How can I download/set up different instruments?

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hippie403
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Re: How can I download/set up different instruments?

Post by hippie403 »

@TheDiamondLego You should be able to do most of what you want with MusE built in FluidSynth sound font loader.
I've got so many sound related things installed on my Pi I might forget to mention a few steps here.
(perhaps you need to install fluidsynth before you can use the sound font loader in MusE?)

You can install some sound fonts from the Raspberry Pi repository:

fluid-soundfont-gm - Fluid (R3) General MIDI SoundFont (GM)
fluid-soundfont-gs - Fluid (R3) General MIDI SoundFont (GS)


$ sudo apt-get install fluid-soundfont-gm
$ sudo apt-get install fluid-soundfont-gs

You can then load this up in FluidSynth:
/usr/share/sounds/sf2/FluidR3_GM.sf2

You should be able to configure FluidSynth to play a different instrument sound on each MIDI channel.
TheDiamondLego
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Re: How can I download/set up different instruments?

Post by TheDiamondLego »

@hippie403 cool, thanks, ill check those out, ghank you for also showing the command to install them and where they are found
TheDiamondLego
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Re: How can I download/set up different instruments?

Post by TheDiamondLego »

@hippie403 how would I go about installing fluidsynth or using the built in fluid synth so that I can use the soundfont thing?
TheDiamondLego
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Re: How can I download/set up different instruments?

Post by TheDiamondLego »

TheDiamondLego wrote: Thu May 20, 2021 3:48 am @hippie403 how would I go about installing fluidsynth or using the built in fluid synth so that I can use the soundfont thing?
NVM, I just figured it out, these are great! How can I find more of these sound font things?
hippie403
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Re: How can I download/set up different instruments?

Post by hippie403 »

To install fluidsynth:

$ sudo apt-get install fluidsynth

To use the MusE sound font loader:

right click in the track area -> Add Synth -> MESS -> FluidSynth sound font loader.

right click on the port column -> show native GUI

load the /usr/share/sounds/sf2/FluidR3_GM.sf2 font

assign this font to all 16 MIDI channels and set channel 10 to drum.
TheDiamondLego
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Re: How can I download/set up different instruments?

Post by TheDiamondLego »

Yea, I figured it out and am playing around with it now, though I didn't need to assign it to all the channels(I just needed to do one) and I didn't need to set a drum one
hippie403
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Re: How can I download/set up different instruments?

Post by hippie403 »

@TheDiamondLego If you assign the GM sound font to all channels you can play a different GM "patch" on each channel simultaneously with just one instance of FluidSynth. Using channel 10 for drums is just a convention. On any channels you set to drum, with the GM sound font you will get drum kits on that channel.

You can drive the FluidSynth with 16 separate MusE MIDI tracks if you like (just set the port to fluidsynth-0 and a different channel for each track).
If you set the MIDI track instrument to "GM" you will get an appropriate patch selection menu on the track.
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Re: How can I download/set up different instruments?

Post by Michael Willis »

TheDiamondLego wrote: Thu May 20, 2021 3:52 am
TheDiamondLego wrote: Thu May 20, 2021 3:48 am @hippie403 how would I go about installing fluidsynth or using the built in fluid synth so that I can use the soundfont thing?
NVM, I just figured it out, these are great! How can I find more of these sound font things?
You can find a lot of free SF2 sound fonts at Musical Artifacts.

Just make sure you include "formats: sf2" in the search box to avoid other sample formats that won't work with fluidsynth. For example, here's a search for piano formats: sf2.
TheDiamondLego
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Re: How can I download/set up different instruments?

Post by TheDiamondLego »

hippie403 wrote: Thu May 20, 2021 5:45 am @TheDiamondLego If you assign the GM sound font to all channels you can play a different GM "patch" on each channel simultaneously with just one instance of FluidSynth. Using channel 10 for drums is just a convention. On any channels you set to drum, with the GM sound font you will get drum kits on that channel.

You can drive the FluidSynth with 16 separate MusE MIDI tracks if you like (just set the port to fluidsynth-0 and a different channel for each track).
If you set the MIDI track instrument to "GM" you will get an appropriate patch selection menu on the track.
O, okay, that makes sense, that will be very helpful, it will be nice not to have so many different rows for just 1 midi track XD

@Michael Willis thanks, ill look forward to trying different SF2's :)
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