BASSMIDI Driver

RichNagel · Post by **RichNagel** » 05-03-11 2:42 pm

aria1121 wrote:So I wasted the download-time wait, finding the RAR password, getting all that extracted with my crappy laptop, and trying to put it work? Instant delete.

The next time you'll listen to me, right LOL? <grin>

kiwi · Post by **kiwi** » 05-08-11 9:47 am

hi,
I have seen some notes do not release beyhond the C2 octave with the weeds gm3 it looks like a real piano this way but it can be used in all of situations by the way it's a good soundfont for it's size but i prefer by far the Titanic soundfont

Titanic is 200 mo and works great with bass midi driver and synthesia on windows 7 x64

RichNagel · Post by **RichNagel** » 05-08-11 5:57 pm

kiwi wrote:Titanic is 200

BTW, do you (or anyone else) know of a download link for the Titanic 200 v1.2 SoundFont? I've found download links for version 1.1, but unfortunately not version 1.2.

I've downloaded almost all of popular freeware "monster" sized GM SoundFonts to give them a try, but I've never found that newer version of Titanic.

stephenhazel · Post by **stephenhazel** » 05-08-11 7:19 pm

http://instrumentsvirtuels.free.fr/free ... tm#titanic
about halfway down the page (4 parts to it)

DC64 · Post by **DC64** » 05-08-11 7:44 pm

So do you click on the four parts to download the soundfonts?

stephenhazel · Post by **stephenhazel** » 05-08-11 8:36 pm

download the 4 .rar files and use rar or 7zip to uncompress back into one .SF2 file.

Lemo · Post by **Lemo** » 05-08-11 8:50 pm

Yeah I searched for demo samples for this one but I couldn't find any...so I guess I'll just try it myself :p
Is it just me or the file really says Titanic 200 GM-GS SoundFont 1.1.sf2 ?
The picture on the website shows version 1.2, is that one really better than 1.1?

stephenhazel · Post by **stephenhazel** » 05-08-11 10:18 pm

aw rats. then i guess you guys will need to keep on googlin'...

that's all i did anyways. good luck to ya

Lemo · Post by **Lemo** » 05-08-11 11:51 pm

Titanic is really neat, I also finally decided to install Bassmidi and they work great together.
The sound is maybe slightly not as great as a dedicated piano VST, but it's so much easier to handle.
I guess I'll just use the VST instrument for recording, and stick to Bassmidi/Titanic for Synthesia

.

Btw here is the link to 1.2:
http://artagap.free.fr/karpbo/index.htm#dl
Another french website, I guess we like to keep good old software just like good old wine

Raymond · Post by **Raymond** » 05-09-11 12:24 am

1.2 atleast from the link Lemo posted does not load on my SB Live card.

(Tryed both the ZIP/RAR and Sfx/Sf2)
1.1 works and seems better than Fluid.

TonE · Post by **TonE** » 05-09-11 2:49 am

Your Weeds piano in the soundfont has "lots of" built in reverb, it makes also use of panorama, I assume, lower notes maybe more mapped to the left and higher notes more to the right? For solo piano playing this is probably just ok, I would prefer maybe a little less reverb. For romantic pieces, more reverb might be fine, but for Bach maybe less?

RichNagel · Post by **RichNagel** » 05-09-11 2:26 pm

Yeah Stephenhazel, I had already found that link; like y'all discovered, it was for Titanic v1.1.

Thanks for the link to Titanic v1.2, Lemo

TonE wrote:it makes also use of panorama, I assume, lower notes maybe more mapped to the left and higher notes more to the right?

Yes, that is correct... it is a stereo grand piano preset in the SoundFont.

TonE wrote:For solo piano playing this is probably just ok, I would prefer maybe a little less reverb. For romantic pieces, more reverb might be fine, but for Bach maybe less?

That's probably a good idea. When/if I finally release an update to the SoundFont, I'll definitely give that consideration

RichNagel · Post by **RichNagel** » 05-09-11 2:31 pm

Raymond wrote:1.2 atleast from the link Lemo posted does not load on my SB Live card.

That may be due to it's size. IIRC version 1.1 was about 200MB, while version 1.2 is 288MB.

Loading large SoundFonts in an SBLive or Audigy sound card can somethimes be a problem. You might try this (it worked for me ages ago when I ran into problems loading large SoundFonts into my SBLive):

Code: Select all

SoundFont Loading "Unexpected Error" Fix
----------------------------------------
Loading a SoundFont larger than 200MB using the Windows XP version of the
AudioHQ SoundFont Control Panel results in the following error message:

"Error in loading bank. Unexpected error."

To fix this problem (allowing SoundFonts larger than 200MB to be loaded),
import the following registry key:

---cut here---
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management]
"NonPagedPoolSize"=dword:00000000
"PagedPoolSize"=dword:ffffffff
---cut here---

Note that the default registry entires and values are:

---cut here---
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management]
"NonPagedPoolSize"=dword:00000000
"PagedPoolSize"=dword:00000000
---cut here---

RichNagel · Post by **RichNagel** » 05-09-11 3:06 pm

I just downloaded and gave that Titanic v1.2 SoundFont a try.

IMHO, it really doesn't sound that good (I tried it with various MIDI files and auditioned the various instruments contained in it).

I compare this one to the "Crisis" SoundFont... while it's nowhere near the size of Crisis, it's still in the catagory of "doesn't sound as good as it's filesize should justify".

Anyhoo, I think that many of the other SoundFonts that I listed at http://www.cmoo.com/snor/weeds/SoundFon ... ration.htm sound considerably better than Titanic (some of which are quite smaller, such as "Chorium"), including my own WeedsGM3

Just my 2 cents...

Lemo · Post by **Lemo** » 05-09-11 3:27 pm

I also thought there was a bit much of reverb in Weeds, but okay I'll try some others if you insist

Raymond · Post by **Raymond** » 05-09-11 4:23 pm

RichNagel wrote:..."Unexpected Error"...

I tried it and am still getting the same error. (Although I haven't restarted the computer.)
The error I am getting is "Error loading SoundFont". But that could just be that I am using the kX drivers, so it shows the error differently.

I am going to try some of thos other sound fonts and see if any is better.

DC64 · Post by **DC64** » 05-09-11 4:42 pm

Im trying to put a different soundfont with BASSMIDI but weeds keeps overriding it.
I take out weeds from the driver list and put in the other soundfont, save and exit.
Open it again and weeds is there.

Why is this happening, how do I change it?

RichNagel · Post by **RichNagel** » 05-10-11 2:48 am

Raymond wrote:I tried it and am still getting the same error. (Although I haven't restarted the computer.) The error I am getting is "Error loading SoundFont". But that could just be that I am using the kX drivers, so it shows the error differently.

I'm not sure about the KX drivers, but any registry edit (or importing/modifying a key in the Windows registry) *definitely* requires a restart/reboot

DC64 wrote:Im trying to put a different soundfont with BASSMIDI but weeds keeps overriding it. I take out weeds from the driver list and put in the other soundfont, save and exit. Open it again and weeds is there. Why is this happening, how do I change it?

Hehe, WeedsGM3.sf2... "You WILL be assimilated!" <grin> LOL!

Anyhow, the BASSMIDI Driver creates a plain text file (located in your "C:\Windows" directory on your computer) to remember the loaded SoundFont(s). The file name will be "BASSMIDI.SFList", and would have a line in it something like this:

Code: Select all

C:\SoundFonts\WeedsGM3.sf2

Close the BASSMIDI Driver configuration utility, and then delete the "C:\Windows\BASSMIDI.SFList" file. Re-run the configuration utility again, and see if you can change it then

P.S. Of course, ensure that you click the "Apply" button within the BASSMIDI Driver configuration utility after selecting the SoundFont

Raymond · Post by **Raymond** » 05-10-11 4:13 am

Restarting did fix the problem.
Not all registry edits need a restart. (I think most do but not all of them need it)

Post by **Nicholas** » 05-10-11 4:33 am

Yeah, the registry is inherently instant. If one program writes a key and another checks it a few milliseconds later, it'll show the new value.

The problem is that most of the "important" keys are only checked by programs (especially Windows Explorer) at startup. In this case, the key that was being checked was deeper than Explorer would have been interested in, but there is a handy trick if it's just some top-level interface change. Killing the Explorer process isn't cool. Instead, in newer versions of Windows (Vista on?) you can ctrl-shift right-click the empty area in the Start Menu (usually near the shutdown button) to open a context menu. Usually it just has one choice. Holding those keys adds an extra one: "Exit Explorer". That closes it cleanly. Then you can use Task Manager (ctrl-shift-Escape) to start a new explorer.exe process.

Again, not relevant in your case but still handy to know.

... even a little off-topic, but it's a gem I found while solving some programming thing a while ago and I like sharing.