soundfonts observation

[panworks]

I have coolsoft virtual midi synth installed on my computer. I can load sound fonts into it.
When I go to staff set up in an NC project the virtual midi synth appears in my choices of devices. If I choose it, the soundfont that I loaded in the virtual synth is used by NC. I am not using midi cables. I guess I am asking: why all the fuss about midi cables if this way of using soundfonts works? Am I missing something about needing midi cables and their value?

[Sherry C]

Hi,

From the CoolSoft page:

"VirtualMIDISynth is a software MIDI synthesizer implemented as a Windows multimedia user driver, accessible as a standard MIDI Out device."

The CoolSoft synth uses a different technology (driver) than some MIDI synths or sound libraries, and thus is detected by Musician or Composer as a standard MIDI Out device automatically. Not all software synths are designed that way, so those devices have to have a way to connect to other MIDI devices, thus the use of virtual MIDI cables.
For the first few versions our software did not have innate soundfont capability, and so using virtual MIDI cables was one easy way to connect to a number of different synths and sound libraries (and still is for some) and have them show up as usable MIDI playback devices in the Device Setup dialog.

Now that Composer has its own NS Synth where you can select your soundfont (Musician only uses the amazing default General User soundfont by Chris Collins) you don't need another soundfont synth nor virtual MIDI cables at all for using soundfonts You may still need them if you want to use some sound libraries, but the NS Synth can use sf2 or sf3 type soundfonts, so it's pretty flexible.

I hope this helps explain the current situation.

ttfn,
Sherry

[Reinhold H.]

CoolSoft's VirtualMIDISynth is a server with the underlying MIDI technology of Un4Seen's audio library Bassmidi. Bassmidi is a great software package with excellent MIDI features. Today Falcosoft's MIDI Player uses Bassmidi, too.

In 2015 we investigated where to go with audio playback after Microsoft had depreciated the support Microsoft Wave Tbl Synth in Windows 10. CoolSoft's VirtualMIDISynth was one option, Bassmidi directly another option due to the excellent sound offering. We decided for Notation Software Synth with the underlying technology of fluidsynth. It was a critical decision in these days because fluidsynth was unsupported in 2015. Here are few reasons why we did not select CoolSoft's VirtualMIDISynth nor Bassmidi:

• Bassmidi is only free for non-commercial use like CoolSoft. For commercial use significant costs are associated which would have increased our prices.
• Delivering VirtualMIDISynth as joint package with Notation would had required contracts with CoolSoft and Un4Seen
• VirtualMIDISynth is a huge package and requires a special installation and managing by the user. It is too complex as plug and play feature e.g. for Player
• VirtualMIDISynth is very slow with regards to real time features and has a high latency
• Audio export was not included
• Only limited drivers are/were available with Bassmidi
• Our policy is that we are able to compile and build the software by ourselves

In 2015 we decided to create Notation Software Synth with underlying technology of fluidsynth under the LGPL license. Since 2017 fluidsynth is supported again (we also voted for further support ) and has become a very active community (look at the graph here) with brilliant people participating where we also provide our contributions. Up today fluidsynth has become THE software synthesizer in the world across all platforms and is widely used. To develop Notation Software Synth based on fluidsynth was the best decision which we have done in the past 10 years. Today with v5.1 we deliver GeneralUser GS soundfont as default soundfont in all products (Comoser, Musician, Player) which is one of the best sound package on the market.

With Notation Software Synth CoolSoft's VirtualMIDISynth is not necessary anymore.