When making MIDIs, should they use the GM bank?

[Lofwyr]

My instinct tells me: Yeah, only stick to the standard bank/programs, cause who knows which soundfonts are used.

 

But perhaps people use nonstandard banks, anyway? DSDA Doom for example comes with its own soundfont, the Roland SC-55 preset by deemster.

So, theoretically, all DSDA (and perhaps PrBoom?) users should get the same experience, then?

 

Well, I'm curious.

[magicsofa]

6 minutes ago, Lofwyr said:

It's perfectly possible to make a midi track that uses nonstandard instruments though, many soundfonts have several banks worth of instruments, due to there only being 128 instruments at a time, the banks are needed to switch to more than that.

 

By doing that, anyone with the same setup would hear the same thing, but as PsychEyeball said (and I myself figured, but just wanted some opinions anyway, since I'm new at this) nonstandard things, are, well, not standard.

 

Thus, if I were to use some specific nonstandard bank, that your setup might not have, then perhaps your synth will substitute something in, or you might hear nothing, etc.

 

Sure, but in the context of Doom soundtracks they all use standard instruments anyway. I thought that any change to a nonexistent instrument would just default to the first instrument (piano)? It would be nice though if it would just switch banks, allowing you to line up your custom instruments with the closest default one. I just feel like any time I've had a problem with instrument selecting, it turns into Oops All Pianos

[PsychEyeball]

It's never a good idea to make MIDIs require specific banks that soundfonts or synthesizers may not have. You can't assume that everybody playing the game will use a SC-55 soundfont or module, what if someone wanted to play your soundtrack through a Yamaha MU1000 or a Korg NS5R? Heck, maybe they'll use a Roland JV-1010. Or they could be old me and use one of the old Creative soundfonts that came on a SB Live! soundcard.

 

If custom banks is the route you want to go, it's better to just have a OGG soundtrack so that everyone will hear your soundtrack the way you want it. 

[magicsofa]

I'm confused by the question. Even if the SoundFont includes extra instruments, none of them would be used by Doom's MIDI tracks or pretty much any other MIDI out there anyway.

[Lofwyr]

34 minutes ago, magicsofa said:

I'm confused by the question. Even if the SoundFont includes extra instruments, none of them would be used by Doom's MIDI tracks or pretty much any other MIDI out there anyway.

It's perfectly possible to make a midi track that uses nonstandard instruments though, many soundfonts have several banks worth of instruments, due to there only being 128 instruments at a time, the banks are needed to switch to more than that.

 

By doing that, anyone with the same setup would hear the same thing, but as PsychEyeball said (and I myself figured, but just wanted some opinions anyway, since I'm new at this) nonstandard things, are, well, not standard.

 

Thus, if I were to use some specific nonstandard bank, that your setup might not have, then perhaps your synth will substitute something in, or you might hear nothing, etc.

 

Anyway, so far the message has been pretty clear, stick to the standards, but there's also something to be said about well established, well used, well modded software, like doom.

(About 30 years of it, right?)

 

There can emerge standards from nonstandards, and I was not sure if on the music front, those exist, like there might be in mapping, where there are many extensins, scripts etc, which have their own standards and regulations, to keep demos working etc, not that music really has an influence on that, but yeah.

[Lofwyr]

4 minutes ago, magicsofa said:

 

Sure, but in the context of Doom soundtracks they all use standard instruments anyway. I thought that any change to a nonexistent instrument would just default to the first instrument (piano)? It would be nice though if it would just switch banks, allowing you to line up your custom instruments with the closest default one. I just feel like any time I've had a problem with instrument selecting, it turns into Oops All Pianos

Ahh, right, the standard piano, I did come across that one before, unrelated to Doom, and forgot about it, and yeah this was kind of a goofy question but I usually like to be sure on the superbasics before attempting something.

 

Anyway, I'll just mark this thread as answered then, thanks.