Getting better sounds inexpensively

Hello Sherry, yes, I am a newbie here and in sounds, since with my ears I could never hear more than 3 kHz, and when this even degraded to 1 kHz over the last 15 years I was lost to music. Now with a new Cochlear Implant I can hear up to 8 kHz, so music makes sense again. In our aging society this problem - while generally less extreme - is quite common. Thus I thought to use MidiNotate to learn "hearing by composing" and by listening to MIDI-music and comparing the sounds with what I see. If the music is too fast, I can slow it down, and if the sounds are too terrible, I can look for better sounds. I am just beginning to understand how to use better sounds. General Midi is horrible - even for me.

My main objection to most help-files is : For the beginner they are too general. What is needed is a simple "how to" method : Most people have either a Microsoft Windows (XP, Vista, Win7) OS, or something from Apple. And there are only two or three typical sound-cards around. So if you would write a little booklet (online and expandable over time) on "what to do" about sounds - every single step in the "monkey see - monkey do" way, this would be helpful for both sides, since if something does not work, the users could tell you exactly at what point they encountered a difficulty. All general advice leaves the incompetent reader helpless with "what does Sherry speak of here ?". If readers got encouraged by some simple success ("ah, now I hear the new sound for the first time !"), the next steps will be easy.

So assume that I have MidiNotate available, and a soundcard with a GM bank too, and I want to tell my soundcard how to use new soundfonts in the *.wav-format. Where should I put the soundfonts so that the card can find and use them ? This is what I call the "monkey see - monkey do" way.

F.i., you wrote

Originally Posted by Sherry C

You can use the free soundfonts that you find from the links on our Soundfont Resources page, and just load them into your soundcard.

But what does "just load them into your soundcard" mean ? There is "start > settings > system controls > sound and media > soundcard etc., an then what to do ? Or there is a file "programs" on the systems-partition where to drop the new sounds in the soundcard subfolder ?

As you see, it is not at all clear for the layperson what to do - while it may be obvious for you !

[Sherry C]

Howdy,

Originally Posted by fremowolf

So if you would write a little booklet (online and expandable over time) on "what to do" about sounds - every single step in the "monkey see - monkey do" way, this would be helpful for both sides, since if something does not work, the users could tell you exactly at what point they encountered a difficulty. All general advice leaves the incompetent reader helpless with "what does Sherry speak of here ?". If readers got encouraged by some simple success ("ah, now I hear the new sound for the first time !"), the next steps will be easy.

Alas, I wish it were that easy Part of the problem lies in the "this sound setup does all the same steps as that one except these two steps here." In the Help/Users Guide we have tried to cover a lot, but no two system configurations will all be exactly the same. Different operating systems, different sound cards or other sound devices, and the various combinations thereof, keep us on our toes for helping folks get it to all work together. I'm learning something new every day The Users Guide does cover step-by-step for all the Windows and Musician/Composer parts, but there is simply no way we could cover everyone's set up in a step-by-step fashion. That's one reason we have the Users Forum here so folks can help each other out for the various devices that are in use.

So assume that I have MidiNotate available, and a soundcard with a GM bank too, and I want to tell my soundcard how to use new soundfonts in the *.wav-format. Where should I put the soundfonts so that the card can find and use them ? This is what I call the "monkey see - monkey do" way.

Only some soundcards by a few makers will load soundfonts. If you have such a soundcard, you should be able to find the Soundfont Manager within the program folder for your soundcard. For example, if you have a SoundBlaster card that is capable of loading soundfonts, then you should be able to:

1. Click the "Start" button in the lower left of Windows
2. Select "All programs"
3. Find the "Creative" folder,
4. Find the "Soundfont manager" within that folder.

In the Soundfont Manager will be some method for "loading banks". At that point, you navigate to where you have your soundfonts stored (I keep mine in a separate folder, where I've now (finally) got them categorized) and load the soundfont you want in that particular bank.

I no longer have the old SoundBlaster Audigy 2 installed in my machine, so I can't give a 1-2-3 step sequence here for that, unfortunately.

Maybe someone else has one active, though, and could do that?

ttfn,
Sherry

Thank you very much for the detailed answer, Cherry ! Well, as a **** rookie I may be a bit naive still. I am surprised that there is so much left to learn !

Yesterevening I tried out some very simple procedures : Using Notation Composer to change the tempi of the movements of a MIDI version of Mozart KV 576 piano sonata and then playing this modified version with SynthFont. In this case no problem : Export MIDI from Composer, then open MIDI with SynthFont. Seems to work fine, while there were many disturbing and unexpected effects to overcome. F.i., there is a delay of some seconds when you take up the replay in Notation Composer somewhere in the middle. Only when you start at the beginning of a piece the opening is as it should be. Thus after any break the playback should be held back until the setup is ready. This is a minor glitch of the Composer software to be corrected. Thus I am crawling along. Seems there is no short track for anybody.

And I have a remark to add on this forum : There are some answers of you to other participants that are of interest for me. But to get back at those answers I have to write down the details. It would be much easier to save the date and time of some entry and using this to get back to the point of interest next time. F.i. your original posting starting this thread was of "03-08-2010 02:45 PM". But I can't use it to get back at this, I have to know where to go. When the number of entries on this forum expands, it becomes more and more difficult to find the way back to some posting of interest. Could this be changed ? It is almost impossible to have two entries with exactly the same date and time, so it is a pretty sure method to find some posting later on.

Cheers from Hubertus

[Sherry C]

Hi Hubertus,

Originally Posted by fremowolf

Yesterevening I tried out some very simple procedures : Using Notation Composer to change the tempi of the movements of a MIDI version of Mozart KV 576 piano sonata and then playing this modified version with SynthFont. In this case no problem : Export MIDI from Composer, then open MIDI with SynthFont.

Actually you can use the two together. SynthFont has an option to "Activate MIDI Input." If you click that button, and run Composer, then SynthFont acts as the MIDI playback device, while you edit or play the score in Composer. It's a lot easier that way, as you get immediate feedback on what your changes will sound like. If you like what you hear and want to make an audio file, just (1) use the File/Export as MIDI command in Composer, save the .mid version of your file, (2) open that .mid file in SynthFont, and then (3) use SynthFont's "Play to File" command to get a clean "rendering" of the file to audio.

It would be much easier to save the date and time of some entry and using this to get back to the point of interest next time. F.i. your original posting starting this thread was of "03-08-2010 02:45 PM". But I can't use it to get back at this, I have to know where to go.

I'll have to take a deeper look at the forum software to see if I can do that.

However, there is an easy way to keep track of specific posts if you want them for reference. I use this method a lot, because I keep track of suggestions for improvements to or problems with the software that get reported here in the forum.

1. You can use Windows' Notepad (under Start/ All programs/Accessories/Notepad, or your favorite text or document editor) to create a document for "Posts I want to reference".

2. When you find a post you want to remember, find the little Post Number (eg. #4) in the upper right corner of the dark blue bar across the top of the post.

3. Right-click on that number, and your browser should bring up a menu that will contain the option to "Copy link location" (Firefox) or "Copy shortcut" (Internet Explorer). Click on that option.

4. Now go back to Notepad (or other editor) and click in the document where you want to paste in that link.

5. Press "Ctrl + V" to paste the link (url) to that particular post in your "Posts I want to reference" document.

Now when you want to go back to those posts, you'll have the exact link to that post. How cool is that?

Enjoy
Sherry

Hi Sherry, thank you once more for your helpful answers. I will try it out. So many things to learn ! In my youth there was a piano and you got a chair to sit on and then started playing. No more ! It is like using Visual Basic : Once you had Quickbasic and just started programming and after one hour you had wonderful results. With Visual Basic after one hour you have no results whatever but a nervous breakdown, because you still don't understand what is happening. This is "progress". But "we will overcome someday". Listen to Joan Baez.

I just made a test with linking to your post : Great ! Using OpenOffice 3 and *.rtf-format, the link to your entry was activated automatically by ctrl + mouseclick, and I was back there. Good idea ! Instead of trying to modify the program of this forum, just give this advice to newcomers on a "greetings-page".

To get out of the way of this forum, while making use of advice, you even can "save the whole page" as *.html instead of only the link-address. Works fine !