Improving General Midi Sounds

[MaestroX]

I've recently had custom made a shuttle pc for my college work and for internet access when I'm away from home for the next 4 years.

Spec are:

• Duel Core 2Ghz (4Ghz equivalent of one core)
• 2 GBs or RAM
• 220 GB Hard Drive
• 5.1 Surround Sound
• 17" Monitor

(External 500 GB hard drive and a 256 MB PCI express graphics card to come)

The general midi sounds that come with most computers are never great. I'm ok when I'm using my computer I have at the moment because I have my fairly decent keyboard hooked up to it which provides quite good general midi sounds.

Does anyone know of any softsynths or software to improve the sound quality of general midi?

I've heard that Garritan with be releasing one in the future but not much news on that yet.

[Ron Ofir]

I remember looking for such a thing sometime ago, but I don't quite remember what I found back then. Anyway, here's a site with free soundfonts and the like: soundfonts.it

[MaestroX]

To be honest I would prefer not to go down the soundfont root. I did that some years ago before realising that VST's where much easier and powerfull to use.

[chckn8r]

That's a nice little machine Maestro!

Check out this site of free VST plugins:

http://www.gersic.com/plugins/index.php

I don't know whether you've got a DAW or anything on that machine, but I do know that Sonar bundles a half-decent Roland sound module plugin.

Cheers, D

[MaestroX]

Thanks

I mainly use Cubase as my principle DAW but I use Sibelius to do the bulk of writing the music. So preferably a driver/software of some sort that Sibelius could easily utilise would be great.

[Ron Ofir]

I did that some years ago before realising that VST's where much easier and powerfull to use.

There are also VSTs there...

[MaestroX]

The problem with VST's is that they need a DAW to run them. So using them with Sibelius would be difficult and impractical

[crimson]

I don't know about improving general midi itself, but it is possible to make Sibelius play any VSTis through a sequencer such as Cubase. That way you can hear the VSTi play the sounds as you compose in Sibelius. However, if you want to hear any articulations you make in Sibelius play automatically through a VSTi, then it's a bit trickier. In that case, the best option would probably be to get one of Sibelius's expansion sound packs. They should be able to play articulations automatically. But to me, it sounds a bit of a waste of money to pay just for automatical articulation playback when (if) you already have a good and extensive VSTi. Besides, routing Sibelius to a sequencer allows you to use VSTis such as EWQL RA and many others that have sounds the Sibelius expansions don't.

To route Sibelius to play through Cubase you need to use a midi router such as the free Midi Yoke. You select Midi Yoke NT 1, for example, as your playback device in Sibelius and also as your input device for each midi track in Cubase. Also, set the channel for each Cubase midi track to 'ANY'. Make sure you assign the correct channels, ports and devices for each instrument in both Sibelius and in your VSTi in Cubase. That should make Sibelius play any notes through Cubase and its VSTis. But again, this doesn't play any articulations automatically, if that's what you're looking for.

[reith]

Looks like you got a mainframe there, Maestrox!
Where abouts do you live? Asking in case the lights go dim when you start composing something....I'll get some candles ready.

[MaestroX]

lol, I live in the very most north west point of England. If your near there, watch out!