Sound fonts
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Sound fonts are used by most software synthesizers for MIDI playback. There are three main formats as far as ZDoom is concerned:
-
DLS, or Downloadable Sounds, the standard backed by the MIDI Manufacturers Association. The FMOD and TiMidity++ synthesizers use them.
- SF2, developed by Creative. The TiMidity++ and FluidSynth synthesizers use them.
- PAT, or instrument patches. (Technically not a sound font since they are separate files.) The TiMidity++ synthesizer uses them.
The choice of a sound font determines the quality of the MIDI playback.
Forum threads
- "Music source" - discussion on everyone's favorite choice of software synthesizer and sound fonts.
- "Best SoundFont for Doom?" - a similar, and larger, thread to the previous
- "Weeds General MIDI SoundFont v3.0" - presenting a sound font created with Doom and other classic games in mind
- "Cannot get .sf2 to work!" - might contain useful troubleshooting advice if you have the same problem as the thread starter
External links
- SKArk - a utility to uncompress .sfark files into .sf2 files
- SFPack - a utility to uncompress .sfpack files into .sf2 files
- FluidSynth soundfont page - contains many useful links
- EAWPats at Doomworld/idgames - can be used with TiMidity++ to emulate a Gravis Ultrasound
- 8MBGM and 8MBGSFX Gravis Patch Set v1.3 at Doomworld/idgames - another set of GUS-emulating patches
- Silverspring sound font - created for classic games such as Heretic and Hexen, among others (warning: should be used with TiMidity++ only, not with FluidSynth!)
- Debian Fluid R3 package page - once extracted from the ".orig.tar.gz" archive, the SF2 files can be used on any system, not just on Debian
