Sound Fonts

[Mojca Miklavec]

Hi,

This is mostly meant for Davide who is a maintainer for
Frescobaldi[-devel], but I wanted to raise the topic on this mailing
list.

Today I noticed this:

> port notes frescobaldi-devel
frescobaldi-devel has the following notes:
  You may want to install FluidSynth and obtain a SoundFont in order
to have audio output from Frescobaldi's MIDI output.

  You will need to select FluidSynth's MIDI input port in
Frescobaldi's MIDI settings (in Preferences) while FluidSynth is
running.


I recently added a new port freepats that contains a sound font. Maybe
there are more usable sound fonts around. I just picked the first one
(also used by HomeBrew) to get TiMidity++ (software synthesizer for
MIDI files) working. I wasn't even aware that we had a port for sound
synthesis in MP already (I probably even checked the FluidSynth's
website, but I couldn't just keep adding a zillion new ports without
even knowing what each individual one does and forgot to check whether
it was already there).


I would be nice to do some cross-check to make sure that we distribute
perhaps a small number of universally usable sound fonts and to make
sure that different software packages are able to use them. What I did
with freepats and TiMidity++ is more like the quickest hack that
allowed me to play MIDI files with that particular program.

Mojca