Esh, I know this has been noted by you, AJ and others that a viable alternative may be to use something like Bandstand for the Accompaniment and kontakt with higher quality samples for your lead or melody voices.

It takes about 30 seconds to load 8 high quality instruments in kontakt. The way I set things up is similar to what AJ has mentioned and that is, I will load 8 instruments suitable for a certain genre of music say Jazz as follows:

Channel 1 Jazz Organ
Channel 2 Flute
Channel 3 Trumpet/mute
Channel 4 Saxophone
Channel 5 Strings
Channel 6 Piano
Channel 7 Vibes
Channel 8 Jazz Guitar

You could then play a set of jazz pieces. If you next wish to play Latin you could then load 8 high quality instrument suitable for Latin. Switching between channels is quick and easy. It works for me.

If you use DFD then the RAM required is usually less than 1 GB. So there should be room enough for Bandstand in DFD.

It might work for me.


[This message has been edited by Frank L. Rosenthal (edited 11-10-2005).]

Rikki, yes it does...

Not sure what computer system you are using, but if you are not already, consider using a stripped Raid Array (Raid 0) for your hard disks, as this will almost half the time taken to read or Write to the Disk, thus allowing faster loading of sounds into Kontakt. (Should almost half)

Bill

I like working with my AJ2006 system enough now that I'm pretty sure that if Bandstand doesn't fit the bill that I'm going to bite the bullet and try to create an even better soundfont than SGM180.

I'm certain this will take a lot of work and quite some time but the one thing about Soundfonts is that it has been my experience that they accept bank and program changes flawlessly each and every time.

I'm not an expert, but I do have some experience with sound design and sampling, and I'm sure I'll acquire even more by doing this. I might even pick the brains of some of the SF2 player software developers, because if it turns out to be a really good soundfont, I'm sure it will only benefit them in the long run as well. I'd really like to sit down for a few hours with a Tim Conrardy, but that is probably asking a bit much and something I wouldn't expect to happen

I might even turn it into a very inexpensive commercial offering if it turns out really well, but even if I do, I'd still give it freely to my buddies here at the 'zone with the understanding that it isn't freeware to be shared.

AJ


[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 11-10-2005).]

I agree absolutely that this IS the way
to go.

Thanks Fran.

best wishes
Rikki

Hi AJ,
I think I may have mentioned it before,
I'm actually going thru the process of pulling some of the gm/gs soundfonts apart.
Virtually putting together a patch library like we used to have with the synths.

Surprising what I'm finding. Whoever's put them together has used a mix of good & not so good fonts. I'm guessing they've chosen large samples for instruments that they use a lot, and fairly poor ones, probably just to fill up the gm bank. Suppose it's not worth having a 5mb bagpipe, if it's just chewing up space.

The largest font I've tried to load into my 512mb laptop using forte/livesynth pro
is 300mb. It struggles with that.
If I actually use the audigy nx 2 card, the largest font I can load is 145 mb's.
I'm looking at maybe expanding my memory.
Meanwhile my ideal font is probably going to have to be about 140mbs max.
I'll have to probably focus on some main instruments like drums , bass, piano , guitar, strings etc.

Personally I don't think I'd have the capability of starting from scratch ie sampling. Maybe converting wav files into fonts , might be an option, or from some other format.

I haven't had any problems with program & bank changes.

Personally, the fonts may be a bit long in the tooth, but I like the flexibility of them. As far as I can tell, there doesn't seem to be anything else quite like them?

I really think we should differentiate between, what can be used for styles, ie soundfonts, hypercanvas ??

and what can be used for lead/melody voices, as obviously there is a far greater choice of software available for lead voices.

best wishes
Rikki
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Bluezplayer:
[B]I

I agree Rikki. Although I will always be open to looking at new and even better sample sets and modules as they become available, I already have more quality lead voices than I'll probably ever need. Right now my focus is primarily to concentrate on improving backing voices.

I've given up on Hypercanvas and even Hypersonic. The former doesn't appeal to me very muchg soundwise, while the latter sounds decent, nothing special, but even with the updates still doesn't always recognize patch and bank changes. The only GM / XG modules other than soundfonts that seem to work all of the time without a hitch are Cakewalk's Tts-1, Yamaha's SYXG50 and Virtual Sound Canvas, but none of them appeal to me at all soundwise.

I would recommend more memory. I have 2.8 gigs in the laptop and 1.8 in the desktop system, and it does make quite a difference. I think I may add a bigger hard drive to the laptop though. The 180 mb SGM180 breezes along very easily in either system when I open it in Live Synth pro

If I do decide to go all out and make a soundfont, I'm going to start my soundfont one instrument at a time, using raw samples and / or recording new samples from some of my existing instruments. I don't know what the max capability of LSP is, but if it came down to it, and I had to, I'd simply split the instruments and make a couple soundfonts so all I'll have to do is open a couple of instances of LSP.

AJ


[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 11-10-2005).]

Hi AJ,
don't know if you've come across this piece of software before? http://www.nikkoid.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=97&Itemid=1

I downloaded the demo a while back, but I haven't tried it yet.

best wishes
Rikki
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Bluezplayer:
[B] IIf I do decide to go all out and make a soundfont, I'm going to start my soundfont one instrument at a time, using raw samples and / or recording new samples from some of my existing instruments.

Thanks Rikki. I'll give it a look. I have Cool Edit pro ( it's an older software.. I know ), but if Samplit can do the job better I'd certainly consider it.

AJ