reccomended the (Cakewalk) Roland TTS-1.
Has anyone used this one? It would cost $40 to buy Music Creator in order to get it.
Bob
Last edited by bobcflatpicker; 04/25/10 11:47 AM.
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TTS-1 is pretty much like the VSC.
I have all 3 I like the Forte DXi but only certain instruments.
I still say soundfont.
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