Hi all, I give you my personal version of Wingroove soundfont converted using the code https://github.com/pachuco/WGKnife to which I congratulate them. This bank was optimized and parameterized by me using the same bank "4gmgsmt.sf2".

https://www.mediafire.com/file/hrw2iss6qpkd11 … groove.sf2/file

Wow, a new WinGroove soundfont. I look forward to comparing it to Zorilla's version.

I would note, however, that it might have been a good idea to change the name of the soundfont somewhat to distinguish it from the version that Zorilla has already released. Just a thought.

I noticed that the new one has a slightly smaller file size, does that mean it's less complete?

I'm surprised that they both sound so different considering they are both trying to mimic the same program.

So, which one does everyone think is the best?

DragonSlayer wrote on 2023-03-10, 03:56:

Wow, a new WinGroove soundfont. I look forward to comparing it to Zorilla's version. […]
Show full quote

Wow, a new WinGroove soundfont. I look forward to comparing it to Zorilla's version.

I would note, however, that it might have been a good idea to change the name of the soundfont somewhat to distinguish it from the version that Zorilla has already released. Just a thought.

I noticed that the new one has a slightly smaller file size, does that mean it's less complete?

I'm surprised that they both sound so different considering they are both trying to mimic the same program.

So, which one does everyone think is the best?

Hi DragonSlayer, my answer are:

- In my soundfont there are credits:

Name: Wingroove
CopyRight: Original software developed by H. Nakayama E - Converted/Fixed/Optimized to Soundfont by DjTony81
Comment: Thanks for code developed by https://github.com/pachuco/WGKnife for allowing the direct coversions of the waveforms from the original TPD Wingroove file.
Fixed and optimized parameters through 4gmgsmt.sf2 soundfont.
Used Polyphone (very good free soundfont editor) and Awave Studio.

File Size: 2.959,0 KB
Sample Size: 2.876,6 KB
Sample Type: Uncompressed

- The soundfont is complete with all patches, indeed, it has some sounds that were not reliable in Wingroove. The smaller size of my soundfont is certainly due to the different conversion method compared to Zorilla's. As explained, I used the "WGKnife" source code for direct conversion to *.wav format, Zorilla will have used the output recording method.

- I want to clarify that it is not in my interest to compete with Zorilla's version, I came across this post and while creating the soundfont I wanted to share it with you. I too was a huge fan of Wingroove when I discovered it in 1996, and I remember being ecstatic to hear the MIDI sound that wonderful way even though I had the OPL3

Released 1.1.1 version here:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/jiccmjr8ck6t33 … groove.sf2/file

@DjTony81: Thanks for the update and thank you for taking the time to respond to my previous post.

Do you have a homepage for this soundfont or will you continue to post future updates to this thread?

Also, I noticed that your soundfont seems to my ears to be slightly muted when compared to Zorilla's version. Is that due to the way you did the conversion versus the way that Zorilla did his version or is it maybe a bit compressed somehow?

Thank you and Zorilla for both of these great soundfonts. You know WinGroove was truly a great little program when people are still trying to reproduce it all of these many years later.

I would love to see someone reverse engineer WinGroove, open source it, and make it available on all modern 64-bit operating systems.

DragonSlayer wrote on 2023-03-11, 02:48:

@DjTony81: Thanks for the update and thank you for taking the time to respond to my previous post. […]
Show full quote

@DjTony81: Thanks for the update and thank you for taking the time to respond to my previous post.

Do you have a homepage for this soundfont or will you continue to post future updates to this thread?

Also, I noticed that your soundfont seems to my ears to be slightly muted when compared to Zorilla's version. Is that due to the way you did the conversion versus the way that Zorilla did his version or is it maybe a bit compressed somehow?

Thank you and Zorilla for both of these great soundfonts. You know WinGroove was truly a great little program when people are still trying to reproduce it all of these many years later.

I would love to see someone reverse engineer WinGroove, open source it, and make it available on all modern 64-bit operating systems.

I don't have a homepage but I've uploaded it to musical-artifacts.com, it's pending approval. My version of Wingroove was processed by Awave Studio's "equally louded" algorithm, for this reason it sounds less loud than Zorilla. I think hardly anyone would be interested in converting Wingroove to 64bit, not even the author. It made sense in 1996 with the 486s and OPL3s, but not today with modern PCs and soundfonts that sound infinitely better.

I agree that today's soudnfonts sound infinitely better, and I like to use them too, but there is a reason why pixel games are still being made today and there is a reason that people like to listen to chip tunes when we have music that is infinitely more detailed and cleaner than chip tunes.

I think there will always be an interest in primitive synthesizers even though we have synthesizers today that sound much much better. After all, did I not spend my valuable time to come here and download and play around with the soundfont you just created when Arachno is much more polished, refined and technically superior in almost every conceivable way?

I believe that there will always be a demand for primitive synths, just like there will always be a demand for primitive art, such as pixel art, and that's why I think it would be a great idea to port WinGroove to 64-bit and open source it.

So far as the original author of WinGroove goes, I believe he must have died long ago. I can't seem to find anything that he's written since the early 2000's. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Thanks again for the work you and others are putting into this and thank you for letting us know where we can find future updates in case you ever forget to post them to this thread.

Oh hey, new activity in this thread. Sorry I missed it for three months. It looks like the last time VOGONS sent me notifications for it was in 2020, so I'll have to look into why they stopped.

Shortly after releasing this soundfont in 2017, pachuco got in contact with me and shared the work he and a colleague were doing on WGKnife (seen earlier in the thread). If I remember, the ultimate goal, if it could be achieved, was to create a tool that could take the original WINGROOV.TPD and do a complete conversion to .sfz format from beginning to end with no manual intervention. Not surprisingly, there were some complications and the project ground to a halt. I think the biggest issue was figuring out how WinGroove's volume parameters worked and how to translate them to dB attentation values as used in soundfonts. Envelope values also proved to be quick tricky and inconsistent.

If nothing else, we gained the ability to rip samples directly instead of having to dub them over by hand. As you can see from DJTony81's version of the soundfont, this has the potential to provide a pretty dramatic reduction in file size. However, now that I'm looking at his version, I see that it only has the size down to 2.87 MB (from 3.34 MB in my version). A reduction to just over 2.0 MB should be possible based on my work with it.

Since a fully automated conversion of WinGroove wasn't panning out, I decided to work on a "version 2.0" of the WinGroove soundfont that used a combination of samples and instrument data ripped using WGKnife and manual corrections to make it sound more faithful to the original where needed. However that, too, ran out of steam and I've been meaning to get back to it ever since. I think I got to the drums and the grueling nature of it just killed whatever motivation I had.

There is still a chance I may resume work on this soundfont at a later date. At the very least, I wanted to let everybody know that I haven't completely abandoned it. Don't let that stop anybody else from making their own, especially if they think they can improve on it.

@zorilla: It's good to hear from you. I'm glad to hear that you've not given up on this project. I really enjoyed your previous work and I hope you can find the time and motivation to perfect this great work. I would very much love to see a soundfont that mimics the original WinGroove as perfectly and cleanly as possible, given the inherent limitations of the soundfont technology.

I'm also still holding out hope that someday WinGroove itself might still be reverse engineered, open sourced, and ported to 64-bit. It's been my firm belief for many years now that the original author of WinGroove is deceased so there should be no objections from anyone living in liberating WinGroove for future generations to experience and enjoy.

Just in case anybody wants to check out the other WinGroove versions like "wg0a4_e.exe" - WinGroove version 0.A4 Beta-2, get them here:
https://patpend.net/ftp/emulators/wave/

By the way, the registration data from version 0.9E is still valid in 0.A4 Beta-2.

DjTony81 wrote on 2023-03-09, 22:44:

Hi all, I give you my personal version of Wingroove soundfont converted using the code https://github.com/pachuco/WGKnife to which I congratulate them.

Could it be possible to do it the other way around, creating a custom soundbank for WinGroove to use? I'm wondering because I became interested in Windows 95 software synths and WinGroove was one of the very few the only one that didn't freeze Simon the Sorcerer 2, but I'm not a fan of some of the samples (French Horn in particular). Not a high priority because I usually have DOSBox-X output to a higher quality synth on the host anyway, but it'd be nice to have a more self-sufficient/portable option that is of adequate quality.

EDIT: I discovered that a line about a minute into Simon the Sorcerer 2's intro ("It's just a book" by Runt) hangs the game also with the other option (WaveCube) that allowed the game to launch in the first place. Previously I skipped the intro sooner in my tests. This happens also with WinGroove, but fortunately is fixable by lowering its rendering frequency.