General MIDI VST?

[Fergo]

Hello everyone.

Sorry if this topic does not make any sense but where can I find a VSTi plugin that have the entire General MIDI (or at least the most part) instruments in it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_MIDI
I don't mind if it sounds horrible like the Microsft Synth used in Windows too (although a better one would be nice).

Regards,
Fergo

[Doc_P]

Also curious.

[Lawrence]

http://www.edirol.net/products/en/VSC-MP1/index.html

[Matthias King]

Something you could also do is download the free SFZ soundfont player VSTi, and find a General MIDI soundfont. There are quite a few floating around out there for free with decent sounds assigned to GM standard.

[stratman]

Originally Posted by Matthias King

Something you could also do is download the free SFZ soundfont player VSTi, and find a General MIDI soundfont. There are quite a few floating around out there for free with decent sounds assigned to GM standard.

The Fluid R3 soundfont from Hammersound with sfz is one option. It was at the top of page 2 in the collections section when I last looked.

http://hammersound.com/cgi-bin/soundlink.pl

Make sure to check out the different banks as well, which give extra sounds, such as drums.


There's also Native Instruments Bandstand, which is pretty good, but you have to pay for that.

Pete

[stupeT]

+1 for Bandstand. Excellent sound and worth the money.

[whatsup]

i think the best way, is to use good soundfont player,
it'd better if it has multi out.

then you just have to pick good soundfont file.
there are many on the web.
this for example.

[Fergo]

Thanks for the answers!
What SFZ Player VST do you recommend? I found this at KVR, but don't know if it's good or not:
http://www.kvraudio.com/get/769.html

Regards,
Fergo.

[manning1]

its dxi but some people like this.
http://www.pgmusic.com/fortedxi.htm
ive never tried it in rpr.
a bonus apparently is gigastudio file support.
theres a free 30 day demo you can try.

[fixerdave]

hi there I use fortedxi with latest Reaper and sounds are good, you can test the demo and see, It's not that expensive.... dave

[fixerdave]

hi, just compared sfz font player with the font suggested by whatsup and fortedxi with it's own font....in my opinion the fortedxi sounds better... this is what I found when deciding what to use myself...the good thing about the sfz player though is you might find a sound font that's got just the right sound for 1 or 2 instruments which makes it worth downloading and comparing.... dave

[Fergo]

Thanks for the answers. I'll give fortedxi a try (it will be the first time that I use a DXi plugin).
EDIT:
I'm having troubles with Reaper and DXi. I won't scan for the plugins =/
http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?p=368704

Regards,
Fergo

[themixtape]

ForteDXI aka "CoyoteWT" (by the Band in a Box guys) crashes Reaper CONSTANTLY when importing ANY MIDI (I tried it with 30 different MIDI files.. crash. Crash. Crash. Crash. Crash.

Are there any other decent ones (non-soundfont)?

Also, can soundfont players recognize SYSEX info? To put the right instruments/patches on the right tracks, during import?

Curious, as I'm looking into this for a colleague.

[joelsampson]

I great solution is a Roland Sound Canvas. Even the SC-55 sounds pretty good and is very handy. Should fine them used for el-cheapo. The new Roland keyboards and modules also include a GM section.

There is a "free" Yamaha plugin floating around. The site is in Japanese and I'm not sure it's legal or not. . .

[ValeryOrloff]

Originally Posted by Matthias King

Something you could also do is download the free SFZ soundfont player VSTi, and find a General MIDI soundfont. There are quite a few floating around out there for free with decent sounds assigned to GM standard.

I create track's group with 16 instances of sforzando with GM sf2 bank, right?
Route MIDI-track to 16 channels for each of 16 tracks, right?
Standart GM file contains "switches" (bank select and program change) for automatic loading correct instrument..
But this does't happen, need manually select instruments from sfozando's list, why?
sforzando don't support CC comands?
anybody have same experience?

[micron]

Hi, i think sforzando doesn't work with program change messages.

[TimOBrien]

The free tx16wx sampler works well with Reaper and does soundfonts:
http://www.tx16wx.com/

I always used the free Cakewalk soundfont player too:
http://www.kvraudio.com/product/sfz-by-cakewalk

[ValeryOrloff]

Originally Posted by TimOBrien

The free tx16wx sampler works well with Reaper and does soundfonts:
http://www.tx16wx.com/

I always used the free Cakewalk soundfont player too:
http://www.kvraudio.com/product/sfz-by-cakewalk

will tx16wx's instruments switched by PC from MIDI -file?
doyou have such experience?

[Amazed]

Originally Posted by ValeryOrloff

I create track's group with 16 instances of sforzando with GM sf2 bank, right?
Route MIDI-track to 16 channels for each of 16 tracks, right?
Standart GM file contains "switches" (bank select and program change) for automatic loading correct instrument..
But this does't happen, need manually select instruments from sfozando's list, why?
sforzando don't support CC comands?
anybody have same experience?

You only need one instance of the vsti with http://www.edirol.net/products/en/VSC-MP1/index.html

[ValeryOrloff]

Amazed, i don't have edirol

[BobF]

Originally Posted by Fergo

Thanks for the answers. I'll give fortedxi a try (it will be the first time that I use a DXi plugin).
EDIT:
I'm having troubles with Reaper and DXi. I won't scan for the plugins =/
http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?p=368704

Regards,
Fergo

Reaper x64 didn't scan DXi for me. I installed the x86 version of Reaper and let it scan. It found the DXis and they also started showing up in x64. Most of them. There are a couple that didn't make it, but they are as old as they are good.

[ivansc]

Back when I did backing tracks I used the virtual sound canvas even though I owned three versions of the hardware sound canvas at the time.

[electricthing]

IK Sampletank has a free version and a there's cheap IK expansion tank called; Omnisynth2

http://www.ikmultimedia.com/products...-2-collections

It's a GM bank with a decent sound.
I only did not manage to make it automatically pick the right sounds from the midifile so I do that manually.

[hopi]

look over in the newbie area for the thread about SF2 stuff... I just posted links there for a very good player, sf2 GM file and a good midi filter to boot

[ValeryOrloff]

Originally Posted by electricthing

IK Sampletank has a free version and a there's cheap IK expansion tank called; Omnisynth2

http://www.ikmultimedia.com/products...-2-collections

It's a GM bank with a decent sound.
I only did not manage to make it automatically pick the right sounds from the midifile so I do that manually.

manually? - 10-20 minutes for tweak single MIDI-file? impossible to work that way,
Cakewalk TTS-1 - work perfectly, but sound is poor

[gibi25]

Originally Posted by ValeryOrloff

manually? - 10-20 minutes for tweak single MIDI-file? impossible to work that way,
Cakewalk TTS-1 - work perfectly, but sound is poor

load your midi file with all items on the sametrack (with sampletank as an fx.
into sampletank, click on the "program change" button and load the omnisphere gm bank(included in omnisphere directory).
then sampletank will load the right program, at the right place.
no need to tweak a midi file during 20 minutes

[ValeryOrloff]

Originally Posted by gibi25

then sampletank will load the right program, at the right place.
no need to tweak a midi file during 20 minutes

it's more like automate switching )

[electricthing]

Originally Posted by gibi25

load your midi file with all items on the sametrack (with sampletank as an fx.
into sampletank, click on the "program change" button and load the omnisphere gm bank(included in omnisphere directory).
then sampletank will load the right program, at the right place.
no need to tweak a midi file during 20 minutes

Thanks Gibi,
will give that a go.

[Wolffman]

Originally Posted by gibi25

load your midi file with all items on the sametrack (with sampletank as an fx.
into sampletank, click on the "program change" button and load the omnisphere gm bank(included in omnisphere directory).
then sampletank will load the right program, at the right place.
no need to tweak a midi file during 20 minutes

Its been a long time since i used this but if i recall it works for all instruments with the exception of drums, you have to load a kit on Ch10 yourself.

Cheers

[hopi]

maybe this is a 'hot tip' for some of you...

somethings are free some are not... but the real question is what can you do with limited funds, eh?

seems not many people know about ESC...

http://www.extranslator.com/index.php?page=buy&id=0

It is dirt cheap for what it does... IMO anyway...

and one of the things it does very well is to take something like any of the free SF2 bank files and convert them to individual SampleTank instruments...

And the Basic SampleTank is free... so you can end up with tons of instruments for it...
And then, once they are loaded into ST, you have many more options as to tweaking them to taste...

Of course ESC has many other very kewl uses... but that is a much longer story.

[BobReg]

Originally Posted by manning1

its dxi but some people like this.
http://www.pgmusic.com/fortedxi.htm
ive never tried it in rpr.
a bonus apparently is gigastudio file support.
theres a free 30 day demo you can try.

I have this an it works flawlessly in Reaper. I just copied the ForteDXi.dll from its Coyote install folder to my VST folder. In Reaper I add a virtual instrument track, look under the VSTi selection, and add the ForteDXi.dll to the track. Now when I view midi files in the reaper file browser, they play with the same setting used by the midi creators.

[hopi]

Originally Posted by BobReg

I have this an it works flawlessly in Reaper. I just copied the ForteDXi.dll from its Coyote install folder to my VST folder. In Reaper I add a virtual instrument track, look under the VSTi selection, and add the ForteDXi.dll to the track. Now when I view midi files in the reaper file browser, they play with the same setting used by the midi creators.

I have Forte DXI with BB also.. but it don't show up in reaper, even with use DX and DXi set up in the reaper pref's....

I would like to have it working but was wondering this:

My only reaper installs are 64 bit reaper... so was thinking maybe Forte only works in 32 bit reaper??? any idea?

[hopi]

well I partly have answered my own question.... got the 32 bit version of reaper and Forte DXi works fine in that....

but apparently NOT in 64 bit reaper.... but I'd expect that it should work...

I wonder if this is a reaper problem or a Forte and pgmusic problem...????

[zzz]

Originally Posted by themixtape

ForteDXI aka "CoyoteWT" (by the Band in a Box guys) crashes Reaper CONSTANTLY when importing ANY MIDI (I tried it with 30 different MIDI files.. crash. Crash. Crash. Crash. Crash.

Are there any other decent ones (non-soundfont)?

Also, can soundfont players recognize SYSEX info? To put the right instruments/patches on the right tracks, during import?

Curious, as I'm looking into this for a colleague.

I just deleted the Coyote folder on my system not knowing what it was and if I needed it. Is there any way to get Coyote back on my system without reinstalling BIAB?

[midiboss]

I've tried to find best SW GM module for long time. Didn't want to fiddle with SF and such. At the end I've settled with M-Audio GM module as THE very best of SW GM sound source. NI Bandstand doesn't come even close for my use. It's not perfect, of course, but best I've heard in my somehow very limited budget/freeware world.

Bellow is a link of (nice) Croatian song where all sounds and fx (reverb &chorus) are from M-Audio GM module. Only mastering was done with donationware AAMS ('@Modern RMS' preset).

Here you go: https://copy.com/vtVe7exXWsVxatDn

[hopi]

Originally Posted by midiboss

I've tried to find best SW GM module for long time. Didn't want to fiddle with SF and such. At the end I've settled with M-Audio GM module as THE very best of SW GM sound source. NI Bandstand doesn't come even close for my use. It's not perfect, of course, but best I've heard in my somehow very limited budget/freeware world.

Bellow is a link of (nice) Croatian song where all sounds and fx (reverb &chorus) are from M-Audio GM module. Only mastering was done with donationware AAMS ('@Modern RMS' preset).

Here you go: https://copy.com/vtVe7exXWsVxatDn

but doesn't that module require also having the m-audio keystation hardware?

from what I see online it say that it does...

[midiboss]

Originally Posted by hopi

but doesn't that module require also having the m-audio keystation hardware?

from what I see online it say that it does...

Yes, it should be included with all keystudio series (KeyStudio 49i at least).

[hopi]

Originally Posted by midiboss

Yes, it should be included with all keystudio series (KeyStudio 49i at least).

I think you did not understand the point...

from what it says on the site, you HAVE to have keystudio to use it, in fact to even install it...

so here we have been discussing a GM sound maker such as a vst or dxi that it independent of some specific hardware... you see?

Now maybe I'm not understand what M-Audio says, and maybe it can install and work as a vsti without a keystation... IF that is true, I'd like to know.

[midiboss]

Originally Posted by hopi

I think you did not understand the point...

from what it says on the site, you HAVE to have keystudio to use it, in fact to even install it...

so here we have been discussing a GM sound maker such as a vst or dxi that it independent of some specific hardware... you see?

Now maybe I'm not understand what M-Audio says, and maybe it can install and work as a vsti without a keystation... IF that is true, I'd like to know.

Yes, it is HW dependant. Sorry, I've kind of missed the point. Yet it's good to know this option if you own the hardware or get it dirt cheap from Ebay.

[aspiringSynthesisingAlch]

Originally Posted by whatsup

i think the best way, is to use good soundfont player,
it'd better if it has multi out.

then you just have to pick good soundfont file.
there are many on the web.
this for example.

"SF Banks for use with the excellent FluidSynth, the best software SoundFont player available, in my opinion"

Can FluidSynth be used with Reaper? Maybe in vsti format?