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FatBoy SoundFont

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Re: FatBoy SoundFont

#51

Post by voltagex_ »

feross wrote: post #13

Nice work! I am working to improve the MIDI playback quality on my MIDI archive website, BitMidi ( https://bitmidi.com ), and I think this might help. The main difficulty with a web-based MIDI player like BitMidi is that it's not feasible to force the user to wait for a 300+ MB SoundFont to download before starting in-browser playback. The current format I use ("patch" files) has a separate file for each instrument,…

Just spitballing some ideas:

* Create some kind of soundfont variant that uses 32kbit Opus for each instrument - yes, 32kbit is enough for good quality sound

* Offer a paid tier that renders the midi through something for playback, and/or hit up some companies for hosting

Re: FatBoy SoundFont

#52

Post by markatkinson »

johnzim wrote: post #5

Love it! I had to go back and listen to one of my favorite midi tracks - the Ultima online Buccaneer's Den theme. Using this sound font there are some really major improvements. Not that the original instrumentation that shipped with machines of the day didn't have its charm. I love the fact that we used to literally ship midi files around for game music - it's such a technically elegant approach and because it could…

I would be eternally in your debt if you uploaded that FatBoy UO track :) I had to go listen to the original after reading your comment and I can't believe how great it still is after all these years.

Re: FatBoy SoundFont

#54

Post by bstar77 »

I worked at Babbages in the early to mid 90's. It was very sad to watch the "Multimedia" revolution happen before my eyes... I wasn't impressed then and the multimedia titles didn't age well, imo. Midi in games had so much more potential that I don't believe was ever fully realized.

Re: FatBoy SoundFont

#55

Post by bayindirh »

markatkinson wrote: post #52
johnzim wrote: post #5

Love it! I had to go back and listen to one of my favorite midi tracks - the Ultima online Buccaneer's Den theme. Using this sound font there are some really major improvements. Not that the original instrumentation that shipped with machines of the day didn't have its charm. I love the fact that we used to literally ship midi files around for game music - it's such a technically elegant approach and because it could…

I would be eternally in your debt if you uploaded that FatBoy UO track :) I had to go listen to the original after reading your comment and I can't believe how great it still is after all these years.

I rendered the MIDI with VLC & FatBoy. You can get it from here: https://cl.ly/13d40e7155a5

There should be download button at the top bar.

Re: FatBoy SoundFont

#56

Post by weinzierl »

Asooka wrote: post #35
feross wrote: post #13

Nice work! I am working to improve the MIDI playback quality on my MIDI archive website, BitMidi ( https://bitmidi.com ), and I think this might help. The main difficulty with a web-based MIDI player like BitMidi is that it's not feasible to force the user to wait for a 300+ MB SoundFont to download before starting in-browser playback. The current format I use ("patch" files) has a separate file for each instrument,…

Can't browsers just play midi files? I know we could in the 90s and 00s.

They can't play MIDI files directly but modern browsers can communicate with MIDI controllers which is quite cool.

Re: FatBoy SoundFont

#58

Post by vanderZwan »

colanderman wrote: post #47
vanderZwan wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> controls and RPNs Out of curiosity: could you elaborate on what those are? My first guess would be it's something like font hinting but for MIDI

Sort of. They control things like volume, panning, reverb, pitch bend sensitivity, tuning, synthesizer parameters, etc. Most controls have a defined meaning, though some (named things like "General Purpose" and "Effect 1 Depth") do not, and control different things on different synthesizers. (For example, "Effect 1 Depth" is usually reverb, but not always.) But even those things with a defined meaning are "defined" i…

That was very interesting and educational, thank you!

Re: FatBoy SoundFont

#59

Post by kapep »

hudbuddy wrote: post #33

Without commenting on the design, I just want to say that I appreciate how well the information on the home page is laid out. You addressed all of my questions in order and in a compelling way. Very solid melding of marketing and education.

Maybe I missed something while reading the page but the whole time I my biggest question was what it actually sounds like. At the very bottom is a "hear demo" link, that leads to a Youtube channel with one song. But there isn't a link to the original version, so I can't compare how much it improved.

Re: FatBoy SoundFont

#60

Post by olau »

johnzim wrote: post #5

Love it! I had to go back and listen to one of my favorite midi tracks - the Ultima online Buccaneer's Den theme. Using this sound font there are some really major improvements. Not that the original instrumentation that shipped with machines of the day didn't have its charm. I love the fact that we used to literally ship midi files around for game music - it's such a technically elegant approach and because it could…

> ... there was always something fun about the idea that music directors were practically composing symphonies to be played by individual orchestras on each user's machine.

And this is part of the problem - the latter part never developed. Sample playback is a lousy form of musical expression.

I want a pianist AI that plays Beethoven the way I like.

Unfortunately, there's little public R&D in this stuff - at one point I looked into the research for just synthesizing the sound from a MIDI recorded by a real pianist, and while some of the commercial actors have something that is okayish (Roland and Pianoteq), the public research just isn't there.

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