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From: | Guy Stalnaker |
Subject: | Re: midi sound quality help needed |
Date: | Tue, 14 Sep 2021 15:34:36 -0500 |
User-agent: | Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:78.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/78.13.0 |
Ken, You are SOOOO close :-) The issue is neither Lilipond nor its midi output. MIDI is simply a specification for musical "events" describing pitch, duration, etc. It's up to a program that understands MIDI to make actual sound. That is typically done via a synthesizer (dedicated synth module, keyboard, or other MIDI-capable equipment) or via an application that knows how to use a soundfont. You're getting nice sound with Alda not
because Alda is making "better" MIDI, but because of the FluidR3
soundfont (which has surprisingly decent sounds for many, though
not all, of its General Midi sounds). When I was using a MacBook and LP/Frescobaldi, I used fluidsynth/QSynth configured to use the FluidR3 sound font (but this was some time ago, at least 7-8 years). On Windows I use CoolSoftVirtualMidiSynth. On Linux (my current desktop) I use the fluidsynth/QSynth apps. Both of them are configured to use the FluidR3 soundfont. I *know* that you can configure timidity to use a different soundfont than its default (which does indeed suck). In fact, timidity on my Kubuntu 20.04 desktop is so configured. But this is by default and involves ways that timidity is installed on kubuntu, so it's not easy for me to tell you how to do it using this setup. But, I'm fairly certain Google will provide you options for getting timidity to use the FluidR3 sound font. See this Google search: I know nothing about GarageBand, however Google can likely help you learn if you can configure it to use alternate soundfonts. Hope this helps. Guy P.S. A nice thing about using an app and soundfont YOU specify is
that you can change the soundfont used. If you've the money you
can purchase incredibly good soundfonts (if you like) though there
are dozens available for free. One of my favorite is an English
Organ sound font with quite good sounds. On 9/14/21 3:13 PM, Kenneth Wolcott
wrote:
HI All; This is really not a Lilypond question, but I'm sure you have some helpful information, as you always do :-) midi sound quality help needed I'm on a Mac. I'm using Lilypond 2.22.0 via MacPorts. I'm using Garageband as my midi player, with Timidity (from home brew) as an alternative. I don't do rock music, synthesizers, sound effects, etc. I do traditional classical music. I do some pop, and folks music, but in a classical manner... I'm not asking for a professional live performance output quality from midi, but most often the midi output sounds really bad. Now here's an interesting twist to the story. I installed Alda from home brew which is a more rudimentary text-based musical scoring system. I also installed the suggested alternative soundfont (FluidR3). The Alda coding is much more rudimentary than what Lilypond offers, so I'm not in any way going to abandon Lilypond!!! But the sound quality of what comes out of playing the Alda scripts is phenomenal (!) compared to what I get out of GarageBand and/or Timidity. I've even tried MidiAndMusicXmlPlayer as an alternative midi player. How do I improve my midi output quality? Thanks in advance for your advice, Ken Wolcott -- -- “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” ― Aristotle |
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