Anyone knowledgable on Soundfonts and Keys?

[Cleveland Metal]

My son is moving along surprisingly well on writing keyboard oriented "EBM" music. Lots of the other stuff he does is more Midnight Syndicate-ish.

His setup revolves around Keys, MIDI recording on Cakewalk (not so much audio based recording at all), and uses Soundfonts (Creative/EMU) to well, make the sounds.

I want to get him some stuff for xmas, he wants some soundfont packs. I'm just unsure if there is better technology that might not be major $$$. Hate to invest more into an old technology that's based on Creative home PC cards. Or is that still a decent way?

Soundfont stuff is built around Creative Audio cards and I figure there's better ways.

Seems most of what I see is based on protools and VST plugins etc... Some of that stuff is just nuts expensive though.

Sorta thinking that a balls out soundcard (other than a good creative) wont do much for him since it's all USB/MIDI in.

I don't know a lot about this stuff...

Any thoughts?

[Endrik]

fuck keyboards... it's all about Fender Rhodes trough Marshall stack...

that being said... Creative isn't very reliable on a lot of things but does he only want more different sounds? Or does he want to program stuff as well?

For sounds there's tons of great VST plugins with reasonable price and which work with most of the audio recording applications.
You got stuff from Hammond and Moog emulators to shit that emulates horns sections.
The selection is pretty big... he can just google shit and download it if he likes it.

[texasfury]

Which Cakewalk app? They all should be able to use VSTi instruments, which is run by the CPU anyway. Soundfonts are ok for General MIDI stuff, but sounds like your son is ready for VSTi instruments. You won't need to buy a soundcard at all, just get him a VSTi pack.

Does he have a real piano keyboard? Don't know your budget, but I would think a weighted keyboard would be a better buy.

[Newc]

Depends on what tones he's specifically looking for. Soundfonts are basically samples, like BFD or DKFH, but they vary in sample rate and therefore sound quality.

However, they can get good vintage synth tones, since those vintage synths were very low kilobyte (or even bit) to begin with.

I haven't really spent much time in a Soundfont editor, and that was years ago, but as I understand it, as long as you've got the RAM on your card, you can build a soundfont bank that is very high-quality. Just like most rackmount or keyboard-based synths, you can dedicate one whole bank to one instrument (all drums, all nylon guitar, etc) to get better sounds. These are with true audio samples, not just the tone-generator/LFO-type stuff.

If you can swing it (and if they're available) I'd also say look into VSTi-based stuff. Get his opinion on it, since he knows what's what as far as his system and skill level are concerned. He may not want to deal with the headache of VSTi, or it may tax his system too much, whereas Soundfonts would only affect the card.

Check out samples of the specific packs he wants to make sure that's what he wants. It's easy to write up a stunning advertisement for a crappy sample pack, and once it's been downloaded, there's no refund.

[texasfury]

Yes that is true, a SoundFont's processing would be handled by the card itself. If you indeed get a SoundFont audio card, I guess get one with the most onboard RAM. I do recall that even this is not a limit, you can allocate system RAM as well for sample use.

I just remember that when I was messing with SoundFonts on my SoundBlaster LIVE!, I could never get them to load consistently, and the extra RAM settings would never stay saved.

[Cleveland Metal]

Yeah, messed up. Him or I will have to learn about this stuff. Haha... I think it's nice that he should, but, his creativity may not be on that technical level. By the time I watsed years figuring out all the crazy shit about guitars, and bought all the shit, I could care less and am more equipment driven, than creative, haha...

I started him on a Live drive and a friend was big on soundfonts, so that is what he built on. Apparently he is great with working with that, but he doesn't know much about the VST stuff and that seems to be the way it's going these days.

He doesn't have a bomb PC, it's a low end Sempron 3100 which is like a P4 1800 or less in some areas. It probably does ok cause it has 2 gig of ram and a 512 video card.

He doesn't "play" keys all that well, most of what he does is not physically/musically demanding and he's content with his M-audio 61 key with touch sens. He doesn't feel he would appreciate a nice weighted piano type of thing.

Not really sure where to go. I saw some VST reverb plugins that were like 2k, haha... Amazing... I don't understand it all enough to comment much Gonna be learning I guess.

Here's some of his stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZzAZsYSnsU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXZb5gM0m6U&feature=related

And some video game score he was working on for a guy that was developing Quake stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lziZPcIl3Oc&feature=related

[Endrik]

VST's are very easy to use John... you just install it and open it from the audio application menu and you are ready to go.

2k reverb VST is something else... those expensive verb, compressor etc. units are for pro engineers... that stuff "suppose" to emulate vintage analog gear which costs a lot more than 2k.

[Cleveland Metal]

Yeah, i knew the 2k reverb was super high end engineer stuff.

He can use VST just like he uses soundfonts? He does like no audio, I believe everything he does is MIDI in Cakewalk. They're programmed the same way?

I know some of the modern soundfonts are extremely high quality. I can imagine VST is same or beyond that if you pay.

I assume VST is processor based. Are they seriously demanding on the system?

[Endrik]

VST is made a bit differently but works kinda the same way with some things... but it has a lot more tweaking options and sounds way better. When we talk about good VST vs. typical midi stuff.
Soundfonts are based on samples (using real clips)... typical MIDI is just an emulation... VST can do both... depends what kind of VST you are using. VST is very flexible. A sample is always going to sound better than just an emulation so you have to check out the specifics of the VST.


I don't think it's really demanding unless you are running VST effect units on 50 different tracks and playbacking them.

[Cleveland Metal]

Cool, I thouight VST would be the way... Now to figure out how to fit it into his scheme of things...

Personally, I'm thinking whatever he is doing is beyond the silly MIDI crap I've heard... His stuff is pretty pro sounding for the most part. Kinda freaked me out.

Those samples I posted are just a couple of his things and he never ceases to amaze me and make me feel like I wasted my skill all my life haha...

[texasfury]

Well then get him started with some of the free VSTi instruments, there should be a bunch out there to try out. When he gets familiar with whats possible then he can look at what you could get him.

A SoundFont is like a bunch of VSTi for every instrument in one neat package. It's like a combo amp. But with a VSTi, you have infinite choice, you are not constrained, you pick and choose what instrument you want to use.