How to find a specific kind of plugin in KXStudio

Installation & Configuration Linux
#1

Hello,
I installed the KXStudio repository. Now I am trying to find a piano (MIDI?) plugin (it doesn’t matter if grand piano or Rhodes), but I do not really know where and how to search.

Can somebody please advice?

Btw: other web links to free instruments/piano plugins which work under Linux are welcome!

Regards.

#2

I do not have first hand experience with KXStudio, so I prefer someone else to answer your first question.

#3

Very often I use sound fonts for instruments instead of instrument specific plugins

to demo I use the General Midi Synth plugin which comes with a soundfont collection package
including piano, strings, … lots of instruments. Can be found somewhere on the web and has been written by Robin I think.
This is very quick!

To further refine I have my collection of free sound fonts from the web, which I use with the Fluid synth or the Ardour synth sound font player.

HTH

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#4

Pianobook has freely-available instruments in several formats supported natively under Linux:

#5

https://drobilla.net/software/mda-lv2.html
MDA piano, MDA Epiano, and more.

#6

Thank you for the links, these are very extensive

#7

Very interesting approach using sound fonts instead of plugins: I have to learn a lot about the use of these technical artifacts as I am very new to these topics.
Does it means that a plugin (like the General Midi Synth) is simply the “playing” engine which is fed with the sound fonts, these being piano, harp or even drum sounds? That’s an extreme flexible approach!

Could you please give a hint where to look for these sound fonts for instruments?

A last question: you mention two plugins: General Midi Synth and Fluid synth: can be both unsed in Ardour or just the last one?

I know, a lot of questions, I hope you find the time to answer them, would be a big help for my understanding of this matter.
Regards.

#8

Are these two different formats for sound fonts which can be “played” by a generic plugin or do I need a specific plugin for each of these both formats?

I consider now a plugin as a playing engine which just interprets the sound fonts and produces an output to Ardour. I this right?

#9

Correct, the General MIDI Synth has a fixed set of instruments though and is not based on sound fonts. The ACE Fluid Synth plugin that is bundled with Ardour too can play sound font files. You can load any sound font file (.sf2) with this plugin. Some examples:

Then there’s also the SFZ format, files with that format can be loaded into sfizz: Home - SFZTools
Some piano SFZ files can be found here:

#10

First of all I’m not an in-depth expert of the subject, just an average user, so I might be missing something or might even be wrong in some aspects. And I mostly know it from the Linux side, so for sure I do not know much about what exists on Windows or Mac.
But I will tell you anyway what I know. Others might jump in to help or correct

  1. Yes, Sound Fonts are basically samples packed in a specific format. Plugins exist,
    that can play this samples

  2. There are many formats to package samples into so called sound fonts, I know mainly about 2 of them.

  • sf2, binary packaged
  • sfz, directory structure with samples and config (text) file visiable.

  1. Sound Font editor: A software exists to created, edit, modify Sound fonts. It’s called Polyphone. I sometimes use it to audit sound fonts quickly or to repackage them. F.i. collecting various piano sound fonts into a single package.

  2. On Linux there is a variety of players available, I only know a subset:

  • Calf Fluid Synth, Ardour synth: to handle SF2 format
  • Sfizz: to load and play sfz format
  • General MIdi synth: packaged with a bank of sound fonts (sf2 format?). 128 (or 256?) different sounds. I think that concept has been taken from hardware players. The bank cannot be changed, but there are banks available on the net with different sample (but same instruments) that can be loaded into Fluid synth
  1. Free sound fonts. Below is an excerpt of my bookmarks. I do not know if all of the links still exist.

3.5 Gb Of Hq Ochestral Sf2!
bandshed.net /sounds/sfz [various]
beats.codenamehippie.com - SoundFrontz [various]
CoolSoft - direct link to drive [various]
Cymatics.fm - List of FREE Soundfonts in 2017 [list]
Ethan’s SoundFonts [small]
FreePats project - Sound banks [various]
GSi - Soundware for musicians [various drums]
HEDSound: sf2 [small HQ]
johannes.roussel.free.fr ( sf2 ) [small]
MuseScore - SoundFonts and SFZ files [classical]
Musical Artifacts | Libre resources for music making [large]
Music Production - Zanderjaz - Brass
polyphone-soundfonts [forum]
Polyphone Soundfont Editor - Soundfonts
Producersbuzz 900+ FREE SF2 [collections]
RKhive SoundFonts [various]
S. Christian Collins-- [small HQ]
SFZ Instruments [various HQ]
simant.ru [small]
SM Drums - For SFZ / Sforzando [HQ]
Soni Musicae-Home [various small HQ]
Sound Bytes - Early Patches [small]
Soundfonts 4U [various HQ]
Synthfont - links to soundfonts [list]
Synthfont - download [small]
SYNTH ZONE - SOUNDFONT RESOURCES [list]
TheJazzPage - Sound Fonts [various LQ]
3.5 Gb Of Hq Ochestral Sf2!
bandshed.net /sounds/sfz [various]
beats.codenamehippie.com - SoundFrontz [various]
CoolSoft - direct link to drive [various]
Cymatics.fm - List of FREE Soundfonts in 2017 [list]
Ethan’s SoundFonts [small]
FreePats project - Sound banks [various]
GSi - Soundware for musicians [various drums]
HEDSound: sf2 [small HQ]
johannes.roussel.free.fr ( sf2 ) [small]
MuseScore - SoundFonts and SFZ files [classical]
Musical Artifacts | Libre resources for music making [large]
Music Production - Zanderjaz - Brass
polyphone-soundfonts [forum]
Polyphone Soundfont Editor - Soundfonts
Producersbuzz 900+ FREE SF2 [collections]
RKhive SoundFonts [various]
S. Christian Collins-- [small HQ]
SFZ Instruments [various HQ]
simant.ru [small]
SM Drums - For SFZ / Sforzando [HQ]
Soni Musicae-Home [various small HQ]
Sound Bytes - Early Patches [small]
Soundfonts 4U [various HQ]
Synthfont - links to soundfonts [list]
Synthfont - download [small]
SYNTH ZONE - SOUNDFONT RESOURCES [list]
TheJazzPage - Sound Fonts [various LQ]
TriSamples - Free Soundfonts [list]

HTP

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#11

Hi Jeremy,
thanx for your explanations!
I just tried some plugins in Ardour: ACE Reasonable Synth works (it produces sound) but the ACE Fluid Synth doesn’t.
Do you have a hint where the reason is?

#12

I think the General Midi Synth has a sf2 file behind the scene

gmsynth.lv2/
├── GeneralUser_LV2.sf2
├── gmsynth.so
├── gmsynth.ttl
└── manifest.ttl

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#13

Ah didn’t know that, thanks!

#14

Hi Peter,
wow, it will take me a lot to process this huge amount of information, thanx a lot!

#15

Maybe it has not been packaged in KXStudio?

I always use the binary from Ardour.com so, yes it’s there.
Just be sure to answer (Y) during installation when asked for the Harrison plugins

#16

is present in Ardour, I can select it for a MIDI track, however it does not produce any sound (I have attached an USB KORG keyboard to produce the sound).

#17

BTW: the tag at the end of each link gives some indication about what to expect.
I always had wanted to create a web page to organize the info in a better way, but as you can see it has not happened :slight_smile:

#18

For the ACE Fluid Synth to work you need to load a sound font file into the plugin:

image
image1171×981 144 KB

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#19

To use the sound font player you first need to load the sound font into the player

  • download some sound font
  • open the GUI of the player and locate the load button
  • browse to the sound font you want to load and select it

Now you should be able to hear something

#20

Let me thank you all for the wonderful support! :+1: :+1: :+1:

Now I think I have understood the basics and beyond them, got a lot of information from you all. Following I have to try to put it into practice.
Regards.

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