Can I upgrade my PC MIDI instruments?

Factual Questions
1

Are MIDI sounds a software or hardware thing? Can I go to an internet site and download some different/better sounds or do I need to install a new sound card or something? Am I stuck with the sounds that came with the PC?

Any help, much appreciated, thanks.

2

You can improve the quality of the MIDI patches by installing a new sound card. Yamaha ones look pretty good.

3

Do the MIDI patches actually come with the sound card or are they seperate?

4

They are part of the sound card.

5

Ok, thanks.

6

no it depends on your card.
The AWE series and the live series by creative all use soundfonts which are custom made instrument patches. There are tons of them for free on the net.
There are also several software based midi players which can have changeable patches. Most do not allow changes but offer very good uality patches.
Yamaha in particular has its midiXG software.

Your soundcard likely provides hardware AND software emulation in its software bundle so you might check that out. If you look in your control panel under sound you may find you already have a separate software emulator.

7

If your card uses its own RAM for the storage of sound samples, then that will be the limit of the quality you’ll be able to find. Some sound cards can use the PC’s RAM (the Soundblaster LIVE series, for example), and can handle sound fonts of any size.

I downloaded a free sound font of a grand piano, and now when I play piano pieces on my computer it pretty much sounds like someone’s playing a piano in the room.

I find that the Live Platinum card I have does really well with strings, some wind instruments, and piano. But it really sucks at reproducing guitars.

Does anyone know of a really good sound font for electric and acoustic guitars for the Soundblaster Live! series?

8
      • Well nuts, somebody beat me to it…
  • The Soundblaster Live 5.1 is the cheapest way to get good MIDI with no lag. The card costs about $32 for OEM online. It installs with a 2, 4 and 8-meg general MIDI soundfonts. The 2 sounds lousy and the 8 sounds better than the 4, and there are soundfont banks over 100 megs in size. There are individual piano soundfonts over 50 megs for a single instrument. I run a 25-meg general bank to start off with, and then load specific instruments as I need them.
    Almost any instrument out there is already available on a free soundfont.
    One big list: http://www.thesoundsite.net/
  • Note: Creative cards store soundfonts in RAM, so it helps to have a lot of RAM. Softsynths that play soundfonts tend to suffer from lag.
  • Soundfonts don’t have most of the technical restrictions of MIDI, and you can make your own soundfonts with the free Vienna soundfont editor program.
    ~
  • Warning #1: Creative cards are known for not working well with other soundcards installed. This is important because…
  • Warning #2: the audio inputs of Creative cards is only 16-bit, and not the quietest around. It’s still way better than a cassette tape, but any 24-bit card will sound better. Creative doesn’t make any soundcards that record in 24-bit.
  • Warning #3: you can directly hook up a MIDI keyboard and send to the soundcard, but ideally your multitracking software should support soundfonts so that you can attach and switch instruments and banks with the software’s automation. Cakewalk Home Studio 2002 and Sonar directly support soundfonts, others may also.
  • Warning #4: know what you’re buying, and ask beforehand if you don’t. You want a Soundblaster Dolby Digital 5.1, OEM/whitebox, which costs ~$32. Don’t buy a Soundblaster Live Value, it has features missing/disabled. Don’t buy retail, the OEM card is identical, you just don’t get the pretty box and “free” software. Part of the reason the SBLive is so great is that it’s so cheap, so don’t overpay.
    …
  • Bummer Story That Just Happened: —A guy on a recording board I frequent asked for cheap beginner card recommendations. I suggested an SBLive 5.1, other people suggested $200+ “pro-level” cards. Eventually the guy went and ordered an “SBLive” and got really pissed when it was a Value ($23) that doesn’t do everything the 5.1 ($33) does. I had even posted places that sold it & the part numbers, but he went somewhere else himself and bought the wrong card without asking about it beforehand. -And there are separate reviews on Google for the SBLive 5.1 and the SBLive Value that stated the differences, but he didn’t look there either. So then he got all pissed off because “Creative is such crap” and all, and vowed to save up for a $200 soundcard.
    :confused:
    …
  • You won’t find a lot of love for Creative cards on “pro-recording” forums. Or Cakewalk software either. People who have never had any commercial success with anything they’ve ever recorded will insist that it costs thousands of dollars to buy home equipment that’s “good enough” for making a music CD.
    Don’t believe it.
    You will always find people who insist that the reason they didn’t do well was lousy equipment. On home-recording forums, you find a whole lot of 'em.
    ~