Me again with more Midi problems

I have now found a guitar soundfont which doesn’t sound too bad. I’ve installed it into my soundcard and can hear it played back via the ‘creative keyboard’. The font is installed in SB Audigy Synth B as bank 10, instrument 26 (Jazz Guitar). In n-tracks I have Midi out set as Synth B. When I play a midi file I am still getting the tinny original sound and not the new one. Double clicking on the track I have the following (I can’t post a screen capture for some reason!)

Program - Electric Guitar (Jazz)
Channel - 3
Bank - 10
Bank Sel Method - Normal
Output - SB Audigy Synth B

Again, any help would be very much appreciated.

Wickerman, you out there? Remember we went through this like a year ago or so with you. Do you remember wha the answer was? I kinda think it was changing the bank select method from normal to another option.

However, I bet the problem is that you are expecting General MIDI names to match up with the SoundFont program. That is almost never the case. The names you see in N-track will only match up if you are using a GM bank. So for example, Acoustic Piano matches up with patch 0 in whatever back you are using. Perhaps it is best to not use GM names in N-track and use program numbers instead. If you set the instrument to Acoustic Piano I bet it will work.

Also, what types of guitars are you looking for? A jazz guitar specifically? I bet I can save you a lot of time downloading junk and tell you where the good 'uns are hinding.

EDIT: Yup, Channel 0 is the one. SO I think changing the bank select method to Channel 0 and getting the patch mapping under control will fix you.

Just a shot in the dark, but I was scanning the NTrack manual yesterday and recall that creative cards don’t like the normal bank select method, I think you need to use the Channel 0 (?) method.

Many thanks guys, I’ll give that a try.
Bubbagump - I’m actually looking for a warm rhythm guitar sound to use as accompaniment to drums and bass (and occasionally piano). As I mentioned before, the midi guitar sounds (and the soundfonts I have downloaded so far) all so horribly tinny and ‘electronic’. Any pointers would be gratefully received.

Thanks again.

Hot of the press - YEP !! that now works (but the font is still crap ??? )

Try a the ProTrax Classical and Maestro Velocity for a classical guitar sound. As for steel string acoustic, Ovation2 isn’t too bad. Marce, do you have any favorites I didn’t list? However, if you are looking for something with real strumming, Sonic Implants is about it and that will require a complete rework of your sequence. If you have a few bucks to spend, Steinberg’s Virtual Guitar VSTi is very good for strumming, but again, you’ll have to rework all of your sequences.

Bubbagump
Many thanks for the help. Unfortunately, the site I found which holds the first couple you mention gives me a 404 whenever I try to download.
As an aside, I have just found a set of guitar fonts on soundfonts.com which they are selling for $9.95 (only about £5 here in the good ol UK). Does anybody happen to know anything about these ?

Thanks again

SoundFonts.com is the site run by Creative and usually their fonts aren’t anything great. I really think what you are going to be happy with woul dbe something more like the SonicImplant SFs. Try this link and listen to a few demos to see if that is more what you are looking for.

Wow, I see what you mean. Do these work in the same way as other fonts in the sense that - if I played a midi file through one of these guitar fonts would it automatically detect from the midi what it needed to do ? I’m not explaining myself very well - try again. If I have a midi file with a guitar playing a single note riff throughout the piece and I select, for example, one of the guitar chord soundfonts, what will the result sound like ? Will it work at all and will it just sound like a single note riff but 'better" or will it sound ‘chordal’ ?
Please bear with me beacuse, as you can see, I am somewhat ignorant of how this works.

Thanks again.

This is what I was mentioning above with needed to rework te sequence. For instance, with a singe note patch, you would have to sequence a complete chord ex: EBEG#BE. With these, each note will map to a specific chord. So they will have a section of the keybaord that is major chords, another minor, another dom7 and these would all be down strums. So to play a CM chord maybe all you need to do is play a C0 note, Cm a C1, C7 a C2. I am not sure of the map on this particular SoundFOnt, but this is usually how they work out. These are recordings of actual guitar strums, not individual notes. Make sense? So it will not be simply downloading a MIDI file and off you go. You’ll have to do some rework.

Yep, gottit. Many many thanks.

Still, if you have the bucks and want to just make it work, look at Virtual Guitarist from Steinberg. Virtual Guitarist from Steinberg.

fer midi guitar one a me fav softwares is powertracks cos i can av display tha gitter fretboard blinkin usefull fer playin
midi gitter stuff usin a gitter midi converter box n i like tha editin cos its easy blinkin good fer midi traks n i is lookin at sumfin called console now also cos looks like oi can play
midi gitter wiv synth stuff simultaneously :D :D

For a Jazz Guitar sound, I would recommend the Sonicimplants Paul Read Smith Volume II Guitar.
It has a sweet Humbucker netural sound that can be modified to Jazz sound, or to beautiful sustained distortion Les-Paul like sound.
Most of the free Guitar soundfonts you will find are quiet shitty. Look at Hammersound.net .
The Ovation is amazing and there is also an excellent acoustic Applouse 128.
Chord Soundfont are quiet a problem. It fails to realy give the true feel of the instrument because the interval between each note in the chord is fixed and equal. This is not resembling the true way the strum playing is produced.
You can do rhythm parts by working hard on MIDI editing of a Guitar notes Soundfont, but this kind of hard labor can also kill you.

Thanks for the response. Since my original post I have been downloading and playing with numerous soundfonts. Unfortunately, as you say, most are not very good. I also downloaded a cheap (5 quid) set to try and they are a bit better (but still not very good). I tried the demo of the PRS and it did sound very good indeed. I have also downloaded a copy of Slayer which I am playing with and the sound is very good (but limited in the shareware version). I’ll keep trying.