Improving the sound of Karaboss with a new synthesiser and sound bank
Improving MIDI sound is easy: all you have to do is install a small piece of software and add a sound sample file, both of which are freely downloadable from the Internet.
What is a MIDI file?
The files used by Karaboss are MIDI files.
A MIDI file is not a traditional music file. It contains no sound, unlike a digital audio file such as MP3, WAV, FLAC etc.
In fact, a MIDI file is more like a score. It contains the notes to be played and the names of the instruments that are to play them.
The importance of the synthesiser
Since a MIDI file is simply a ‘score’, it has to be interpreted. Interpreting means reading the score, playing each note with the right instrument.
All at the right pitch, duration and intensity, often several notes at a time and several different instruments at the same time.
Karaboss reads the score and sends the information (which note to play, when, for how long, with what intensity) to another application that will synthesise the sound according to the information received.
In this chain, Karaboss plays the role of sequencer (MIDI player in this case), and the application that generates the sound is a synthesiser.
So it’s not Karaboss that’s in charge of the sound, but a synthesiser (you have to know how to delegate in life)
The sound rendition of a MIDI file will therefore depend on the quality of the synthesiser responsible for interpreting it. And there’s no miracle here…
The rendering is “correct” for the “happy few” who own a specialised and expensive sound card. It’s frankly mediocre for the average person. The “vulgum pecus” only has access to the software synthesiser graciously provided by Windows, the so-called “Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth”.
Double-click on a MIDI file and you’ll “see” that what you hear is unlikely to enhance the incredible range of your voice.
Change it!
To improve sound quality, it’s best to replace the sound synthesiser provided by Windows with another synthesiser, and luckily there are some particularly effective ones out there … and they’re free!
My preference is for the excellent VirtualMIDISynth software from Coolsoft, available at the following address: https://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/virtualmidisynth
This software is free, efficient, installs very easily, and makes you forget about it: once installed, you won’t have to do a thing, it will launch itself, in the background, as soon as you click on a MIDI file.
In fact, the VirtualMIDISynth synthesizer installs itself as a new MIDI output device under Windows, so its use is totally transparent.
The icing on the cake is that it will also be used by all the other Windows applications that use MIDI files, typically video games, where it will improve the sound quality!
But that’s not all: it also has a particularly valuable function that the basic synthesiser in Windows…. doesn’t have.
A synthetic sound has no chance of competing with the sound produced by a real instrument.
The VirtualMIDISynth synthesiser is capable of producing the sound of real instruments instead of synthesising it, thanks to its ability to use sound samples contained in sound banks (Soundfonts). And that changes everything…
In short, it’s all good fun.
The sound bank
Your synthesiser will therefore be able to replace synthesised sounds with the sound of real instruments thanks to a sound bank.
A ‘sound bank’ takes the form of a simple file (.sf2 extension) and contains samples of sounds emitted by real instruments.
The more sounds the file contains, the larger it is, and therefore the more resources it consumes on your machine…
On the other hand, the more realistic the sound is likely to be, but as is often the case, size is not enough…
There is a compromise to be found, as always 🙂
Which one should you choose?
You’ll either use a bank specialised for one instrument (the grand piano or the Fender Telecaster electric guitar, for example), or a general-purpose bank that contains samples from all 128 instruments in the General MIDI (GM) standard.
Note the term (GM) which indicates coverage of all instruments, such as the Arachno Soundfont (GM) bank or the SGM V2.01 (GM) bank.
A specialised bank will be better than a general one, but you will need to load banks for each MIDI file according to the instruments requested.
My advice:
The easiest way to get started, especially for karaoke, is to use a general-purpose bank containing all 128 MIDI (GM) instruments. You won’t have to change banks every time you change a MIDI file, everything will be automatic.
The parameters that come into play :
The size of your sound bank will be limited by the capabilities of your machine (its memory capacity, among other things)
You would need a gigantic bank to provide all the samples and variations of all the instruments.
If your PC has 4 Gb of memory and you load a bank larger than 1 Gb, you risk entering a zone of random operation….
The style of music you listen to (classical, pop, rock, jazz etc…)
The size of your wallet can also be a criterion if you opt for paying sound banks.
Free sound banks always have a weakness somewhere, otherwise it would be too simple.
But the most important criterion will be how you feel about the way a sound bank sounds – there’s no accounting for taste.
In the family of free sound banks, my two favourites are :
- Timbre of Heavens by Don Allen (354 Mb)
- Arachno SoundFont by Maxime Abbey, which is already quite large (148 Mb)
But there are others of course (see Google ‘Soundfonts’ or ‘sound banks’)
I’ve tried loads of others, some of them much larger.
But for the time being, I’m sticking with these, despite their weaknesses on certain instruments like acoustic guitar.
Let’s say I’m running on about 3 or 4 banks, depending on how they sound on each track.
In short, I’m still looking for the ideal solution. Either a GM sound bank, or an assortment of specialised banks, free or paid.
To perfect the sound of Karaboss, you’ll need to download and test different sound banks. Once you’ve made your choice, tell your new VirtualMIDISynth synthesiser which one to use with just a few clicks.
The screenshot below shows how easy it is to switch from one bank to another. This is ideal for testing, or for selecting a bank that will sound better with the MIDI file you want to play.
You can even switch during playback 🙂
All this is perfectly explained on the VirtualMIDISynth website (which also provides links to sound banks)
For a better understanding, there’s a short video on Youtube that gives an idea of the change in sound quality when you use or don’t use a sound bank: watch it here
That’s all for this time.
And no more excuses if your Karaboss software continues to produce sounds worthy of a child’s organ.