Hiya Folks,
This is a project that I have worked on off and on since December of 1997, a high quality Gravis patch set for use with any application that supports Gravis format patches for software wavetable MIDI music synthesis. I was motivated to finally finish it up after all of these years -:)
Anyhow, to save me a bunch of typing, check out the Readme for the package (also included in the ZIP), it explains in detail as to exactly what this beast does, as well as step by step installation and usage instructions.
Download the new patch set Here (26,187,884 bytes).
Enjoy!
(Edit: Just updating the download links)
New Custom Gravis Patch Set for ZDOOM
New Custom Gravis Patch Set for ZDOOM
Last edited by RFNagel on Thu Nov 03, 2005 3:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Lexus Alyus
- Posts: 4220
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I'm downloading it now... I've aways wanted to play with gravis stuff... in actual factr, if i ever see on on EBAY then I will get it! I had one a few years ago... well, it was a very long time ago actually... buit I was too young and stupid to understand it, set Dooms music to SB and concluded that it was crap... if only I had understood these things then I might still have it now...
I'm big into music and It was amaizing when I got my first SB 128 Sound Card... I'm obsessed with midi as it's what I learnt to compose on and I dream of that sexy Roland XV-2020 sound module
. I will be saving up for that though... maybe in a month I'll finally have one 
.
Is the file a soundfont? Can I extract the sounds and use them in Logics EXS 24 sampler to create cool midi music? Alternatively, can I get windows to natively use it so I can use midi in Logic to get these cool sounds? I really need to know... it might save me £400
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I'm big into music and It was amaizing when I got my first SB 128 Sound Card... I'm obsessed with midi as it's what I learnt to compose on and I dream of that sexy Roland XV-2020 sound module
. I will be saving up for that though... maybe in a month I'll finally have one .Is the file a soundfont? Can I extract the sounds and use them in Logics EXS 24 sampler to create cool midi music? Alternatively, can I get windows to natively use it so I can use midi in Logic to get these cool sounds? I really need to know... it might save me £400
.The files in the ZIP are all Gravis format patches, but were extracted from a soundfont file. I'm not familar with the EXS24, but I don't believe that you could use the patches with that sampler.
As far as using the patches as a native MIDI device for windows, there's really no way to do that either (AFAIK, there aren't any software wavetable synthesizer engines that can use Gravis format patches and also can be used as a global Windows MIDI device).
Heh, I myself do all of my composing on an old 486 with six AWE32 ISA sound cards <LOL>... each with 32MB of ram, and loaded with a slew of commercial and custom soundfonts. The reason that I still use the old 486 for MIDI compostion is that I simply could never find a modern motherboard that had six ISA slots on it to house all of my AWE32s <BG>.
Yes, the Roland MIDI modules are quite nice. I remember ages ago longing for one of the SC88 Pro modules, but alas, the cost was WAY to high for my budget <BG>. All in all IMHO, ya can't beat a soundfont compatable sound card with a few decent commercial soundfonts loaded into the onboard RAM for the money... best bang for the buck, especially if your on a budget IMHO -:)
P.S. This Gravis patch set (as well as several of the other modern "monsters" out there) would never be able to load into any of the original Gravis sound cards. Reason being, they didn't have enough RAM on them <G>. AFAIK (I've never owned a GUS of any incarnation), the most RAM that they offered on the GUS cards was a max of 6 (or 8) MB, I think.
Back in their hay-day though, the GUS's were one cool piece of hardware... the first wavetable synthesis ever created for PC -:)
(Edit) P.P.S. Click here to hear a few MP3s recorded from my MIDI hardware. Although the songs on that page are not my own original compositions (they are from Transport Tycoon), it will give ya an idea of how nice that a bunch of high quality commercial soundfonts will sound loaded into the AWEs (as well as any other soundfont compatable sound card with some decent soundfonts) when playing back MIDIs -:)
As far as using the patches as a native MIDI device for windows, there's really no way to do that either (AFAIK, there aren't any software wavetable synthesizer engines that can use Gravis format patches and also can be used as a global Windows MIDI device).
Heh, I myself do all of my composing on an old 486 with six AWE32 ISA sound cards <LOL>... each with 32MB of ram, and loaded with a slew of commercial and custom soundfonts. The reason that I still use the old 486 for MIDI compostion is that I simply could never find a modern motherboard that had six ISA slots on it to house all of my AWE32s <BG>.
Yes, the Roland MIDI modules are quite nice. I remember ages ago longing for one of the SC88 Pro modules, but alas, the cost was WAY to high for my budget <BG>. All in all IMHO, ya can't beat a soundfont compatable sound card with a few decent commercial soundfonts loaded into the onboard RAM for the money... best bang for the buck, especially if your on a budget IMHO -:)
P.S. This Gravis patch set (as well as several of the other modern "monsters" out there) would never be able to load into any of the original Gravis sound cards. Reason being, they didn't have enough RAM on them <G>. AFAIK (I've never owned a GUS of any incarnation), the most RAM that they offered on the GUS cards was a max of 6 (or 8) MB, I think.
Back in their hay-day though, the GUS's were one cool piece of hardware... the first wavetable synthesis ever created for PC -:)
(Edit) P.P.S. Click here to hear a few MP3s recorded from my MIDI hardware. Although the songs on that page are not my own original compositions (they are from Transport Tycoon), it will give ya an idea of how nice that a bunch of high quality commercial soundfonts will sound loaded into the AWEs (as well as any other soundfont compatable sound card with some decent soundfonts) when playing back MIDIs -:)
Yep yep, I had previosuly tried that one out quite some time ago (still have the RAR somewhere on my hard drive). Although that patch set was quite nice, there were a few things that didn't agree with my hearing (or lack thereof <LOL>) with the set. The volume balance is off a bit between a few of the instruments, and a few of the instruments don't sound too well <IMHO>.
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Lexus Alyus
- Posts: 4220
- Joined: Tue Jul 15, 2003 5:07 pm
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I'm currently using a Roland VSC for my midi sounds. The sounds actualluy are pritty shit... but not bad in Doom . You'd thionk that Roland woud have the time to make a virtual midi system that emulates the SC88 a little better than this... the sounds really do suck... but do strangely sound good in a song...
I tried the patch... it was good, but my VSC is just as good... although that one cost me £50... your patch is better for the money . It's a nice piece of work... will check out those MP3's... I love TT's music .
The EXS is a cool sampler that comes bundled with Logic Audio... it actually supports sound fonts... plus I have a wealth of sexy sounds such as nice Grand pianos and strings... plus my own grown drum kit. So, I don't need any flash hardware synths or anything (That's also not mentioning my huge library of Soft synths that can create any sound imaginable) but I'd just like to run all of my midi through a XV2020 and make some of those classic pure midi songs with nice sounds... I don't understand it myself... but I still will save up for one .
Cool stuff, cool stuff. Just as a sidew note... how do you load up soundfonts? I'm using a Terretec DMX 6Fire sound card and would like to use the nice SB' 8mb sound font library... just for old times sake .
. You'd thionk that Roland woud have the time to make a virtual midi system that emulates the SC88 a little better than this... the sounds really do suck... but do strangely sound good in a song...I tried the patch... it was good, but my VSC is just as good... although that one cost me £50
... your patch is better for the money . It's a nice piece of work... will check out those MP3's... I love TT's music .The EXS is a cool sampler that comes bundled with Logic Audio... it actually supports sound fonts... plus I have a wealth of sexy sounds such as nice Grand pianos and strings... plus my own grown drum kit
. So, I don't need any flash hardware synths or anything (That's also not mentioning my huge library of Soft synths that can create any sound imaginable) but I'd just like to run all of my midi through a XV2020 and make some of those classic pure midi songs with nice sounds... I don't understand it myself... but I still will save up for one .Cool stuff, cool stuff
. Just as a sidew note... how do you load up soundfonts? I'm using a Terretec DMX 6Fire sound card and would like to use the nice SB' 8mb sound font library... just for old times sake .As far as the VSC vs the SC88, hehe, the VSC comes with a 2MB sound bank (I think, it's either 2mb or 4mb, can't really remember), but the real SC88 MIDI module has several hundred megabytes of samples stored in it's internal ROM... hence the SC88 sounds better than the VSC <G> -:)
As for soundfonts, when I'm composing I use my AWE32s in my old 486. In (one of) my main Pentium, I don't have a soundfont compatable sound card in it <BG>.
BTW, comparing software wavetable synthesis vs hardware MIDI synthesis... there's really no comparison. Although several of the softsynths do a real nice job (Timidity included), there's no substitute for real hardware wavetable synthesis. In other words, my AWE32s with the soundfonts loaded in to them sound a 1000 times better than any of the softsynths that I've heard <LOL> -:)
As for soundfonts, when I'm composing I use my AWE32s in my old 486. In (one of) my main Pentium, I don't have a soundfont compatable sound card in it <BG>.
BTW, comparing software wavetable synthesis vs hardware MIDI synthesis... there's really no comparison. Although several of the softsynths do a real nice job (Timidity included), there's no substitute for real hardware wavetable synthesis. In other words, my AWE32s with the soundfonts loaded in to them sound a 1000 times better than any of the softsynths that I've heard <LOL> -:)
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Lexus Alyus
- Posts: 4220
- Joined: Tue Jul 15, 2003 5:07 pm
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Hehe, just realised that I didn't answer your question. Most SF2 compatable sound cards come with some form of utility to load in soundfonts into RAM. I'm not sure about that specific one, but the AWE line of sound cards come with the "AWE Control Panel" to load in sound fonts. I think that the newer Creative Labs' sound cards come with something called the "Virtual Soundfont Manager", but I'm not really sure as I don't have any of the newer CLI sound cards.Lexus Alyus wrote:Just as a sidew note... how do you load up soundfonts? I'm using a Terretec DMX 6Fire sound card and would like to use the nice SB' 8mb sound font library... just for old times sake
Hehe, I'm not familiar with the above said synths (I assume that they are softsynths?), but either way, have a listen to those TT MP3s... 'bout as realistic sounding as you can get <BG> -:)Lexus Alyus wrote:Man, I bet it doesn't sound as nice as Absynth 2.0 or Native Instruments Pro 53
I'll agree that general midi soft synths are pritty poor though
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Lexus Alyus
- Posts: 4220
- Joined: Tue Jul 15, 2003 5:07 pm
- Location: Nottingham, UK
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Okay... I'll listen .
The above mentioned synths are actually made to emulate proper Analogue synths lkike the moog... they are set out with all the filters and envelopes and stuff... I dopn't think you would use them... and I think we are both talking about trwo different sort of Softsynths.
Sadly, I don't think I can load up SF's... tis a shame. I do know that you can get an ancient Yamaha Daughter board which will give me nice GM sounds... only problem is that this daughter board is a bit rare... damn...
PS: Am listening to those MP3's... cool stuff, very nice sounds and all that... but I can tell that it isn't real. Although, I am training to be a sound Engineer... so I have a good ear ATM . Cool stuff though... I'd love to hear some of your own compositions as MP3's . Oh, and check out these for sexy GM songs:
http://www.edirol.com/products/info/sd80.html
I like this one... its the new series that replaces the SC88... I love the Heavy Metal song... ROCK!.
.The above mentioned synths are actually made to emulate proper Analogue synths lkike the moog... they are set out with all the filters and envelopes and stuff... I dopn't think you would use them... and I think we are both talking about trwo different sort of Softsynths
.Sadly, I don't think I can load up SF's... tis a shame. I do know that you can get an ancient Yamaha Daughter board which will give me nice GM sounds... only problem is that this daughter board is a bit rare... damn...
PS: Am listening to those MP3's... cool stuff, very nice sounds and all that... but I can tell that it isn't real
. Although, I am training to be a sound Engineer... so I have a good ear ATM . Cool stuff though... I'd love to hear some of your own compositions as MP3's . Oh, and check out these for sexy GM songs: http://www.edirol.com/products/info/sd80.html
I like this one... its the new series that replaces the SC88... I love the Heavy Metal song... ROCK!
.
Last edited by Lexus Alyus on Thu Apr 29, 2004 6:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
@Lexus Alyus, yes, I think we were simply refering to two different animals <LOL>. Basically what I want in any MIDI synth/module is to recreate original real-world instruments as realistically as possible, the Moog style of synths are another topic altogether.
As far as the TT MP3s, hehe, there really isn't any piece of MIDI hardware or software that will recreate the original sound of real-world instruments 100% IMHO (hehe, I'm a musician), but I think that some can come fairly close -:)
I've downloaded several of those MP3s from the new SC88, they sound AWESOME -:) Hehe, I wish that the price of the module wasn't out of my range 'tho <BG>.
As far as my own compostitions, I used to have all of the Eternal DOOM music recorded to MP3s, and had it uploaded to one of the forums on Compuserve. Unfortunately that forum (the MIDI/MP3 Music Forum) closed down several months ago, and all of the uploads went with it -:( Sometime I'll have to get off of my butt and upload the MP3s to one of my servers. In the meantime, you can at least here one of them 'tho, surf over to http://artist.amazon.com/richweedsnagel -:)
@Risen, hardware GM MIDI synthesis will always sound better than software GM MIDI synthesis. This new patch set is simply for folks who don't have a sound card that supports hardware MIDI synthesis. Hehe, I have all of my AWE32s in an old 486, but they don't do me any good at all in my modern-day Pentium with no ISA slots <LOL>.
As far as the TT MP3s, hehe, there really isn't any piece of MIDI hardware or software that will recreate the original sound of real-world instruments 100% IMHO (hehe, I'm a musician), but I think that some can come fairly close -:)
I've downloaded several of those MP3s from the new SC88, they sound AWESOME -:) Hehe, I wish that the price of the module wasn't out of my range 'tho <BG>.
As far as my own compostitions, I used to have all of the Eternal DOOM music recorded to MP3s, and had it uploaded to one of the forums on Compuserve. Unfortunately that forum (the MIDI/MP3 Music Forum) closed down several months ago, and all of the uploads went with it -:( Sometime I'll have to get off of my butt and upload the MP3s to one of my servers. In the meantime, you can at least here one of them 'tho, surf over to http://artist.amazon.com/richweedsnagel -:)
@Risen, hardware GM MIDI synthesis will always sound better than software GM MIDI synthesis. This new patch set is simply for folks who don't have a sound card that supports hardware MIDI synthesis. Hehe, I have all of my AWE32s in an old 486, but they don't do me any good at all in my modern-day Pentium with no ISA slots <LOL>.