When using JAMMER and other software that plays MIDI notes, the sound quality of the musical instruments you hear will depend on the MIDI capabilities of your sound card or external sound module.
External sound modules and MIDI keyboards usually have high quality MIDI sounds because they are manufactured for use in live musical performances and other musical applications where quality is a key issue. If you are in the market for one of these, go to your local music store and listen to some products first-hand paying close attention to the quality of the drums, bass, piano, guitar etc. Then compare the sounds and prices of the various keyboards and sounds modules to one another. There are many different quality keyboards and sounds modules manufactured by companies like Roland, Yamaha, Korg, Kurzweil, and others. The Roland Sound Canvas is a nice sound module that has good quality instrument patches and a reasonable price tag. There are a number of different models of the Sound Canvas with different feature sets. You can find out more about them at edirol.com.
Computer sound cards do not always place a high priority on MIDI musical instrument quality so the instrument quality can vary greatly from one card to another. Some sound cards (older ones mainly) only support FM synthesis for MIDI instrument playback. The instrument sounds on these cards sound a lot like game sound effects or electronic sounds. Computer sound cards with "Wave Table Synthesis" or "Downloadable Sound Fonts" have the best quality because they use digitally recorded samples of real instruments to play the notes sent out by the software. However, even these can vary greatly in quality depending on the samples they use internally. The Sound Blaster Live is a vey affordable card that lets you download different sound fonts into it giving you an open ended system. The Sound Blaster Live ships with a preloaded set of General MIDI sounds that are ok but for about $30 you can get some real nice sounds from Sonic Implants at sonicimplants.com. For more sound font choices, check out the web site soundfont.com.
What about using JAMMER with soft synths?
Click here for more information
Copyright © by SoundTrek All Right Reserved.
