Searching for piano-roll editor where I can use my own (non-sf2) soundfont

[AndrewD]

Hello and thanks in advance for any assistance.

I recently discovered a browser-based piano-roll editor and I started making some music:

http://onlinesequencer.net/588441

There are many shortcomings however, for instance adjusting volume for individual notes is exceptionally tedious and as you can hear the playback is far from smooth, therefore I'm searching for something like the above link but that, presumably not browser-based, can produce more polished music.

However the violin sound on the above link is the best violin sound I can find anywhere. I tried many soundfonts and can't find anything that comes close. This sound was derived from the Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra soundfont but heavily edited afterward, and I obtained this edited files in .wav format. Converting them into sf2 sounded terrible, so I'll have to either use the .wav files directly (what are the chances this is possible?) or convert them to something like sfz which apparently has far better sound quality. If it could be done in the browser-based software then surely it can be done in a full-fledged desktop software. (Note that the notes, of which there are 40, are all fixed-length, but this is OK for me I don't need anything complex.)

I've tried LMMS, MusceScore, Muse Sequencer, Caustic via wine, Rosegarden, Ardour, Swami, etc, and I don't know how to build non-sequencer, but none seem to be what I'm looking for. I use QJackctrl, which was hard to get working until I killalled the jack thing. Please understand this has all consumed many, many hours as it's all totally new for me and I don't code nor do I read music. I fear I may discount a software prematurely, but I simply can't spend the hours needed to determine if one application will work only to discover that it won't and move on to the next. My first question is: is what I'm looking for possible on Ubuntu at all with any free software? I'd hate to turn to Windows but I'll have to do what I have to do.

So yeah, to associate my .wav notes to the notes of a piano-roll that is editable (it's exclusively on the piano roll where I experiment and compose), this is what I'm looking for. No external instruments, no special effects, nothing at all complicated! Any software that can accomplish this will do. I notice many softwares don't always specify what kind of soundfonts they accept (LMMS only accepts sf2 for instance), and perhaps some don't actually make sound but I have to route sound through with Jack - if so that's fine but please indicate both the sequencer editor as well as the .wav (or sfz?) compatible sound-making software to go along with it.

At first I was searching for "synthesizer software", but then I discovered "piano roll editor" was more appropriate. Is what I'm looking for indeed called a piano roll editor because it's hard to find this stuff if you don't know the search terms. The original site I linked to doesn't even use the term "piano roll" anywhere, it just says sequencer, but in my search it seems "sequencers" are often explicitly different from piano roll editors? And step sequencers I think are physical apparatuses?

I really appreciate any advice!

EDIT: Tentatively I'm going to try Qtractor with Linuxsampler. These look like hopeful options. Linuxsampler actually supports sfz. It will take me some days to construct the sfz file and learn how to use Ztractor and Linuxsampler so let me know if there's a problem with these because I won't find it out for a while!

[magicalex]

I would suggest using Carla (which uses linuxsampler in the background) instead of linuxsampler itself. In my opinion it's much more user friendly. You could also try Tracktion 6 which is apparently now free and has a pretty good piano roll or Ardour.

For string sounds, the sonatino sfz is available at http://www.bandshed.net/sounds/sfz/ along with Jeff's no budget orchestra (nbo2.zip)

[Michael Willis]

If you "just want" a piano roll editor, then Qtractor should work fine for you. I did a similar search a few years ago, trying Rosegarden, Muse Sequencer, LMMS, Ardour, and Qtractor (in roughly that order). I settled on Ardour specifically for one feature: the ability to plot linear ramping up/down of midi control codes (channel volume, mod wheel, etc) for crescendos, decrescendos, and such. I was dissatisfied with the interface provided by all of the other options, but to be honest I didn't explore Qtractor much before going back to Ardour, and I know that plenty of other people are very happy with Qtractor.

[AndrewD]

Thanks for the input.