The replacement soundfont GM LIVE 24, which is a big soundfont file, it is incompatible with older 32bit systems. It is not compatible with Creative Soundfont bank Manager in 32bit windows.

Would it work with something like Virtual MidiSynth?

I tried Virtual Midisynth but it freezes when i try to load GMLIVE24.Pro 24GM Soundfont is no longer available to buy. GM Live is the second verson of it but it is a big soundfont, the other was 249MB and probably was more compatible to creative cards.
Thanks for trying to help.

After trying out about three dozen sf2s including gargantuan ones of gigabytes magnitude I decided that Masterpiece is the shit for retro hardware and Musyng is the best for modern hardware.

The only soundfont I do not have and think would surpass Masterpiece is Sonivox 25MB but I cant find it, only recordings of it.

Sorry, I only have Sonivox 250MB GS.

Another worth mentioning, Princess Soft GM/GS bank, but you have to supply a donation of $60 or more to use it. It’s one of three banks that Virtual MIDI Driver lists on their soundfont link page, under Donation.

I also have the original Jazman 24 bit bank, and the 24 bit part is underwhelming, as almost the entirety of the sample block’s least significant 8 bits are zero padding. May be worth finding if you still trust that place. The last commercial bank I bought from him, the samples were regularly preceded by up to a quarter of a second of silence, and had really bad looping. The author told me he blamed the cheap labor he farmed his sample processing out to, and I asked for and received a partial refund.

which banks have you bought from jazman? And which has the silence problem?

I have bought the original PRO GM-24, SF88, SFXGMPro, and the one I had noticeable trouble with, Genesys Pro8.

Here's a copy of my post from the CoolSoft forums, as some users here may find this useful:

Over 100 General MIDI soundfonts (various authors, 7+ GB SFPack compressed)

Link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1TbLOvr6Gwqr … RD7Z7Q7t8q-vsIe

Hello.

I have an old blog post where I listed the General MIDI soundfonts I have. Someone requested that I share the soundfonts, so I uploaded my soundfont folder to Google Drive. While this is nowhere near the size of the ZSF Distribution, there may be a few soundfonts here that are hard to download elsewhere, like Shadow 1.0.

For the sake of convenience, most of the soundfonts are in the root folder. The subfolders generally contain text files or demo tracks that came with the soundfonts. However, the subfolders that DO contain banks NOT in the root folder are listed below.

Creative GM Soundfonts
DOOM SNES Soundfont (not General MIDI)
DOOM-Wolfenstein 3D Atari Jaguar Soundfont (not General MIDI)
eapci2m4m8mECW (has an incomplete ecw to sf2 conversion)
finegm (AWE sbk bank)
GBFont (Game Boy samples - not General MIDI)
Giant Soundfont (this soundfont is split up into separate banks)
gus_sbk (AWE sbk bank)
oldsoundfonts (Gravis, GXSCC, and OPL3 soundfonts)
OPL4 (xi instruments)
Patch93s Roland SC-55 Soundfont V1.9
Patch93s Roland Sound Canvas V2.0 soundfont
Patch93s Roland Sound Canvas V2.1 soundfont
Patch93s Roland Sound Canvas V2.2 soundfont
SNES (Setzer's SPC soundfont)
VSC (Virtual Sound Canvas banks)

Some notes:

* With the exception of commercial soundfonts that have been abandoned for several years now, I have NOT included commercial soundfonts in the uploaded folder (e.g., JaZMan GM Pro 24, Soniqbear, Genevoice, Voice Crystal, Merlin Pro series).
* Some of these soundfonts may not be the latest version. E.g., the included Giant Soundfont, which the author regularly updates, is v5.8 while v6.0 is the current release.
* None of all those "SC-55" soundfonts are completely accurate to the real SC-55, unfortunately. Also, I have renamed the "SC-55" soundfonts in the root folder to be more descriptive where possible, as their original filenames were too similar and confusing.
* Some included soundfonts do not have all 128 instruments, either due to being unfinished, or by design (like the DOOM SNES soundfont).
* The folder contains a few DLS banks and ROM stuff, too (these are not sf2 compatible).
* Some of these soundfonts have bugs/oversights. Examples: Original 32 MB GM Stereo has some missing samples for the steel guitar (I have fixed this. The original copy of the soundfont is also included). Creative 28 MB has a missing picked bass preset. sYnerGi GS/sYnerGi 200 has missing Synth Strings samples (this is noticeable in playback of Wave Music 2 from Raptor: Call of the Shadows, where some notes do not play samples). Some soundfonts have instruments that are in the wrong octave. Such stuff can be fixed with Polyphone.

Amazing, many thanks.

kode54 wrote:

I also have the original Jazman 24 bit bank ... May be worth finding if you still trust that place.

I have the JaZMan PRO GM 24-Bit soundfont, which is no longer sold on the gmsoundfont site (as noted by gpapanasta, they replaced it with GMLiVE, which I don't have). I think the original JaZMan one is pretty good, although there are some minor but fixable issues with certain instruments that you pointed out before. DOOM E1M1 sounds very nice, IMO.

I also have the Black Tyros GM Edition soundfont. I have not fully tested it, but...here is what I notice so far in certain instruments:
* Missing velocity layer samples. Seriously. In the standard open hi-hat, and possibly more; I don't know yet. Easily fixed in Polyphone, at least.
* Samples with silence at the start--enough to throw the timing off, such as in DOOM E1M8 where the synth drum and snare are not perfectly in sync (the notes are definitely in sync in the MIDI).
* Samples with clipping. Noticeable in the strings in DOOM E2M6.
* Stereo samples that don't pan properly (e.g., an instrument may be impossible to pan hard left or right). However, I don't know if this is how the original Yamaha Tyros patches were designed.
* Instruments with really weird-sounding velocity layers, where different velocities play samples that are so different they don't remotely sound realistic. The hi-hats in DOOM 2 DDTBLU sound horrible.
* Poorly-looped samples. Clicks/pops. Noticeable in the choir in DOOM E1M8; very distracting.
* Artifacts/buzzing/noise. Noticeable in some notes of the lead guitar in DOOM E1M8.

I will still use its samples for personal music-related stuff, however, so there's that...the ones that are usable, anyway.

In short, JaZMan PRO GM 24 is good if one doesn't mind fixing issues, but that site's other soundfonts are likely all rushed, crappy sampling jobs with no regard for actual MIDI playback, which is the soundfonts' advertised purpose. 😵

Voice Crystal 4 MB GM v4.1 by Eye & I Productions is still my favorite commercial soundfont. Has a GUS-like sound and is extremely well-balanced.

Edit: I made a little MIDI to show just how atrociously bad the sampling in the Tyros soundfont can be. Please note that I deliberately chose the worst instruments to play together--those with the most noticeable looping/clipping/timing issues (i.e., the MIDI's instrument combination isn't meant to make sense or sound good in any soundfont). Download the wave file for the full quality, as Dropbox's previews are lossy. Another edit: I replaced the MIDI with one that has sustained, longer notes and better demonstrates the issues. Note the subtle desynchronization between the synth drum and snare.

Sustained notes test MIDI - https://www.dropbox.com/s/wk3bgx97pc3hfu8/18- … 20test.mid?dl=0
Tyros16 BLACK GM Edition - https://www.dropbox.com/s/o29tbdb1p87o1x3/18- … ion%29.wav?dl=0

I know building an entire soundfont is a tremendous amount of work, but the Tyros GM sampling is simply unacceptable for professional or even general use, especially considering that pretty much any free soundfont does not contain as many glaring issues.

Next I'll try to make a track with the Tyros soundfont using the best-sounding instruments, to see if I can make MIDI sound good with it...

Short, synthy MIDI track - https://www.dropbox.com/s/nu73tm3uh63rx0i/18- … 20test.mid?dl=0
Tyros16 BLACK GM Edition - https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/czl69zfbx … 0Edition%29.mp3

Phew. Apologies for the rant and endless edits. Hopefully my observations will help those who were curious about Black Tyros GM's quality. 😀

My personal all time favourite is probably Chaos soundfont (12MB for V19/V20), i had used it on my Soundblaster back then and i still sometimes fall back to it now when i'm not sure whether something sounds quite right.

Musyng Kite (1GB) has decent instruments and is fairly well balanced. But it sometimes sounds thin. CGM (1.6 GB) seems even worse balanced, even thinner, and individual instruments are even better.

Never liked Arachno (150MB). Don't know why. I know it's an authoritative soundfont for a bunch of rocky DOS classics, but still.
Never was particularly fond of SGM (235MB)
Timbres of Heaven (351MB) usually does better for me than either.
OmegaGMGS2 (265MB) is nice. https://musescore.org/en/node/109371
SF2015 (260MB) is nice too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF-MWh6Fyi8

Sometimes small-ish soundfonts that sound era authentic are the way to go. Chaos is there, then Chorium (28MB). Turtle Beach conversion was made recently, it's fun. Turtle Beach Montego II soundfont (Aureal GM)
Also someone remember WinGroove? A little 1MB program that punched well above its weight. I mean lack of splits was fairly obvious, but it scored top marks on overall fun factor. So well there are some decent recreations, this: WinGroove lives again (in soundfont form) and this: New GM/GS soundfont (+a SC-55 based version)

So is there no more way to obtain the 'JaZMan PRO GM 24-Bit' soundfont?

I love it's sound, after the community fixes of course. Very nicely balanced.

Not a soundfont, but I have come to love the sound of midi music of games being played/interpreted by Yamaha XG devices (as in SW60XG and alike). It sounds gorgeous. If I would have had a synth card like these back then....

jaZz_KCS wrote:

Not a soundfont, but I have come to love the sound of midi music of games being played/interpreted by Yamaha XG devices (as in SW60XG and alike). It sounds gorgeous. If I would have had a synth card like these back then....

SW-YXG are software synths and if you search enough you can find various versions of XG50 and XG100 around for Win9x and CP alike..

Does anyone happen to have Sonşvox 25MB? ı’ve been trting to find it for over a year now..

I do have a SW60XG and a SW1000XG is on the way. I am mellowing out to Synth Pads as we speak.