A default soundfont is missing

[ekdahl]

Needed to enable midi playback.

It should..

• have good quality sounds
• be appropriately sized (or it will increase the image size considerably)
• have a license which makes it redistributable
• be compatible with fluidsynth

[korli]

To be tested : ​http://www.ibiblio.org/thammer/HammerSound/localfiles/soundfonts/FluidR3122501.zip

[ekdahl]

Unfortunately I don't have sound in Haiku atm so I can't test it. Maybe it could be added as an optional package (like Links and Wonderbrush) to increase the awareness of the midi kit and the softsynth's need for a soundfont.

[jackburton]

(In #2897) dup of #1357

[phoudoin]

The FluidR3 soundfonts works as expected. But weight around 140Mb. I guess zipping it as an optional package make, indeed, more sense. Meanwhile, we should tell user what to do in our User Guide, and the release note could point at the optional package in order to enable software MIDI synth.

[humdinger]

Here's another soundfont Karl provided in the duplicate ticket #4595: ​http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/pool/main/f/fluid-soundfont/

Maybe MidiPlayer could also pop up an alert, pointing out the availability of a soundfont for download at URL x, opening the browser.

[kvdman]

I wonder if that 'fluid-soundfont-gs' binary from the above link (2.4mb) does the same job as the 113mb one. Perhaps it doesn't contain all the instruments, maybe only piano. I remember looking at this a while ago, and if I remember correctly, the one included in BeOS was also only a couple mb, not > 100.

[kvdman]

I just did a search for big_synth on one of my BeOS installations. big_synth came up as a symbolic link to /boot/beos/etc/synth/Patches111.hsb < which is 1.14mb.

Curiously, the symbolic link was in a folder /CL-Amp_v37_x86/Midi bug fix for BeOS R5/ and had a folder in it to drag the file to a folder linked to /boot/beos/etc/synth

[kvdman]

Last email about this promise!

From: ​http://www.haiku-os.org/legacy-docs/bebook/BSynth_Overview.html

"The BeOS includes a 16-channel General MIDI software synthsizer designed by HeadSpace Inc."

HeadSpace became BeatNik Inc.

​http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-54369002.html

​http://www.beatnik.com/

I'm guessing the three soundfont files included in BeOS (all *.hsb, one 482.03kb, one 1.14mb, the last 7.29mb) were developed by that company.

I've linked big_synth.sy to all files and tested against a midi file and they all play it. Be's midi player will complain big_synth.sy is missing if the link isn't there.

Perhaps someone could email Beatnik and ask if we could include these in Haiku?

[michael.weirauch]

Replying to kvdman:

I wonder if that 'fluid-soundfont-gs' binary from the above link (2.4mb) does the same job as the 113mb one. Perhaps it doesn't contain all the instruments, maybe only piano. I remember looking at this a while ago, and if I remember correctly, the one included in BeOS was also only a couple mb, not > 100.

If it is a GeneralSound library it contains a extended instrumentation set (defined by Roland) over the GeneralMidi instrumentation set. (Fully backwards compatible)

The size of the SoundFonts/libraries - given the case they are GM/GS - give you a hint on the quality of the included sounds. (Wether they are sampled tone by tone or just pitched over a range of keys, ...)

IMO having a lower end GM/GS library in place (preferably GS) is totally ok. Any musician who wants to do music recording/production with software synthesizers/samplers is likely to have his own set ouf SoundFonts/instrument-libraries for professional use.

[jackburton]

Replying to michael.weirauch:

IMO having a lower end GM/GS library in place (preferably GS) is totally ok. Any musician who wants to do music recording/production with software synthesizers/samplers is likely to have his own set ouf SoundFonts/instrument-libraries for professional use.

I agree. No need to include the 100+ MB stuff on a basic installation.

[michaelvoliveira]

​http://www.haiku-os.org/community/forum/playing_midi_files#comment-12433

Seems that someone already did it.

[michaelvoliveira]

Hi! awesome news! I recieve the blessing for include it into Haiku

From:	
"timbrechbill@gmail.com" <timbrechbill@gmail.com>
To:	michaelvoliveira@yahoo.com.br	
No problem, Michael. 

You have my permission. 

Tim Brechbill 

Date: 2010-06-14 00:01:59

[michaelvoliveira]

Here is the file:

​http://ocmnet.com/saxguru/TimGM6mb.sf2

[axeld]

Is someone interested in providing a patch that provides TimGM6mb.sf2 as big_synth.sy in an optional package? It should contain copyright info for Tim Brechbill then.

We could then put the optional package to haiku-files.org/, and add it by default in our next release.

[stippi]

Fixed in hrev37153. I've also contacted Tim again to find out what license he wishes the SoundFont to carry, and he wanted "Public Domain".

[bruno]

Cannot get it working!

I tried to drag and drop the midisoundfile "FluidR3_GM.sf2 onto the midi preferences window in the Media Preferences... Cannot drop it there? Maybe because the system folder is write only? In the systems/data folder there is no more the synth folder!?

How to get Midi work now?

[luroh]

A default soundfont is included in the release builds but not in the nightly builds where you'll have to pkgman install timgmsoundfont.