Timbres of Heaven Soundfont 3.0 is out!

wcnut

Rear Admiral
Hi Everybody!

I thought I should let you all know that Don Allen's masterpiece Timbres of Heaven 3.0 soundfont has been released.

With it you can take Wing Commander 3, Privateer, Armada and any other game that supports General MIDI and make them sound absolutely amazing.

The font also supports Roland GS (SoundCanvas) and Yamaha XG extensions to General MIDI. Although I don't know any Origin game that supports these. But if they do, be sure to choose one of those options instead as that is where the font really shines. Although GM is fantastic too.

Timbres+Of+Heaven+GM_GS_XG_SFX+V+3.0+Final+!!! download

To use .sf2 files not all of use own Creative Sound cards, but there are quite a few options regarding Soft Synths

On windows it seems to work fine with the Coolsoft VitualMidiSynth

Select VirtualMidiSynth as your main synth from the VMS's config program and you should be good to go.
 
A lot! Quite a few samples have been redone or replaced and added. Off hand, from what I remember from the midkar yahoo group: electric guitars, pianos, oboe. A lot of work on the percussion. lots of stuff improving GS, and XG. Balance issues fixed. Sorry I don't remember too much specifics. It's bigger :)
 
Oh boy. I should have uploaded a sample onto youtube. Maybe I will when I find the time. I can assure people it sounds a lot better then an ancient CMT-32L... Nor does it support the MT-32 Standard. (you need munt for that) So all those samples are wrong.

It does support Roland Sound Canvas (GS) which is much later.

If anyone can beat me to uploading some samples that would be great. I don't know if I will be able to today.
 
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Oh excellent! Not that it makes too much of a difference, but did you try doom in SoundCanvas mode? As oppose to General Midi.
 
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Give it a try! it's in the sound setup. I know Don put most of his effort into it, would be a shame to go unnoticed. :) Sometimes you see it as Roland GS (Not to be confused with Roland MT32, which is sometimes just called Roland) also supports Yamaha XG. I need to put up some samples...
 
Hate to be that guy, but can you also provide these in vorbis (.ogg) format? That way, we can embed them for in-browser playback. Browser MP3 support is still spotty.
 
You just made my day!
I came across this because I was trying to get a Win98 VM working to run my Yamaha SY-XG synth to listen to midis (finding that to be pretty futile), and just happened to search for "yamaha sound synth mp3s of privateer midi".
Voila, instantly found this thread, and your fantastic sound font! I was midi-less at work. UNTIL NOW! :)
Thank you!
 
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Oh my God in heaven, this soundfont is appropriately named! Please forgive the modest necro.

I finally installed ToH after awhile of the concept sitting in the back of my mind for too long. Fired up Privateer to test it and my eyes widened like the sun! I'll never use Soundblaster anything as a music setting at install again (barring games of the DOS era that use digital music). New Detroit finally feels, looks, AND sounds even more Blade Runner inspired (OMG Soundblaster, I've been using YOU all these years?!) It feels like the world could swallow you whole. Flying around Gemini as I type this!

If you haven't tried it for your old games yet you don't know what you're missing! Everything was installed for free and easy. I'm on Windows 7 x64 personally, Mac and Linux you are not left out but I do not own either.

1. Download this: http://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/virtualmidisynth and install. Leave the soundfont selection window open.

2. Download the now 3.2 Final version of Timbres of Heaven. Place the extracted file somewhere easy to remember and assign VirtualMIDISynth to use your new soundfont file. Save as your default MIDI map, close the program and you're golden.

3. To use in DOSBox all you need to do is have your game installer set music to General MIDI. Use Port 330 and IRQ 2.

I suddenly have an urge to replay damn near every DOS game I got. Want to take a guess on which series I'm replaying first? ;)
 
Heads up for soundfont collectors and midi fans,
Timbres of Heaven 3.3 beta 9 has been released.

In the midkar yahoo group, Don mentioned he fixed a lot of the old panning and level issues in the GM set.
It's available in the midkar soundfont page:

http://midkar.com/soundfonts/
 
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