CHANGELOG

1--Mon Dec 4th 2017--
2Added Orchestral Soundfont beta version 0.5.
3   Based off of Virtual Playing Orchestra
4   No changes to other Soundfonts
5
6--Tuesday Dec 12th 2017--
7   Ran into stuttering issue with MidiPlayer with SFOGG files.
8   Recompressed all sfogg files to FalcoSoft's recommended oggenc settings.
9
10--Sat Feb 24th 2018--
11Added Complete Soundfont and Keys Soundfont
12Updated Guitars soundfont to 1.1, added missing instruments and tuned everything a little closer to GM Standard
13Updated Orchestra to 1.0, added missing instruments and tuned everything to be closer to GM standard
14Created Keys soundfont using Musyng and Freepats, this is only version 0.5 as it's mostly useless atm
15Created Complete soundfont by combining all other soundfonts, removing a few of the larger samples, added MuseScore and Musyng for missing instruments and found effects. I then spent a few weeks tweaking filter, reverb, and delay timings on all major instruments. It's now ready for a V1.0 release.
16
17--Wednesday Mar 14th 2018--
18All changes were to the Complete soundfont. It is now version 1.2
19   Tweaked Velocity settings on all the Brass and Woodwind instruments. They now sound far more realistic.
20   Changed the synth settings for several instruments to more tightly conform to GM standards.
21   Tweaked the pitch of a few of the sound effects to match GM Standard.
22   Added more voices to the Chorus to make it sound less fake.
23   Temporarily replaced Baritone Sax instrument with a more simple one to keep size below 2gb. I will re-add this instrument into the Orchestrated font.
24
25--Friday Mar 16th 2018--
26Completely redid the Orchestrated soundfont, based it off of the complete pack 1.2 update that I finished earlier. Tweaked the filter settings for the brass instruments. Added new samples for the wind and string sections. Replaced Clarinet preset with MSClarinet from the MuseScore Forum (Thanks ChurchOrganist).
27If your synth can handle it, I suggest you use the orchestra soundfont in combination with the complete one in order to get the full concert effect
28
29--Wednesday April 11th 2018--
30Changed a number of instruments in the Complete soundfont pack, bringing it to version 2.0
31   Resampled the String Ensemble, Slow Strings Ensemble, Brass Section, Ahh Choir, Ohh Choir and Orchestra Hit Presets. This has allowed for the font to be formated much simpler. The Choir patches actually sound much better now, the others... not so much.
32   Used a ton of code and Synth samples from the MuseScore-General Soundfont project.
33I've removed the old "synth" presets. Trying to make real instruments sound like a synth is a neat idea, but it just sounded too weird in some games. These "synth" instruments are still available in the other packs.
34
35--Tuesday June 26th 2018--
36   Cleaned out some code to make it more readable, (sort of).
37   Changed all stereo samples to mono, except for percussion, organs, and sectionals.
38   Fixed the velocity settings on most of the woodwind, brass and string instruments. This involved reprogramming a lot of these instruments to cross-fade between certain samples.
39   Added dynamic filtering and reverb to several of the above mentioned instruments.
40   Added more samples to Bassoon, Trombone, Clarinet, Flute, and probably a few others that I can't remember...
41   Merged the better sounding synth guitars from the guitar pack over.
42   Corrected pitch for some guitar samples.
43   Balanced Reverb on all instruments to have a similar "soundstage" to each other.
44   Changed the synths to sound more "Natural". Used different effects and samples to make them sound like they were being played out of speakers next to the other instruments on the "soundstage".
45   Changed around the lead vocal preset to clean it up.
46
47--Friday June 29th--
48   just a minor change this time to squash some bugs... Hence the 3.1 version update instead of something more major.
49   Changed velocity settings for new Violin instrument. Mixed in samples from slow violin.
50   Changed velocity settings for distorted and overdriven guitars. Mixed in samples from UberGuitar instrument.
51   I did a bunch more cleaning up with the sample names. Also found a bunch of duplicate guitar samples that I was able to remove. One tiny step further towards my 1.5gb goal...
52   Went through most of the guitar and string instrument samples and some work to try and keep things more in tune. Some samples for the violin are too sloppy for my liking so I'm probably gonna have to find a replacement for these.
53   I may have overdone some of the distortion effects on the distortion and Overdriven guitar, sounds good with my tests so far, but let me know if anyone wants me to bring these down a notch.
54
55--Monday August 6th, 2018--
56   KOR Soundfont Complete: 3.11 - Windows for Workgroups ;)
57   Mostly just a bug fix update. I replaced a few sound effects, also replaced the harp and the piano with higher quality ones.
58   Updated the velocity settings for several string and brass instruments. Trombone now finally is behaving and sounding realistic again.
59   Fixed the volume for several instruments.
60   For some reason the sf3 conversion programs don't like my soundfont anymore. I tried for the better part of a day to figure out why and couldn't get it to work. So I'm just gonna drop that format for this release.

61   I've also decided to use a smaller bitrate for my sfogg format release. It doesn't seem to make a difference to my ears and I'm pretty picky with this stuff.
62
63--Friday September 14th, 2018--
64   Version 3.51 is out for the complete pack.
65   I redid the distorted and overdrive guitar settings. Guitar solos should sound far more realistic with pitchbends and other effects.
66   I also fixed some of the velocity settings for a few instruments. Mostly the violin and fiddle.
67   Cleaned up redundant samples and dropped the overall size by about 250mb
68
69--Sunday January 6th, 2019--
70Version 4.0 is out for the complete pack.
71   This was a complete rewrite for this soundfont. 95% of the samples are the same but almost all the instruments were tweaked in one way or another. There should be a noticeable increase in quality with this one. Also I tried    to volume match everything with Chris' Musescore General soundfont.
72   Actually I have a bunch to thank Chris for in this release as I used a lot of his code and even some of his samples in V.4.0. I like to consider it a code-merge with his project.
73   Next release of the complete pack will be a code-merge of the DSoundfont project by the Strix team. I'll probably name that release v.4.5
74
75--Friday January 18th, 2019--
76Version 4.5 is out for GM complete.
77   Pulled in samples from a few different sources to liven up a few of the brass instruments. Tuned the Vocal and guitar instruments for better velocity response.
78   Tuned a number of attenuation to balance out the volume more. (still more work needs to be done in this regard)
79   When compared to version 3.X this is probably the biggest jump in quality yet. I'm pretty proud of this update.
80   Thanks to the Strix team and Laurelin from MuseScore forums for the samples.
81
82--Friday Feburary 21st, 2019--
83Version 4.51 is out for GM complete.
84   Resampled the Orchestra Hit preset from updated orchestra addon(0,55)
85   tweaked Orchestra Pad preset to use new samples. (8,48)
86Version 2.0 is finally out for the Orchestra Add-On
87   I removed all presets that the GM Complete patch does the same or better.
88   Created new choir, brass, and string instruments using a combination of new and old samples.
89   Moved a number of older versions of my instruments to other banks so that they can still be used for certain music pieces.
90
91--Thursday March 15th, 2019--
92Version 0.5b is out for the GM Basic soundfont.
93  Based off of the complete soundfont:
94  70% of the instruments are unchanged,
95  20% have had most of there samples removed to reduce space,
96  10% have been prerendered and redone to be more simplistic.
97  I tried to make it under 500mb, but couldn't even get close to that without a severe loss in quality. Hopefully 800mb will be small enough...
98
99--Saturday May 11th, 2019--
100Version 4.75 is out for the GM Complete soundfont
101  Fixed Tenor sax, Oboe and Drums.
102  Also updated the samples for Brass Section and String Ensemble.
103  Tweaked the synth settings to match the improvements that the GM Basic soundfont got.
104Version 0.6 is out for the GM Basic Soundfont.
105  Fixed a few loop issues with Fluidsynth
106  Updated the drums to match new version of Musescore General soundfont.
107  This is probably the best soundfont to use with most games right now.
108Version 0.6 is now available for the GM Tiny Soundfont.
109  New soundfont, thanks to Strix this one is even smaller! This should work on even lower powered systems, still not small enough for a Raspberry Pi Zero but most systems should be able to use this one.
110  Also this soundfont seems to work with the SF3 converter so I guess that might be helpful for MuseScore users.
111
112--Sunday May 12th, 2019--
113Version 4.76 is out for the GM Complete soundfont
114  Minor bugfix, removed some extra unwanted presets 01:00 and 01:01
115
116--Tuesday May 21st, 2019--
117Version 5.0 is out for the GM Complete Soundfont.
118  Minor tweaks to the volume on various presets so get them to match the GM spec a little closer.
119  Minor tweaks to Dist Guitar, Overdrive Guitar settings to try and emulate a more natural amplified sound. (w.i.p)
120  Major tweaks to Synth Brass 1, Synth Strings 1, Synth Strings 2, Fantasia, Alto Sax, Saw Lead, Square Lead, Steel Drums
121  New Samples for Recorder and Alto Sax.
122Version 2.1 is out for the Orchestra Soundfont.
123  Minor tweaks to the volume on various presets so get them to match the GM spec a little closer.
124

Recompressed and re-uploaded all sfogg files, now they should work smoother with MidiPlayer. Nothing else was changed so I'm leaving the version number the same.
Thanks to FalcoSoft for pointing out the solution for this.

Just did the biggest update to this Soundfont project yet. I'd say it's basically 100% feature complete at this point.

From here I want to do a complete rework of this font to try and get the size down a bit. To accomplish this going to redo the guitar and orchestra sections from scratch, the SFZ to SF2 conversion process is far to messy and sometimes makes strange sounding results.

Currently the Complete soundfont is the latest, mostly bug free version. The Orchestra, Keys, and Guitar soundfonts are all currently using old code with known issues. First thing I will be doing is updating these separate soundfonts to match the main one.

Instead of what I said I'd do in the last update I spent the last few weeks tweaking the Complete soundfont instead. Thanks to the guys over at MuseScore for their input on what I need to fix. I have a bunch planned out for the next major release of the KOR complete soundfont, but I need to fix the other ones first.

I still need to find better Saxiphone, whistle (human) and Drum samples...

Finally updated the Orchestra soundfont pack. It now has all the configurations that I added to the complete pack. I also readded the messy baritone sax preset and a few extras for violin and clarinet, the last two were largely based off of the VSCO2 samples. http://vis.versilstudios.net/vsco-community.html

Changed a WHACKLOAD of stuff in the Complete soundfont pack. Mostly in a failed attempt to get it working more reliably in MuseScore. I've made it use about half the voices on average than it used to, so at least I made some progress.
Looks like the Grand Piano instrument needs to be trimmed down as well that'll be next on my list.
I'm slowly replacing the instruments in the orchestrated pack with the VSCO samples, but I haven't made enough progress to release a update for that yet.

Almost done Version 3 for the complete soundfont.
I'm going to be restructuring the whole project to make it easier to use.
Check out my sound cloud for some samples... https://soundcloud.com/clint-theriault

Version 3 is out.
I fixed all the bugs I could find, I also added all the features I had on my list.
It also sounds much better than any of the other versions or add-on packs I've worked on so far.

I've basically merged all the soundfonts together into one 2gb file now. This is truly a all in one, turnkey solution now.

I'm glad I've mostly finished this project as I go back to work soon. I've been doing this while being unemployed sitting in my mom's basement looking for work. This is pretty close to a years worth of work now, even though I only released it publicly about 6 months ago, I think it's turned out far better than I ever imagined it to be.

Please let me know if there's any features or instruments you'd like me to add. Other than full XG/GS support, I can't think of anything else to add to this so any suggestions would be appreciated.

Version 3.11 (WFW) is out!
Mostly just a bug fix update. I replaced a few sound effects, also replaced the harp and the piano with higher quality ones.

I have found another guy working on a similar project to mine that's willing to help find samples and configure them for full SC88 compatibility. I have a few ideas for this and that is what the next few updates will be about.

I feel I've reached the limit of what polyphone can do for soundfont editing so I might be switching to another method... maybe even a github??

The next few updates will consist of the following...
1. SC-88 and XG patchsets to give better compatibility with those standards. This work will mostly be done by the Strix Soundfont team. https://sites.google.com/site/strixsoundfont/
2. A new POWERMETAL patchset. This will be VERY far off spec for GM compatibility, but it will basically add tons of distortion and over amplification to several guitar and synth instruments. Great for DOOM
3. A expanded vocal patchset. I've been experimenting with some opensource vocal synthesizers lately, and have come up with some interesting results. This should in theory make for some much more realistic sounding vocal samples.
4. A low spec, simplified version of the main soundfont. Just basic GM compatibility, most instruments will have only one velocity layer and fewer samples for instrument range. The goal of this one is to get the soundfont down to something a Pentium 3 could use in Win98se. My guess would be somewhere around 500mb in size. I might just cheat and tweak the musescore soundfont for this.

Version 3.51 is out for the complete pack.
I redid the distorted and overdrive guitar settings. Guitar solos should sound far more realistic with pitchbends and other effects.
I also fixed some of the velocity settings for a few instruments. Mostly the violin and fiddle.
Cleaned up redundant samples and dropped the overall size by about 250mb

Future update plans remain unchanged from before.
1. SC-88 and XG patchsets based off of Strix Soundfont Ultimate. https://sites.google.com/site/strixsoundfont/
2. A POWERMETAL patchset. Current version sounds way to harsh at the moment and is basically unusable... (might upload anyway)
3. A expanded vocal patchset. This apparently will require MUCH more work than I was expecting initially.
4. A low spec, simplified version of the main soundfont. Based mostly off the musescore soundfont. Probably just gonna replace the guitar, synth and vocal stuff. Most of the rest is fairly similar to my soundfont already.

I finished version 3.70, which is mostly a bugfix release from the previous version. Improved the velocity and attenuation settings for more guitar and brass stuff.

This will be the last update for a while.
I've found enough stuff that I'd like to change that it will require a complete rewirte, this and the fact that I have a very busy work schedule now means that this project will be put on hold until I can get something worthwhile done.

Also I am still waiting for the new version of polyphone to come out before I start working on including bigger samples.
If you need something fixed with this soundfont or need help with something feel free to contact me at t9999clint@gmail.com, I won't be checking these forums as often as I normally do anymore.

Got fired from my job again. So you'll probably be seeing more updates now.
I'm probably oversharing here, but this has basically been my project to keep me busy while I look for work.
The reason why I have such a erratic development pace is because I only work on this soundfont when I'm unemployed.

Version 4.0 is out for the complete pack.
This was a complete rewrite for this soundfont. 95% of the samples are the same but almost all the instruments were tweaked in one way or another. There should be a noticeable increase in quality with this one. Also I tried to volume match everything with Chris' Musescore General soundfont.
Actually I have a bunch to thank Chris for in this release as I used a lot of his code and even some of his samples in V.4.0. I like to consider it a code-merge with his project.
Next release of the complete pack will be a code-merge of the DSoundfont project by the Strix team. I'll probably name that release v.4.5
As long as my bad luck continues, you should see another update soon. My guess would be a week or two. Sooner if I find more bugs T_T

Speaking of which I'm leaving the old version up on my server in case I've broken something without noticing.

4.5 is out.
details are in changelog.

The filesize is skirting around the 2gb limit again which is unfortunate. Everything I wanted to do with the GM soundfont is basically done now. There shouldn't be any major updates to it for a while now.
Not sure what I'll be working on next for this project. Maybe voice samples, maybe guitar samples, maybe small game specific soundfonts (DOOM and Tyrian come to mind for this). Feel free to drop me a message for any suggestions.

I really like the version 4.5. It's much better than version 3.70. The instruments sound better, but the orchestra hit still needs working on.

FYI: Polyphone have released polyphone version 2.0 that doesn't have the 2gb limit anymore.

I forgot about the orchestra hit preset. Your right it does sound a bit more off than it used to, so I'm gonna have to look into that.
The hard part is that several songs/games that I test it with expect it to sound like a real orchestra, and others expect it to sound like the typical reference orchestra hit sound effect. I have decided to go for a different approach in trying to get several real orchestra instruments together in a way that sounds like the reference sound effect. This method has left a lot to be desired, as it sounds great with some tests, and really wonky with others.

Polyphone 2.0 is far too buggy for me to use, also many other programs will also choke on a greater than 2gb sf2 file, so I'm still trying to keep it under 2gb for the GM complete version.

I've updated the soundfont to version 4.51 to try and fix the awkwardness with the orchestra presets...
Sorry this took a while, but I've been getting ready to move to a new place, so that's been taking up most of my spare time.

The 4.51 orchestra hit sounds AMAZING!

It might not be close to the reference orchestra hit, but it sounds unique, just like the MT-32 orchestra hit (I don't have one, but I've heard samples). Nice job!

Thanks,

Strix

Glad to hear you liked the new samples for that sound effect. I used a few automatic sampling techniques I've been working on using synthclone, jack, wine and MIDIPlayer under Linux. I also used this to convert a few other instruments from SFZ to sf2, (Ethereal Winds Harp and Salamander Piano). Now that I think I have it worked out now, I'm going to start working on a smaller, more simple version of the current soundfont. There is a major reason why I've decided to change direction for a smaller soundfont...

I ordered a Raspberry Pi today for one intention...
To port my soundfont project over to it

So here's my plan. I've been looking at sourcecode for different midi technologies and it looks like I should be able to get this to work under linux on arm. Also I did some research on the pinouts for the wavetable midi daughterboard header and the gpio pinout on a ras pi, and it should be fairly simple to construct a adapter cable/board to connect the two. This would allow for realtime software synthesis of my soundfont without any sort of computer connected.

I will continue to work on a full quality version, it's just reached the point where I don't think it's possible to make the GM complete font any smaller than it is right now without noticeably loosing any quality. I would need to make the ras pi version somewhere around 500mb so it will be able to easily fit in the ram of a pi 3 so obviously it'll be a separate version.

Some people have actually created an operating system to create a dedicated Raspberry Pi based synthesizer with soundfont support.

http://zynthian.org/

The soundfont synth that is used is called Fluidsynth, and it can actually load soundfonts up to 2gb.

I'm thinking of getting a kit, and if I do, I'll try your 500mb version of the GM bank.

Thanks,

Strix.