I haven't listened to this at all, but the description seems promising:
Fatboy Soundfont
Quote:DOES THE MUSIC SOUND CRAPPY IN YOUR OLD 80'S / 90'S PC GAMES?
FatBoy was created specifically to make MIDI sound better. Hopefully, a lotbetter. Any games which utilize MIDI-based soundtracks will sound dramatically different with FatBoy.
I would not be surprised if several of the general midi instruments available in this one sound suspiciously familiar, but still there may be some gems of interest.
I haven't listened to it either and my spontaneous reaction was that if you think 80's/90's PC games "sound crappy" and start creating a 300 MB sf2 to remedy it... you're kind of missing the point. The character of game music from that era comes from the fact that it used tiny, tiny samples. Just replacing everything with higher quality samples isn't going to make it sound better, it's just going to different and possibly weird.
Makes me wonder what's next. "Hey this SID chip thing sounds pretty crummy, so I replaced all the waveforms with 32bit/192khz ones instead."
(01-14-2019, 02:58 AM)Mattias Westlund Wrote: [ -> ]I haven't listened to it either and my spontaneous reaction was that if you think 80's/90's PC games "sound crappy" and start creating a 300 MB sf2 to remedy it... you're kind of missing the point. The character of game music from that era comes from the fact that it used tiny, tiny samples. Just replacing everything with higher quality samples isn't going to make it sound better, it's just going to different and possibly weird.
Makes me wonder what's next. "Hey this SID chip thing sounds pretty crummy, so I replaced all the waveforms with 32bit/192khz ones instead."
Heh, you make a good point. Mostly I shared it because some people here may be on the lookout for free virtual instruments that sound nice.
^ I'd tend to agree with Mattias. The original sounds are half of the identity of the original music, much as someone composing for a clarinet or trombone in Mozart's time would be shocked if not upset to hear them played on modern equivalents. However, I do see some new users may wish to have a modern option available.
I did listen to some of the demos, as well as pick my way through the soundfont in Viena. The sounds appear to be pulled from a mix pre-SSO .sf2's predominantly, although a few things sound a lot like VPO/VSCO (the harp for one). I definitely recognize the horn ensemble and flute samples from my soundfont days, and the percussion seems to be from SoundCanvas, or at least they seem to match the sounds on my Boss (Roland) DS-330.
What does bug me is that they didn't attribute any sources, which bothers me even more since a few of the samples are a little too good to not be known freeware. The violin and some other strings for example sounds suspiciously like the one I remember from EWQL SO...
(01-14-2019, 03:15 AM)Michael Willis Wrote: [ -> ]Heh, you make a good point. Mostly I shared it because some people here may be on the lookout for free virtual instruments that sound nice.
Oh I got that, I didn't mean to imply that you were endorsing the use of this soundfont in retrogaming. I was just commenting on the notion of old games "sounding crappy".
(01-14-2019, 03:55 AM)Samulis Wrote: [ -> ]The original sounds are half of the identity of the original music, much as someone composing for a clarinet or trombone in Mozart's time would be shocked if not upset to hear them played on modern equivalents.
Exactly. I realize that MS GS Wavetable synth isn't optimal for playing old games, but it's still likely to be a lot closer to what the music is supposed to sound like than a sound bank with modern high quality samples.
Most soundfonts contain questionable samples. Long ago I thought about converting more after I did one from a reliable source and discovered they often contained uncredited commercial samples.
(01-14-2019, 04:37 PM)bigcat1969 Wrote: [ -> ]Most soundfonts contain questionable samples. Long ago I thought about converting more after I did one from a reliable source and discovered they often contained uncredited commercial samples.
It really is a shame; as much as I'd like to support and see people making new freeware like this, I can't condone (potential) blatant copyright violations. Half the point of things being free and open is creating a trail of attribution so people can see where and how things came together. In 30, 40 years, someone is going to be trying to put together all these relationships on where samples came from and who made them and stuff like this isn't going to make their job any easier.
That being said, it would be nice if someone made a new general .sf2 with all the new advances in freeware that have gone on in the last decade. However, whatever purpose that would serve, due to the limits of the .sf2 format, would be quite limited.
By the time you are done Sam, they can just use your CC0 samples to make the whole GM midi level 2 sfz/sf2 soundset! ;P