Favorite MIDI instrument?

[TheHambourgeois]

I've been digging celesta lately but thats probably because the default thing i go to lately is Bassline + Sustained synth chords + Little twinkly bullshit over top of it all

[EPICALLL]

Undeniably the square synth. I hardly ever use it, but damn can it sound really good given the correct application.

[Fernito]

Slap bass 1 (#36)

[Korp]

Square Lead, one of the most useful. It can work as a bass, pad, lead or even fun to make crazy risers or effects with it.

And people seriously need to use the Chiff Lead more often, its a cute sound.

[Grieferus]

Halo Pad, of course!

[Hayden49]

I'm gonna say that vibraphone is the most calming and chill sound in midi.

[SilverMiner]

Brass Section

[JDoyle]

I think my very favorite GM patch is 52: Synth Strings 2 on the Sound Canvas. It reminds me a bit of an ARP Solina with a phaser, and can sound very sinister. 

Other favorites are the marimba, kalimba and dulcimer. I love patch 88: Bass+Lead for basses but it doesn't always translate well to other soundsets. 

[Toxisploder]

I like timpani and taiko drums, because I like heavy percussion. That's the most obvious one to me. Oh, and tubular bells. And tremolo strings. And synth strings, they evoke pleasant associations. And orchestral hit. And distortion guitar, especially if it's deep pitched. Choirs are also cool, I end up putting them in my MIDIs all the time. I also have a soft spot for organs... Yeah, I like a lot of GM instruments. :D

For reference, I mostly use SC-55-like soundfonts with software synths when playing/editing MIDIs.

[pcorf]

Anything from 001 (Grand Piano) to 128 (Gunshot)

 

My 5 favourites:

 

The French Horn

The Overdriven Guitar

The Finger Bass

The Orchestral Harp

Strings 1

[Novaseer]

Distortion guitar and sawtooth synth are my usual go-tos. The two combined make for a really nice chunky sound.

[yakfak]

the oboe, the electric piano

I think I did some good work in stuff like demin.mid with more psychedelic sounds

 

all that stuff is long gone though, i never wanna touch a midi sequencer again

[TheCaneOfTheTophat]

I forgot I even started this topic! Neat little revive, I suppose.

9 months later, and now I think that instruments 83, 108 and especially 97 are awesome. Those are synth lead 3 (calliope), koto, and synth effect 1 (rain) respectively.
I've also become a little prone to instrument 8 (clavichord) myself. Very nice sounds at a low octave.

[TVdinnermasterchef]

Drums without a doubt. You can literally change the pace of any section of a song, add polyrythms for complexity, emphasise certain sounds the other instruments make and change the entire atmosphere of a track. 

 

2 people could write 2 separate drum tracks to the same song and you'd effectively have 2 entirely different songs. 

[DankMetal]

I love a lot of instruments, but my favorite have to be distortion and overdriven guitar, picked bass, organ 3, harpsichord, the french accordion, the square and saw wave, and strings.

[Plerb]

A couple months ago I discovered the Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth soundfont has several banks full of additional instruments outside the standard 128 that are almost never used in any MIDIs. Out of these, my favorites are the Detuned EPianos, the extra Square/Saw which sounds more chiptune-y than the standard ones, and Synth Strings 3.