Thanks for trying Titanic, a General MIDI compatible SoundFont that will bring incredible realism to your MIDI sequences!

Please take a moment to read this document; it contains useful technical info, release notes, instructions and copyright information.


Update: Revision 1.2 of Titanic released 07/17/04.

Fore note

It's been a few years now since this project started (around 1998) as my personal GM bank and now finally harnessed that extra time to get it on wheels and release it to the public domain.

It contains around 2.121 samples, organized into 275 instruments, 173 melodic presets and 20 drum kits, weighing roughly over 270 MB (for instructions and system requirements, please read sections below).

Before you continue the installation, please be aware that this bank is a mix of own work and compilation and editing from other sources (acknowledged below) and hence you may not redistribute or use it for commercial purposes without their written consent.

1. System Requirements


Minimum:

CPU: Intel Pentium III/Celeron, AMD Athlon/Duron ~500 MHz
Memory: 256 MB RAM (if you use Megafont or other compatible soundfont caching/loading software)
Soundcard: Creative SoundBlaster(TM) Live! Series (*) or any DirectSound compatible device (if loaded from other SF2 compatible samplers)
O.S.: Microsoft Windows(R) 9x/Me

Recommended:

CPU: Intel Pentium 4, AMD Athlon XP or better
Memory: 512 MB RAM
Soundcard: Creative SoundBlaster(TM) Audigy, Audigy 2 or better (**)
O.S.: Microsoft Windows 2000/XP

• : SoundBlaster Live! cards can theoretically load samples up to half your system's memory but will only be able to play 32 MB of contiguous sample data. If you manage to load the entire bank, your card might drop voices during MIDI playback if the instruments' samples are not loaded within that limit of 32 MB. A fix is to use a soundfont caching utility like Megafont or others or simply not use your card's synth engine and import the bank into commercially available samplers compatible with SoundFont 2 (i.e. Steinberg Halion, etc.) This, however, will require extensive reprogramming, as samplers I tried do not import correctly all properties set to your instrument presets (filtered decays and modulators).

• : SoundBlaster Audigy cards may address as much as 4GB of sample data in host memory but suffer from other issues. Regardless of how much memory is installed in your system, Windows, with the default setting regarding paged pool size (a memory management key set in the Windows registry) will limit yourself to load roughly 145 MB. Changing this setting will enable you to break that limit but "only" to 384 MB (assuming you have enough memory). This has been discussed with Creative and Microsoft but currently there is no fix.

Another issue is related to apparent polyphony. While the Wavetable synth engine seems to be the same as in Live! cards (Emu10k1), banks that work perfectly on a Live!, suffer from dropped voices quite easily on an Audigy. You may also hear "clicks", even on a simple marimba sequence!
This might be related again to a memory addressing issue/PCI bus latency or other type and is handled by your sound card drivers.

Creative has posted few updates on their drivers and their current drivers fix the clicks mentioned, but make the polyphony issue even worse. Now you'll hear voices dropping very quickly on sustained notes.

Update 09/26/03: I've downloaded the latest drivers from soundblaster.com (version 383 for Windows XP) and work great. Clicks have been fixed (as well as other issues like HT, etc.) and polyphony is much better now. You'll hear some drops now and then but this is because 64 voices are not enough for complex sample arrangements. Rendering midi sequences using software instead of the Sound Blaster hardware synth, like Audio Compositor, you'll see peaks of more than 200 voices?

I personally use and recommend the latest drivers 3.83.

I'd also like to mention the efforts of a team that is currently working on an alternative to Creative, namely kX Project. These guys have excellent working drivers and are also working on support for GSIF (Nemesys/Tascam famous GigaSampler/GigaStudio Interface).
Their drivers are very interesting for musicians/advanced amateurs, but unfortunately don't yet load very large soundfont banks and are a bit less user friendly than Creative's.)

2. Installation Instructions

Titanic SoundFont is compressed using sfpack. This is a soundfont packing utility that uses lossless compression to greatly reduce the size of your soundfonts while retaining the full original quality. To download the freeware version, visit http://www.titanicsf.com/drivers/sfpack/sfpack.zip, since Megota Software doesn't seem to support their products any more at http://www.megota.com/.

Once you have installed SFPack, simply open it and decompress it by clicking on the "Go!" button. Then you only have to place the resulting .sf2 file ("Titanic_200_GMGS_1.2.sf2") in your computer (i.e. where you keep all your soundfonts).


2.1 Windows Registry Tweak

Since this bank is larger than 145 MB (limit imposed by Windows), you need to change a key in the registry. This is how:

Click on "Start".

Click on "Run..."

Type in "regedit" and then click on "OK" or press Enter. The Registry Editor will open up.

Locate "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management" and change the key "PagedPoolSize" data from 0x00000000 to 0xffffffff (if you double click on the key, a dialog box will appear, you only have to overwrite the "00000000" with "ffffffff" where it says "Value data:", in hexadecimal base.)

If you can't locate the key, just click on "My Computer" (in the Registry Editor, of course) and select "Find..." from the Edit menu, introducing "PagedPoolSize", making sure you also mark the checkbox that says "Match whole string only". You may find more than one match (for different control sets).
Change all matches found as described above.


Finally, close the Registry Editor and restart your system to reload the new registry.


Voila! Now you can load soundfonts up to 384 MB.


2.2 Loading soundfonts

To load your soundfonts, follow these easy steps:

Important

Don't forget to clear the Titanic SoundFont or any loaded large banks before you shut down your PC. In some cases, due to memory addressing (what Microsoft calls the system arena) when you load Windows, the O.S. could lack resources to boot and therefore stall.

In my system, with the registry tweak and 512 MB of memory, I have no issues booting Windows XP leaving Titanic loaded when shutting down, it just takes a bit longer to boot.

To clear all banks, just click on each of them in the bank stack and click on the "Clear" button, one by one, until the stack is empty.
2.3 Soundfonts and Mixer / Effect settings

For optimum quality, apply these settings:

Mixer:

Mute unnecessary inputs, especially noisy ones (Auxiliary / 2, Microphones, Line In, TAD in, etc.), set main volume level 2 notches from maximum and midi synth at maximum level. Also set the Bass and Treble sliders approximately at 70% (i.e.: about 2 notches from the right).

EAX Control Panel (Reverb and Chorus):

You can import the EAX environments that I included in the original zip file with Titanic, 3 in total: Midi Keys DX7, for key playing, such as Yamaha DX7 or Roland Rhodes; Midi Stage 1, to apply stage reverb to your rock or pop midis, Midi Orchestral 1, for orchestral music played in a large hall and Midi Pop 1, for standard midi playing. To load them from the EAX Control Panel, just click on the button "Import environment" and import one by one the 3 environments. When you finish, just open them by selecting "Custom" in the first pull down menu in the section "Audio Effects" and then any of the newly imported environments in the next pull down.

Adjust reverb and chorus levels to your taste for different songs.

3. Preset List

The following is the list of Melodic Presets and Drum kits currently available in Titanic.

Note that this is rev. 1.2 of Titanic; many instruments are still not final and might be replaced in a next release, when I get more samples (and time!).

I've added comments and ratings to track progress of instruments and to give users an insight of what to find. You can send me your comments to my email address, which you can find in Section 5 - Links and contact info.

Melodic Presets (176):

1. Bank Name Comments Rating1

0 0 ClavinovaGrand This is a 35 MB stereo piano sampled from a Yamaha Clavinova that I downloaded from thesoundsite.net. I find it has an excellent timbre and texture despite not being a naturally decaying piano. It makes a good piano for staccato playing, but on the other hand sustaining chords sound looped and not as rich as other pianos, such as Warren Tratchman's, EastWest or Grandioso Steinways and Bosendorfers. Sits well in mixes. Shame it's a 35 MB piano from an 8 MB AWM module. ****
1 0 ClavinovaBright Same as ClavinovaGrand but without the filtered layers. Most suitable for lively rock and blues tracks.
You can also find more pianos (ensemble with strings and a beautiful Rhodes from Roland) in bank 2 (presets 1 and 2), ****
2 0 Roland XP50 EPiano One of the electronic pianos from the Roland XP50. Sounds quite decent and retains the original touch from the keyboard. ****
3 0 HonkyTonk Piano Stock Honky Tonk, but sounds acceptable.
Updated Revision 1.1. - 2 new grand piano layers in chorus.
Stock Honky Tonk, but sounds acceptable.
Updated Revision 1.2. - Used 2 Clavinova layers in chorus ****
4 0 Rhodes EVP73 Mellow vintage Rhodes with 2 velocity layers from an unknown source. Sounds good (no loops) but a bit bland. I intend to sample one from a better source with a bit more expression (Wurlitzer bite on the ff samples, a bit of wider stereo, panning, tremolo and bell effects). ***
5 0 Yamaha DX7 Mixed feelings. Resembles the original, fm classic sound, of the DX7 epianos, but it's still far from perfect. Eats up voices too because I mixed several samples simultaneously to imitate the original.
I've also added an alternative to the Yamaha to match the tastes of other artists, a Roland Rhodes (bank 1, preset 5).
Both sound quite "full" as background keys. ***
6 0 Harpsichord 8'I A nice instrument by Matteo Tocchetti. MT_Clavicembalo884. It even has release samples. The original can be found at http://listen.to/HammerSound. ***?
7 0 Clavinet From Frank Wen's Fluid, a top-class soundfont and probably the most renown on the net. Adding some lfo modulation and decay hides looping pretty well and gives extra warmth and tone. ***?
8 0 Celesta Another nice round instrument from Fluid. Warm acoustic feel. ***?
9 0 Glockenspiel This is a stock Glockenspiel (not sure of the origin) but works well.
Updated Revision 1.1. From Cadenza.
Updated Revision 1.2. - From Gigasampler freebie (high octaves) ***?
10 0 Music Box From Fluid, this instrument sounds articulate and versatile. Shame it's not perfect for all songs (sometimes can be a bit slow).
Updated Revision 1.1. Went back to my old bank's version. 7th guest sounding better now J. I also added a more realistic one in bank 1. Doesn't work as well as this one for GM, though, but it's great for orchestral music.
Updated Revision 1.2. - Mixed and modified previous one with a new one ***
11 0 Vibraphone Sounds quite good (with the exception of a couple of sustains), with excellent changing texture across the octaves.
Updated Revision 1.1. Available now in bank 1. The new one is from Cadenza. A bit more realistic and a very rich sustain.
Updated Revision 1.2. - Used samples from an exs24 instrument ****
12 0 Marimba Works well in sequences. As a solo looses a little, though still good and very usable. For some reason, the Audigy exhibits clicks when a couple of instruments are played simultaneously with the Marimba.
Updated Revision 1.1. The lower and higher octaves are now sampled from a Marimba Promark AM15. The other waves tweaked to match the new ones.
Updated Revision 1.2. - Sampled in stereo from a real marimba ****
13 0 Xylophone High quality instrument but slightly dull and matte for some articulations (specially crescendos and glissandos). In case anybody's interested in a quality xylophone, there's one on the internet called "Campbells_grand_xylophone". For some reason it doesn't work mixed in a few GM songs but sounds great and has many samples and no looping.
Updated Revision 1.1. From Cadenza. A bit less impressive in terms of recording quality but more realistic. ***?
14 0 Chimes Had this one from the beginning but not changing it.
Updated Revision 1.1. Re-tuned. ***?
15 0 Dulcimer Santuri Pretty acceptable but no world-class **?
16 0 B3 Hammond A Hammond generates plenty of sounds, but these three variations are very suitable for General Midi. The Hammond and Rotary have some percussion in mf and ff velocity layers. I'm sure you'll enjoy these organs. The Rotary has a lot of "Hammond" spirit. ****
17 0 B3 Perc Organ "
Updated Revision 1.2. - Fixed bug that made instrument not react to event "key on velocity". Now has expression. ***?
18 0 B3 Hammond Rotary "
Updated Revision 1.2. - Fixed upper octaves (reverted to the original instrument) and lowered one octave for compatibility purposes. ****
19 0 Church Organ Acceptable, all-round organ, that is again suitable for General Midi use. There's a pretty comprehensive library called "jeux d'orgues 2.sf2" if you're looking for a more "analog" sound. Recording quality is average but instruments sound very articulate and are sampled from many real church pipes. Check it out.
Updated Revision 1.1. From Jeux d'orgues 2. ***?
20 0 Reed Organ Sounds OK but it's a pretty standard reed. Since thesoundsite is gone I haven't had a chance on finding better samples.
Updated Revision 1.1. Individual soundfont with no author info.
Updated Revision 1.2. ***?
21 0 Accordion Very decent. Unknown origin. You can also find an equally good, but duller, accordion in bank 1 - pr. 21.
Update Revision 1.2. - Guray Dere sampled this instrument originally from a Yamaha Clavinova. ***?
22 0 Harmonica From Fluid. Quite good. There's another harmonica in bank 1, which suits certain songs better.
Updated Revision 1.1. Back to the old harmonica, which is standard in many GM banks.
Updated Revision 1.2. - Don't know where this exquisite harmonica came from but it sounds pretty good. ***?
23 0 Bandoneon Stock bandoneon.
Updated Revision 1.1. Realistic and expressive Italian bandoneon from soundfonts.it ***?
24 0 Yamaha Nylon Classical Guitar Great sampled Yamaha Classical Nylon Guitar with steel wound strings from ProTrax Music Production House. Took out the auto-fret effect (so they don't get in the middle of repetitive chords and eat up twice as many voices) and the fortissimo layers. You can still find the original in Bank 1 (24) for great soloing. It seems pretty much every note is sampled. As my wish list, I'd like to see fewer samples in favor of some more natural decays and a bit of ambient mic-ing, sounds too studio-recorded (just the icing on the cake)
Note: For some reason, I noticed in midi playback that these guitars suffer from voice stealing, even though they're not stereo or heavily layered. In bank 2 there are two other guitars: an electronic sounding nylon and a steel guitar from a Roland XV-3080.
Update Revision 1.2. - Fixed some decays on the lower notes. ****
25 0 Steel Guitar Great and very acoustic Ovation Steel Guitar. Forgot the origin (sorry!) ****
26 0 JazZ Guitar Amazing quality sampled jazz guitar from Leonardo Del Prete. I love this guitar, which is incidentally also my Fingered Bass. Good response from low to high octaves.
Update - Revision 1.1. For those who feel this doesn't sound like a jazz guitar, which is not at all correct, it's just an ACOUSTIC unplugged guitar, like the one you hear in the album "A Twist of Jobim", including some of the best players in the planet, there's a shorter sampled (just 400 Kb) Gibson L-5 in bank 1. ****?
27 0 Clean Strat Very nice clean stratocaster, naturally sounding decays, if only lacks a little in the high frequencies (finger tips, string-feel, etc.) ***
28 0 Mute Guitar Standard mute guitar but works very well. ***
29 0 OD Guitar These electric guitars are from my old Live bank and I'm still pretty happy with them. Besides, haven't found better yet. Kamac distortion soundfont is not that good, sorry. ***?
30 0 Garcia Dist Guitar Same as OD Guitar ***?
31 0 Guitar Harmonics Standard harmonics. Haven't seen many MIDIs that actually use this sound. **
32 0 Acoustic Bass Good upright bass with added low-string bass on the lower octaves. ***
33 0 Jazz Fingered Bass Same as the JazZ Guitar (see comments above). Being such a versatile instrument, I found that it works also great as a bass guitar, if only lacks a bit of oomph in the low frequencies. ****
34 0 Iba?ez Picked Bass Very good and clean sounding picked bass. ***?
35 0 Fretless Bass ***?
36 0 Slap Bass 1 Samples from an Alembic bass. Added some "pop" on the loud velocity layers and bass reinforcement. I might change ***
37 0 Slap Bass 2 From AKAI samples, again from Lenardo Del Prete, I'm sure you'll like it and find it very usable. ****
38 0 Synth Bass 1 It's versatile and works for quite a few MIDIs, but could be much better and more "synthesized", sounds "sampled". Maybe in a next release I could get some suitable samples from real synths and bass machines. **?
39 0 Synth Bass 2 Same as Synth Bass 1 **?
40 0 Violin This is the area where my library lacks, as all of the rest I've heard. I've browsed many soundfont collections and other sources looking for good orchestral arco, legato and ensemble strings with no luck. These are pretty tough to find. Any ideas?
Updated Revision 1.1. Tweaked violin from Cadenza. Still not good at all but somewhat better than the Roland sitting on this slot before. I'd like to get rid of those loud vibratos used on recordings, which are then looped in a single loop arrangement. Another issue I'm finding is inconsistency in recordings. Titanic is starting to sound quite messy due to the different origin of recordings in Soundfonts.
Updated Revision 1.2. - Roland muted violin. ***?
41 0 Viola This viola, while pretty decently recorded, has too much "pitch-attack", which makes the instrument "cry" and sound somewhat detuned. For General Midi, I'd like something simple and clean, with very mild vibrato, even if it's not that realistic or acoustic. Similar to what Fat Labs uses for the 7th guest soundtrack: not utterly impressive but quite useable. I backed up my old violin and viola, which obviously use fewer and shorter samples, but could be used for emergencies (Bank 1 - pr. 40 and 41)
Updated Revision 1.1. Tweaked viola from Cadenza. It's actually a viola on the lower octaves and a tweaked version of the violin on the higher, which I found it sounded better than the original viola samples. **?
42 0 Cello The cello is the exception. Sounds quite rich and articulate. ***?
43 0 Contrabass Marcato + Legato It's not exactly a solo c-bass, but it's a bit better than the "homemade" samples I've heard out there. It's a mix of marcato and legato samples. ***
44 0 Tremolo Strings I've united contrabass, cello, viola and violin tremolos (in ensemble). ***?
45 0 Ensemble Pizzicato This pizzicato is not very "orchestral" but is adequate for most midis. I kept it this way for compatibility with game soundtracks and pop songs.
I've added an orchestral pizzicato ensemble (c-bass, cellos, violas and violins) in bank 1, pr. 45.
Updated Revision 1.1. Switched with bank 1 and tweaked. ***?
46 0 Harp This harp is "borrowed" from Fluid (thanks Frank!). I was impressed when I first heard it. Many stereo samples and a very acoustic sound that surrounds you. Shame that the recording seems a bit out of phase and that some samples exhibit digital noises?
Update Revision 1.2. - Fixed minor bugs like clicking noises on a few samples and also added velocity layers. ***?
47 0 Timpani From my original Live bank, with added velocity layers. ***
48 0 XP50 Strings Good strings are also difficult to find. I've changed them several times and now keeping these grabbed from the Roland XP50. They sound pretty wide and rich, but unfortunately I've only managed to get 3 stereo samples, which is below the 5 notes I think should be standard for general midi use. This means changes between the 3 sampled tones can be a bit abrupt. Another issue is the original keyboard's loop artifacts have also been captured; tried to improve it a bit but it's still not perfect. You'll find that these strings fit somewhat better in pop music than orchestral.
Updated Revision 1.1. Added a layer in low octaves that sounds much better.
Updated Revision 1.2. - Added an extra layer from C3 upwards. Sounds now fuller while hiding previous audible artifacts. ***?
49 0 Slow Strings Sampled from Roland's SR-JV80-02 Orchestral expansion board (on my XV-8, Vienna preset. The quality is adequate and quite usable, of course far away from dedicated libraries, like Sonic Implants' Strings, Peter Siedlaczeck's (?), etc.
Updated Revision 1.2. - New real sampled orchestra strings. I think you'll like this one very much. ****?
50 0 Synth Strings 1 Also from my original Live soundfont. It's not bad, but I plan to replace it some time. **?
51 0 Synth Strings 2 "
Updated Revision 1.2. - N/A ***?
52 0 Choir Aahs This choir is well recorded and fills decently in a mix. The caveat is that it works very well in some midis and not so well in others. You can also try a boys' choir in bank 1 preset 52.
Updated Revision 1.1. Added an extra layer to avoid slow-samples in low and higher octaves. ****
53 0 Doo Vox This is yet another instrument from my old Live! Bank. It works, that's all I can say. **?
54 0 SynthVoice Air I sampled this one from a demo of a virtual synth for the PC. It sounds quite full, expressive and the looping is ***?
55 0 Orchestra Hit It's a bit short and high pitched to suit pop music. I'll try to include a decent orchestral version next release. **?
56 0 Trumpet Multi-layered / stereo sampled wind section for this trumpet and trombone. Not the best in the world, but enough for now.
Updated Revision 1.1. Switched the trumpet to bank 2 and got this one from Cadenza, following advice from a few users who feel its superior. I don't know. This is suitable for certain songs and sounds a bit harsh and reminds me of a military funeral. I'm looking for something more filling and balanced and also a real orchestral ensemble would be nice!
Updated Revision 1.2. - Now a trumpet section rather than a solo. From Giga freebie. Shame I don't have time to reduce size mixing some large layers? ***?
57 0 Trombone "
Updated Revision 1.1. Changed it for other trombones (Cadenza's, ?) but results were not consistent. I ended up editing the existing samples and fixing that messy velocity switches from mf to ff layers. Still 3 stars. ***
58 0 Tuba My old Tuba... sounds OK but needs replacement, just like the English Horn and Bassoon.
Updated Revision 1.1. New tuba from Cadenza. ***
59 0 Muted Trumpet This is the best I could find. It works quite well. As a bonus, just like every instrument in Titanic, I tweaked it with decays, filters and a trick that makes mono instruments sound like stereo, wider and fuller.
Update Revision 1.2. - Attenuated ***
60 0 French Horns Excellent horns with rich and delicate decays and an all-round attack, not too fast, not too slow.
Updated Revision 1.2. - Fixed looping and added a fortissimo layer. ***?
61 0 Brass Section
Updated Revision 1.2. - Now with different sax layers. ***?
62 0 Synth Brass 1 From my old Live! Bank
Updated Revision 1.2. ***?
63 0 Synth Brass 2 "
Updated Revision 1.2. ***?
64 0 Soprano Sax Samples straight from Kenny G...! No, seriously, it's quite frankly one of the best soprano saxes ever on a keyboard. ****
65 0 Alto Sax This sax sounds OK but lags a bit behind the rest. I'll try to find another one for the next release. Something in the line of Grover Washington Jr.
Updated Revision 1.1.
Updated Revision 1.2. - New sax from the EMU E4 sax promotion. ***?
66 0 Tenor Sax This tenor sax is fantastic and reminds me of one you can find in the Roland XV-Series. The only problem is that high octaves sound detuned, which gives the instrument a bit of a "human" or acoustic touch. This issue, unfortunately, can't be corrected easily in Vienna because the final loops are indeed in good tune.
Update Revision 1.1. Those detuned samples are driving me crazy. Unfortunately they can't be fixed. It's too bad because the lower octaves sound fantastic! I knew a great saxophonist on my trip to the east coast of Spain, who happens to play most of the time the Tenor. I'll try to get this guy to play for Titanic 2.
Updated Revision 1.2. - Changed upper octaves with a Roland sax. Still not that happy with the result but it's hard to obtain good sax samples. ***?
67 0 Baritone Sax This is not exactly a baritone sax but the ff layer of the tenor. The bottom line is it does the trick.
Updated Revision 1.2. - New baritone from RecKey ***
68 0 Oboe Great sounding stereo oboe. ***?
69 0 English Horn From my old bank. I haven't found really good English horns. Some of the others have much larger samples and are more acoustic but have either bad quality in terms of recording or bad loops that show too much vibrato.
Updated Revision 1.1. Tweaked version from Cadenza. Much better now. ***?
70 0 Bassoon " ***?
71 0 Clarinet Accurate, solid and smooth with a good sustain. I've also included a bass clarinet. ****
72 0 Piccolo ***
73 0 Flute I managed to pull a few samples from a couple of solo flute songs from James Galway. I think the result is satisfactory.
Updated Revision 1.1. Reviewers agree on the bad quality of this flute? hmmm? In my opinion only notes below C5 were replaceable. I think it sounds sweeter and fuller than most flutes out there. BTW Cadenza's flute is terribly harsh and that loud vibrato drives me nuts. ***?
74 0 Recorder
Updated Revision 1.2. ***
75 0 Pan flute My good old pan flute doesn't hold many samples and shows some looping but sounds good on Michael Walthius tracks. **?
76 0 Bottle **?
77 0 Shakuhachi
Updated Revision 1.2. - Different. Not sure I'll keep it in the next revision. **?
78 0 Whistle
Updated Revision 1.1. Replaced it with a whistle soundfont from soundfonts.it. ***
79 0 Ocarina **?
80 0 Square Wave The instruments listed next from this point are generally the ones that nobody cares about in their GM soundfonts. It's a shame because in fact these are generally the strong artillery that you can find in top of the notch keyboards like Roland XVs, Yamaha Motifs, Korg Tritons, etc. Let's try to make some good synths, pads and leads, gentlemen. I just wish I had a Motif, S09 or the new Motif ES (probably my next acquisition) to grab.
Updated Revision 1.2. - Changed most of these sounds. Most of sf's out there have the same samples, which sound rather familiar and boring. These new samples are not fabulous but a step forward from the previous ones. ***
81 0 Saw Wave ***?
82 0 Calliope ***
83 0 Chiff Lead ***
84 0 Charang ***
85 0 Voice Lead ***
86 0 Fifths Lead ***
87 0 Bass & Lead ***
88 0 Fantasia Pad Whoever made this instrument (I grabbed it from thesoundsite?), has probably heard of the Gravis Ultrasound? , I keep it for sentimental reasons, cause it was my first soundcard and loved making midis with it. There's an alternative in Bank 1, pr. 88.
Updated Revision 1.1.
Updated Revision 1.2. ***?
89 0 Warm Strings This warm pad still sounds good; I made it for my old Live! Soundfont. In bank 1, preset 89, you can find the latest pad I sampled. It used to be stereo but I lost the right channel samples in Vienna after only using the left to mix it with other mono instruments, such as the Forrest Strings. ***
90 0 Polysynth ***
91 0 Vox Pad ***
92 0 Bowed Pad ***
93 0 Metallic Pad ***
94 0 Halo Pad ***
95 0 Sweep Pad ***?
96 0 Forrest Strings My own creation of birds, crickets and a lush pad from a renowned synth for the PC. It's not your average rain/ice pad, but I couldn't find anything decent.
Updated 1.1. By popular demand I went back to a typical Rain Pad. You can now find the Forrest Strings in Bank 2. ***?
97 0 Soundtrack **
98 0 Crystal
Update Revision 1.1. There's another crystal in bank 1. ***
99 0 Atmosphere **?
100 0 Brightness ***
101 0 Goblins **?
102 0 Echoes **?
103 0 Star Theme **?
104 0 Sitar ***?
105 0 Banjo ***
106 0 Shamisen **?
107 0 Koto **?
108 0 Kalimba You can find another (brighter) kalimba in bank 1. ***?
109 0 Bagpipes I tried to sample the bagpipes that start the intro in the Titanic soundtrack CD but when I play the instrument in Vienna, it sounds more like a harmonica, that's why I'm leaving the old ones, which are rather poor.
Updated Revision 1.1. Replaced with Cadenza's. A bit better now. **?
110 0 Fiddle **?
111 0 Shannai
Updated Revision 1.1. Replaced it with Cadenza's samples. **?
112 0 Tbell
Updated Revision 1.1. Used a new tweaked Glockenspiel. **?
113 0 Agogo ***
114 0 Steel Pan ***
115 0 Woodblock
Updated Revision 1.1. Samples from Cadenza. **?
116 0 Taiko **?
117 0 Melodic Tom **?
118 0 Synth Drum ***
119 0 Reverse Cymbal Large and bold, but too orchestral. You can find a more standard cymbal on bank 1. ***?
120 0 Fret Noise **?
121 0 Breath **
122 0 Seashore ***?
123 0 Bird **?
124 0 Telephone I swapped the old digital one for this "old-style" bell phone. The Matrix Has You. ***
125 0 Helicopter ****
126 0 Applause Concert From Gary Moore "Blues Alive", in concert from L.A. to the Royal Albert Hall in London.
Updated 1.1. Replaced it and recorded the intro of "Wings of a Film", the Music of Hans Zimmer. ****
127 0 Gunshot **?
5 1 Roland D50 Rhodes Name says it all. ****
10 1 Music Box Classic New in Revision 1.1. Music Box for classical. Still not the REAL music box I'd like to have? ***
11 1 Vibraphone 2 ***?
17 1 B3 Slow 2 Rotary ****
21 1 Accordion 2 ***?
24 1 Yamaha Nylon with Frets Same as the nylon you'll find in bank 0 but with the original ff layers and frets. ****
26 1 Jazz Guitar Gibson New in Revision 1.1. Only 400 Kb! ***?
41 1 Viola Std New in Revision 1.1. Only viola samples from bank 0. **?
45 1 PizzicatoStr A much more orchestral version of the pizzicato strings found in bank 0. A little negative point is a so-so recording quality.
Updated Revision 1.1. Switched pizzicato strings. Now this bank has the original pizzicato (smaller). Better for certain songs. ***
48 1 Strings Orchestral New in Revision 1.1. Same strings as in bank 0 except for an extra layer (Kurzweil PC88 strings). ***
52 1 Choir Aahs Mix New in Revision 1.1. Same as bank 0. ****
54 1 Synth Vox bak **?
56 1 Trumpet Section New in Revision 1.1. Hmmm?doesn't work but it's an idea for the next release. **?
57 1 Trombone Section " **?
89 1 Lunar pad My own warm pad, reminds me a bit of the Lunar Strings from my old Roland XV 88. ***?
98 1 Crystal 2 New in Revision 1.1. ***
115 1 Temple Blocks New in Revision 1.1. From Cadenza. ***
119 1 Reverse Cymbal 2 ***
122 1 Rain Sampled from the beginning of a song from Celine Dion. ***?
124 1 Telephone 2 Tone instead of bell. **?
0 2 Grand Piano Strings I'm sure you'll find these two pianos very usable. ****
1 2 Grand Piano Rhodes " ****
2 2 XP50EPianoRhodes ***?
5 2 D50 Rhodes Detuned ****
11 2 Vibraphone Pan New in Revision 1.1. Two layers of the original creating a stereo pan effect at 2.77 Hz. ****
24 2 E Nylon Guitar My old nylon guitar from my Live! Soundfont. I thought it would be interesting to add because it sounds more synthetic. **?
25 2 XV Steel Guitar Only one of the 4 tones from the Roland XV 88. To be honest, I remember this guitar sounding quite better on the actual keyboard, with harmonics and slides. ***
52 2 Choir Aahs Boys This choir use to belong to my old bank and it serves you well, except that it holds few samples and has audible looping, specially if you push the higher octaves. It suits quite a few midis better than the choir in bank 0, especially the soundtrack from Titanic, where you need boys. ***
54 2 Synth Voice 2 This is an alternative to my Synth Voice Air in bank 0 and comes from Fluid. It's interesting because it reminds me of the synth voices that many groups use, especially contemporary jazz, like the Rippingtons. Shame it's not quite what I was looking for, but very useable in any case. ***
56 2 Trumpet Matte New in Revision 1.1. Trumpet from Titanic Rev. 1. Sounds a bit duller but works better in my opinion than Cadenza's. Personal taste I guess. ***
88 2 Fantasia TV ***
96 2 Forrest Strings My own creation of birds, crickets and a lush pad from a renowned synth for the PC. It's not your average rain/ice pad, but I couldn't find anything decent. ***?
115 2 Wood Blocks
10 3 Music Box Std **?
52 3 Choir Aahs 2 Original in Titanic Release 1. ***
96 3 Icerain Vibes **
52 4 Choir Aahs 3 ***
122 5 Bubbles **
124 5 Windchime I sampled this belltree from the end of a song called "The Wind Chimes - Part II)" from Mike Oldfield's Islands. ****?
125 5 Siren **?
126 5 Footstep **?
4 8 Rhodes EVP73 Det Detuned versions of the Rhodes EVP73 and D50 ***?
5 8 Rhodes D50 Det " ***?
80 8 Sine Wave ***?



1 What the ratings mean:

• Best sampling quality and expressiveness, comparable with renowned professional libraries (within size limits, of course).
• Excellent sounding instrument. Very usable.
• Good quality and generally usable. Might have some flaws.
• Acceptable but could sound thin or lack versatility. Some well-recorded instruments might get this rating because of poorly sounding loops or bad player performance when sampled.
• Poor, bad sampling quality, looping or very small sized samples. Pretty much unusable.

Drum kits (20):

This is probably the area where Titanic needs some time spent. Not that the kits sound bad, but I'd like to offer more variety and absolutely fantastic quality.
This, however, is not easy to achieve and is exactly where many sound modules, keyboards and soundfonts have failed. Now that thesoundsite.net is no longer there, even harder. I'll have to research through CDs to try to grab some good samples.


Kit Bank Name Remarks Rating
0 - Standard Kit The standard drums used in General Midi. Most samples are stereo. Drum samples recorded from Drum Works and Pearl drum kits. ****
1 - Maple Kit Same as previous only with drier sounding bass drums. ****
2 - Acoustic Kit I don't use this one often. It doesn't work as I thought when I added those snare and bass drums from a good drum-soundfont. **?
3 - MJ Kit 1 Michael Jackson Kit 1. The name says it all. The only changes are bass and snare drums. BTW, these drums also sound good with many other pop midis, play around with them. ****
4 - MJ Kit 1 inverted The same than the previous, only with the snare drums inverted for compatibility with MJ midis. ****
5 - MJ Kit 2 New snare drum. Try it out! ****
6 - MJ Kit 2 inverted The same than the previous, only with the snare drums inverted for compatibility with MJ midis. ****
8 - Room Kit beta This one will definitely change in the next release.
Updated Revision 1.1. A bit better. New toms are great. From Sonic Implants leftovers. ***
16 - Power Kit beta "
Updated Revision 1.1.
Updated Revision 1.2. ***
17 - Power Kit 2 beta New in Revision 1.1. Changed snares
Updated Revision 1.2. - New snares ***
18 - Power Kit 3 beta New in Revision 1.1. Changed snares
Updated Revision 1.2. - New snares ***
17 - Walthius Yamaha Kit Tried to get similar drum samples to the ones that Michael Walthius uses (all his gear is Yamaha) but still haven't found good ones. **?
24 - Electric Kit From Roland drum samples. ****
25 - TR808 Kit Typical TR-808. Among all these types of kits I'd rate this one OK, but not stellar.
Updated Revision 1.1. Better TR808 samples. ***?
32 - Jazz Kit
Updated Revision 1.1. New snares and toms. ***
40 - Brush Kit
Updated Revision 1.1. Brush sampled from Dire Straits and new toms. ***
48 - Orchestra Kit The orchestral bass drum, piattis, etc. are brilliant. (I don't remember where I sampled these from.) ***?
49 - Orchestra Kit 2 I just changed the snare drums. ***?
56 - SFX Set **?
64 - Ethnic Set ****



4. Release Notes

This is the first public release of Titanic, so be patient, there's still plenty of work to be done and good things come to those who wait! Also, since this is the first time I release it to the public domain, I'd like to know what amateur and professional musicians think of it and what areas could be improved. Requests are welcome.

Before I start, I'd like to thank Frank Wen, the man who brought us Fluid, for his kind permission to use some of his fantastic work (see Preset list remarks). You can find more info on his soundfonts in his web: www.fluidfonts.com

I believe that in this free soundfont market, a good teamwork could shape up in the end the General Midi (a bit forgotten today) bank that could eclipse professional choices in the form of keyboards, modules and libraries. Pro-musicians: we need your help. With good samples, working on soundfonts is another story. Please let me know if you'd like to help sending me an email: contact à titanicsf.com

I'd also like to thank many others, who have indirectly helped with their sites, instruments and support for sharing my work. Thomas Hammer (your site is all hope left for sharing soundfonts, thanks a lot!), Eric Persing (chief sound architect for Roland and owner/founder of spectrasonics.net, you're my sampling-hero, probably the best in planet), Leonardo Del Prete (this guy always manages to surprise you with great quality fonts, thanks and keep up the good work!) and so many others - forgive me for not remembering your names, I started this in 98 and didn't take notes or keep the original soundfonts?

Last, but not least, I'd like to express my respect and admiration to those sound engineers and audio specialists that work on shaping and polishing those ROMs that populate the best keyboards and software libraries, it's unbelievable the amount of time that is spent to sample, choose, edit, loop, tweak and test the instruments. After spending myself literally thousands of hours on these tasks, I know what it is. Thanks.

These are the features, issues and thoughts of this first release:

1.870 samples, 220.233.018 bytes, 276 instruments, 176 melodic presets and 16 percussion kits.

Thousands of hours choosing the best sounds (within my limited resources, which are mainly CDs, synths, thesoundsite.net, hammersound, etc. and my audio technica microphones), heavy tweaking in Sound Forge, measuring dB levels for each instrument and adjusting the sound fields depending on the nature of the instrument (i.e. jazz guitars sound warm, centered and close in recordings, strings are wide, hand percussion vs. timbales, etc.). Many soundfonts required some reprogramming and loop editing to avoid clicks and hide bad looping artifacts. Testing is a critical part of the job, for which more than 1.000 midis have been used as a test bed for every change, with genres covering pop, rock, jazz, game music, film, orchestral and electronic music.

Size matters! It has played a secondary role in the design, but I don't like wasting space either! With 384 MB available I didn't have to worry too much about size, that's why there's plenty of room for improvement optimizing every sample and loop, but you wouldn't believe what a behemoth of a job that is! Sorry for those that still use modems?

The list of issues, unfortunately, is not short. The main problem with my bank is that it's pretty taxing in terms of polyphony, which added to the already problematic issue with the Audigy cards makes it worse (I just heard that the latest drivers work well on the Audigy 2 Platinum EX). Plainly speaking a couple of songs I have won't even play properly, especially those that were sequenced for old fm cards and use many repeated channels to make it sound more impressive. On the other hand, simple acoustic songs that used to sound electronic and thin now sound great. I've tried hard to tweak samples' properties to avoid voice stealing but some instruments behave funny (like the nylon and steel guitars, they're not even stereo but hold a lot of samples). Generally, most midis play without a hitch, but if you hear voices dropping in your compositions, the only workaround is to separate and record the conflicting channels (a typical one is drums) to individual audio tracks and then mix them in any modern sequencer. This is also advantageous since you can, when recording each track, assign different effects in the EAX Control Panel by mapping them in the MIDI section (assigning it to a particular CC or to default). Another issue, apart from its size, is compatibility with all midis. This is quite hard to achieve, having a General Midi bank that tends a bit to acoustic rather than electronic/synthetic. Many songs that were sequenced using relatively small modules originally sound electronic but not great with Titanic. I have started building the idea of making 2 Titanic soundfonts, the first one very acoustic and orchestral and the other one more oriented to electronic music, Yamaha Motif style.


4.1 Revision 1.1.

Well, no major changes but tried to fulfill requests by some beta testers out there.

Here's the summary of modifications:

- Replaced a few instruments: Vibraphone, ? See instrument list.


4.1 Revision 1.2.

A few new instruments plus balance tweaks overall. For details, see "Preset list" on Chapter 3.


Copyright notice

Titanic contains samples that could be subject to copyright and intellectual property rights. Because some instruments have been compiled from external resources that did not include copyright information, I cannot encourage commercial use of them. However, if you wish to use certain sounds for your music, just send me an email listing those instruments you'd like to use. The instruments listed below belong to Frank Wen's Fluid soundfont (release I), who kindly gave me permission to use them in Titanic. You can contact him regarding the use of his sounds from his web, www.fluidfonts.com, which includes his email address and forums. T


Clavinet Accordion (bank 1)
Xylophone Harp
Music box Viola
Harmonica Banjo
Celesta Sci-fi

This soundfont is intended for General Midi use and is free, hence you may not redistribute it or sell it in part or as a whole, but you can modify the instruments to suit your needs and also reverse engineer the samples as long as they stay in your computer.

Check for changes on instruments on every release. Some of the above listed might not be copyrighted anymore! (Preset list. Chapter 3.)
5. Links and Contact Info

Visit my web at www.titanicsf.com for more info and sound updates.

The next links could be useful for your midi needs:


Hammer Sound (Thomas Hammer's home for soundfonts and midi, plenty of soundfonts organized into categories). Note: hasn't been updated for a long time!) www.hammersound.net
Fluid Fonts (pro soundfonts from Frank Wen) www.fluidfonts.com
SF2 Midi: Lot's of good sf and midi files. Plus a forum where you can talk about soundfonts) www.sf2midi.com
Sounds Online (Samples and CDs for almost every platform) www.soundsonline.com
Spectrasonics (Eric Persing's heaven, world-class sound libraries and virtual instruments) www.spectrasonics.net
Sonic Implants (Have plenty of excellent soundfonts and incredible libraries for other formats too, check it out!) www.sonicimplants.com
Roland (Keyboards, digital pianos, modules, variphrase, hmmm?) www.rolandus.com
Yamaha (The new Motif ES just came out, 175 MB of pure heaven, listen to their new guitars and slap basses, the best sounding keyboards by far!) www.yamaha.com
(Musical instruments)
AudioMIDI.com www.audiomidi.com
Native Instruments (makers of Absynth, B4,?) www.ni.com
Emagic (Logic Platinum and so many great products?) www.emagic.com
Steinberg (Cubase, Halion, etc.) www.steinberg.com
Shan's GM soundfont web (One of the best GM soundfonts around, along with Fluid) www.geocities.co.jp/CollegeLife-Library/5084/
Hybrid (Right now, the largest soundfont site, after the soundsite is no longer available) N/A (search internet?)
I could list many more, but I'd like to send Titanic to the server! See you there?
Also, search for the word soundfonts in your browser.



Note: Old links. Try also to look for free Giga files. They usually sound better since they are more targeted to the professional and you can convert them to soundfont format with a few utilities (cdxtract, extreme sample converter, etc.)

My system specs:

Motherboard: Soyo K7V Dragon+.
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 2100+.
Memory: 1 x 512 MB DDR266 - Kingston ValueRAM.
Hard Drives: 2 x Western Digital 120 GB WD-1200 JB Special Edition 8MB
Video Card: Visiontek Xtasy Geforce4 Ti 4600 128MB (drivers 44.03.)
Sound Card: Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum EX on slot 5 (drivers dated 3/29/01.)
DirectX: 9.0a.
O.S.: Windows XP Home Edition, SP1.
Monitor: Sony CPD-G420 + 17 ADI Microscan.
16x DVD and LG DVD Rewriter Dual 8X.
DSL Internet access 256Kbps

Audio gear:

Amplifiers: Yamaha DSP-A1 + Denon 260w+260w POA 2800 monoblocks.
Monitors: Sony MDR-7506 studio headphones + JBL main/effect speakers.
Microphones: 2 x Audio technica
Keys: Roland XV-88, Yamaha Motif ES 6 (my next keyboard).

Please, I'd love to know what you think of Titanic, what could be improved and also your personal requests, ideas and?samples, why not! Here's my email:

Luke Sena, lukesena à titanicsf.com


I also encourage professional musicians to contact me if they'd like to contribute to this project: musicians à titanicsf.com


Thanks and enjoy Titanic!


Luke Sena

Founder/Owner Titanic Soundfonts
www.titanicsf.com

See you next release