[Free Soundfonts]

SOUNDFONTS

This will be footnote #2 in my inexpensive home recording informational.

I'll explain what soundfonts are, and how to use them, and lead you to free tools to use them and

demonstrate how to use them. In a nutshell soundfonts are actual instruments that have been sampled

and you can assign them to your keyboard or midi compositions.

Not all fonts are created equally, there are some REALLY good fonts in this list, and some marginal

ones. They are all free and very usable however. You can also create your own fonts.

If I had website space available, or I could email anyone really interested, I have a wonderful personal

collection of one hit drum samples, sampled from a 1958 vintage Jazz trap kit, the one I use on most

my stuff of late. It is perfect to load into the loopazoid sampler and can be a really effective (midi)

programable drum machine. Again, this is all legitimae and legal freeware.

It just takes the time to set it up the first time.

Again, this is just a generic collection to use as a footnote in my later tutorial for setting up a lo/no

cost home studio. The fonts here are all free and all scanned and user friendly.

Again, for those that know soundfonts and have the tools to use them I encourage them to have fun (or share

their own font resources).

For those who don't know soundfonts yet, be patient and you will understand them very soon.

Or my name isn't Orville Reddenbacher..

TOOLS

SOUNDFONT PLAYER (the one I use)

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/769.html

Synth Font.. create, edit or play your own fonts

http://www.synthfont.com/

SFPACK (unzip packed fonts)

http://www.personalcopy.com/sfpack.htm

SFARK (Unpacking utility for compressed files in Sfark format)

http://melodymachine.com/sfark.htm

__________________

FONTS

Steinway Piano Font (the one I use most often, scroll to bottom of page)

http://www.pianosounds.com/

Guitar Vince

High Quality Guitar font (25mb)

http://www.free-samples-n-loops.com/free-g...soundfonts.html

Multi sampled Ibanex fingered or picked Bass

http://www.bestvst.de//

Jazz Drum Kit, Fender Jazz Bass, clean and distorted guitars, zither, fife

http://www.midisoft.boom.ru/download1.htm

Electric Piano, Jazz guitar

http://www.ntonyx.com/sf_f.htm

Theatre, Cinema, Pipe Organ

http://brucemiles1.mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/

Piano, Accordion, saxaphone

http://www.personalcopy.com/home.htm

Drums, organs, pianos, synths, misc

http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Balcony/8644/

Woodwind, brass, symphony, misc

http://www.soundfonts.it/?a=soundfonts

Jazz Guitar soundfont

http://www.thejazzpage.de/index1.html

Large database of Symphony fonts etc

http://soundfonts.homemusician.net/

Another large database of all kinds of instruments

http://www.sf2midi.com/soundfonts/

Lots of orchestra/classical instruments

http://web.archive.org/web/20010926173149/...smartmusic.com/

Akai Grand Piano sondfont (72 MB)

http://www.soundcreationsinc.com/tech/sple...collection.html

Large databank of all kinds of instruments. There is a great 27mb Rhodes font and other goodies.

http://www.fox-gieg.com/rkhive/

Theatre Pipe Organ

http://prosites-allmanmusic.homestead.com/jOrgan.html

Large database of things like bagpipes, vibes, orchestra samples, violins, jaw harps, etc..

http://sounds.resonance.org/patches.py?Action=browse

[Freeware Vst Samplers, Instruments And Fx]

Ok.. I am trying to work up an informational on how to record music at home on a budget.

I am going to need some footnote stops along the way so consider this footnote stop #1

I'll get into what a VST is, and how to use them, and free hosts to use them on, but not here.

This is just a dumping ground for generic softwares.

All these links are active, and freeware. Many offered up by the very people who created them.

Like musicians there is a 'culture' of software creators who want to share their labors with you at no cost.

If in this list someone finds a dead link or a non free item, please let me know so I can remove it.

This VST list is partial in nature as I have a lot to filter through, it will inevitably grow as I get deeper into my

Hard drive.

There are no Sound Fonts included however there are some sound font players in the list.

I myself use SFz all the time. I'll include a list of excellent free soundfonts in footnote #2.

There are no sound samples, there are however drum and sound samplers in the list (I use loopazoid drums sampler myself)

and I will include a list of files in footnote #3 that you can load on the samplers like the same single not drum hits I use.

Of course in the finished informational I will explain how to use a 35 dollar wallmart keyboard and a midi cable to turn your

PC into a powerhouse of sounds and abilitys.

________________

One disclaimer.. there are 'pros' who would never ever ever put any of this stuff on their PC. Free VST is considered taboo

by them. And some good reasons they think this way is that you will get NO PHONE SUPPORT (for example) from the creators of free

VST's.

These are simply 'your on your own'.

That being said I have tried almost everything in this lst at one time or another. NEVER ONCE have I picked up a virus, or malware.

These downloads are the best bet in Vegas for the beginnings of a low cost powerful setup.

I hope those who know how to use them will enjoy the list.

And that those who don't know how to use them will wait for some help before they start trying.

I'll try and expidite my informational.

Cheers..

____________

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/1427.html Acid Dose, Software Synth - VST

http://vst01synth.no.sapo.pt/ Ant Software Synth - VST

http://www.anwida.com/product.asp?pid=7 Reverb DX and/or VST

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/1413.html Stardust Mastering, Compression, Bass, Limiter, stereo enhancer

http://antti.smartelectronix.com/ Misc Phase, Distortion, VST

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/1236.html Sophia Ambience, modulation

http://www.audionerdz.com/ Delay Lama Delay (mac too)

http://users.tkk.fi/~ajhuovil/vst.html Augur Prophet Synth clone

http://www.betabugsaudio.com/plugs.php Beta Bug Gates, Rotory Speaker, Stereo Enhancing, Chorus, limitier, lots more

http://www.bluecataudio.com/Main/Home/ Blue Cat Dynamics, Peak Meter, etc

http://www.bojo-software.com/ Bojo Software analog based synth, Organ

http://www.boxsounds.com/vst.html BoxSounds Vocoder, Step Sequencer

http://www.espace-cubase.org/include/dlsup...s.zip&id=32 Spectrum analizer, instrument tuner

http://www.chordspace.com/ Chord Space 1 finger chord creator

http://www.concretefx.com/QSpectrum.zip Spectrum analyzer

http://www.concretefx.com/DownloadFree.htm Loop Samplers, delay, too many to list.

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/1274.html Concrete 2 Oscillater Synth

http://www.greenoak.com/crystal/download.html Crystal Nice synth

http://www.delaydots.com/xfreeware.html Delay Dots Pitch Adjuster

http://www.digitalfishphones.com/main.php?...2&subItem=6 Spike limiter, normalizer

http://www.digitalfishphones.com/main.php?...2&subItem=1 Fish Phones ... lots of stuff

http://www.dreamvortex.co.uk/instruments/ Dream Vortex Virtual instruments, Sax, guitar, Bass, Keyboards, etc

http://www.dreamvortex.co.uk/effects/ Dream Vortex FX Lots of different FX, Peak Meters etc

http://www.uv.es/~ruizcan/p_vst.htm Drum Samplers, Vocal exciters, lots more

http://www.elevayta.com/ Phat Boy.. Noise and hum eliminators, eq enhancers, stereo wideners

http://www.1337haxorz.de/products.html#v2 V-2 Vocal Synth

http://www.service-1.de/music/html/vst-plugins.html Ring Modulator, Moog Emuator, etc

http://www.sonicspot.com/daplugins.html Tons of stuff, including a VST wrapper so you can use vst in direct X only software

http://www.sadglad.com/freevstplugins6.html Huge list of too many to list.

http://frettedsynth.home.att.net/ AMP MODELES AND FX, wahs etc

http://www.g200kg.com/en/software/index.html Wav drawable synths, drum machine etc

http://www.interruptor.ch/vst_overview.shtml Echo's, analog delays

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/571.html Izotope Vinal emulator. Clean up old vinyl, dirty up new digital

http://www.jxplugins.co.uk/ JX, More synths

http://www.kjaerhusaudio.com/classic-series.php All the classic FX, from auto filters, chorus, delays, distortions etc

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/55.html Loopazoid Great Drum sampler, I use it

http://www.niallmoody.com/ndcplugs/ Reverser, buffers, lots of stuff

http://www.nomadfactory.com/downloads/index.html Tube amps, phasers, tremelos

http://www.numerisson.com/novaflash/ Harmonizers, synths etc

http://www.obertone.com/ Mastering and modeling tools

http://www.otiumfx.com/basslane.php Drum and Mass tightener

http://www.oxesoft.com/ Oxe Nice FM synth

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/634.html Plug SOund Sound bank and sampler

http://p1.rocks.it/ P-1 Tape Delay emulator

http://www.pspaudioware.com/indexen.html?u....html#freeware; (scroll down) Vintage Meter and mixer, reverb

http://rekliner.com/?PageID=11 Loopers, tremelos, delays

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/769.html SFZ SOUNDFONT PLAYER

http://www.pcpages.com/oscillasoft/ Synths and Sound fonts

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/193.html Church Organ

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/193.html Strings, Pianos, accordion, soundfonts, etc

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/141.html Limited instruments, but fully functinal. Good find.

http://www.simple-media.co.uk/music/vsti/vsti.htm#spookkeys Theramin emulator

http://www.simulanalog.org/guitarsuite.htm Guitar Amp simulator

http://www.sinusweb.de/download.html Compressors, reverbs, etc

http://www.stefan-kuhn.net/ 16 channel synth

http://spacewindow.pochta.ru/ 3 different space phase machines

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/76.html VB1 Steinberg Bass emulator

http://www.majken.se/index.php?option=com_...=3&Itemid=9 Multi FX synths

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/708.html Super wav 8 6 Oscillator synth

http://vst.smtp.ru/ 6 more synths

http://www.geocities.jp/daichi1969/synmanu/readmeeng.html Clavia Nord Lead emulator

http://www.ndzeit.org/guitar/tubebaby.html Tube baby Guitar amp simulator

http://www.tweakbench.com/ Dozens of instruments and FX

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/706.html Wave shaping synth

http://www.voxengo.com/downloads/ Lots of unique misc.

http://www.whitenoiseaudio.com/memory/ Memory Phrase sampler

http://www.yohng.com/rhode.html Rhodes piano emulator

[Musicians - Who Influenced You?]

Some of my biggest influences (not that you could tell by my tunes) are a rather diverse group, but I love and need all of them in my mental toolbox. None mean any more, nor any less than the others.. I hold them as equals.

Cab Calloway, his humor and approach to his craft still floors me. Timeless brilliance.

Chet Atkins, Andres Segovia and Jimi Hendrix. For the guitar player in me. They may seem miles apart but to me they give me enough space between them to cover just about anything.

For the Horn player in me, Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker and Eric Dolphy sum up my tastes in horn. Now if I could just play like any of them I would have it made. Bloody brilliant, all of them.

Ray Charles, taught me a lot about not being hyper as I am inclined to be. WHen I am playing piano I often think of Ray, how would Ray play this..

Charlie Mingus and Paul McCartney. Many people forget Paul was a Pop bass player and a pretty good and interesting one too, toss in Mingus on top and between them I have extraced quite a bit of ground in my own Bass playing.

George Martin, this guy brings out the producer in me. When mixing my musical nonsense I often reference Martin.

Billy Holiday and Bing Crosby. The vocalist in me references them time and time again more than any others. Both absolutly wonderful. Bings crooning was as good as it gets, and Billys raw emotions is so genuine we can all take a lot from these two.

Tom Waits and Capt Beefheart. Both of these cats appeal to the inner human in me. Reminding me that it's more than just music, it is story telling and lifes experience.

Tiny Tim. Don't laugh.. the guy was a parody of himself, but he was not only fairly genius, he single handedly revived a musical form that had been absent since Rudy Valee left the building. He was a consumate conisuer of vintage music and was instrumental in building great archives of it. Tiny ALWAYS reminds me to remember our roots, and as a Uke player I am delighted he took it as far as he did. While not the best uke player, he certainly kept the lil fleas alive and to this day when you think of Uke, you might be inclined to think of Tiny,

Gene Krupa.. I started out as a drummer.. and I fell in love with Krupa right away. What is there not to like. He inspires me greatly.

Beatles and Pink Floyd. They were Rock bands.. They both influenced me in the rock band vein incredibly.

Arti Shaw ... Makes the clarinet player in me come out. I can't play like him, but I would sure like to.

Mario Lanza.. Of all the players I mention I try and emulate, there is nothing in Marios bag of tricks I can borrow from, except that his dedication to craft was crazy inspiring. I love the guy.

Thats me in a nutshell..

[Riffs/soloing]

Hi Donna..

There are a few things I might recommend, but take my advice with a grain of salt, as I myself have never had a formal music lesson in my life.

One thing when I started out that helped me the most was to toss out convention. I knew I needed to start with at least the 7 basic chords (although looking back I really didn't know there was seven at the time, I just knew I needed to learn some chords) So I started listening and mimicking my interpetation of how to play chords. Later when I got a book of chords I actualy was playing a few of them correctly.

So I learned my chords, A through E in the first position on the neck. Then I started sounding out the same chords going up the neck. One could say I was teaching myself some basic scales and arpeggios, but I was just trying to mimick the chords in the first position and find the same sounding chords up the neck.

Now here is where my advice may help or may hurt.. take it for wht it is worth to you.

After I had my chords down I realized some of them played in sequence would sound a lot like songs, but not complete songs. I had two choices that seemed obvious to me at the time. I could spend my time learning other peoples songs OR I could just start making my own.

Within days I had developed a few songs that I had created.. simple stuff, but songs no less.. THIS really put a bug under me.. I found that instead of thinking of myself as a guitarist, I started thinking of myself as a guy who likes to write songs and used the guitar as a tool to do that. Once I had the epiphony that the guitar would follow the songwriting, instead of the songwriting following the guitar, it became increasingly easier to express myself on the instrument.

___________

I guess where I am going with this is.. if I were to have to start over I may just opt for the 'formal lessons route' as I certainly could learn so much faster and actualy learn how to do things the right way instead of having to correct bad habbits later. That being said if you ARE going to self teach, MAKE YOUR OWN RULES. If you feel the need to run scales, DO IT.. look to yourself to guide what, when and how you want to learn something.

As a kid it was hard to even find a book in my little mountain town, and so I used to take 45 records and find a lick or passage I wanted to mimick and I would actualy put a notch in the groves with a knife so the record would skip (and more often than not in the wrong placee) so I could hear the lick over and over.

THESE days you have a wealth of information at your fingertips. guitar.about.com is a good resource and there are so many more. As a lad I woulda KILLED for a youtube, instead I had to literally stalk BB King and go to a show if I wanted to see someone play guitar with my own eyes.

_____________

I doubt I have helped you any and maybe even confused you, but I can't stress enough that if you are going to be your own teaher, create your own lessons, and don't be afraid to jump around with the wind on a whim, after all, you just might find something new that way.

One thing you might want to do that helped me a lot running the neck, is when you play a chord in the first position (say an E for example, but any chord) start playing (just the strings you are fingering) those same exact patterns up the neck, each chord pattern will make new chords as you go up the neck, which will lead you to thinking about scales. For instance that E Chod, played exactly up 1 fret becomes an F which played up exactly in the same patern 2 more frets becomes a G etc etc..

Every chord can be ran fro the first postion up the neck and will lead you to arppegios and scales based off that pattern.. you may find it a lot more fun and the learning a lot more quick if you think of each chord shape as a sort of bare chord and treat it as such.

Good luck!