On 6 Apr 2006 at 9:28, Eric Dannewitz wrote: > David W. Fenton wrote: > > I am very anti-iTunes for anything other than as a media player > > (which I use it for). I won't use it for anything else because I > > don't like the choices that have been made for me. For MIDI-to-WAV > > conversion it's useless, since it uses the horrid QT instruments. > > > This is true about Quicktime Instruments, but, seriously, way would > you render a Midi using it?
The point is that I *wouldn't*, but it's the only option. That's why I have a separate program that allows me to capture the output of any of the MIDI synthesizers on my system (soft or hard). > iTunes does allow you to CHANGE settings. Not sure what you mean by "I > won't use it for anything else because I don't like the choices that > have been made for me." iTunes doesn't encode your files with DRM. > That is totally FUD. I've tried changing settings and they don't allow me the same flexibility as the other tools that I've been using. > > They may be, but I consider that a stupid > > trend. Systems are moving towards handing off all the graphics > > processing to dedicated devices, so I don't quite understand why > > the trend in audio is going in the other direction. There was a time > > when there was a move to share video and system memory, but that > > obviously didn't work out very well for the new graphics-heavy > > OS's, so that's ending. It just makes sense to have a separate > > device for this and I just think it's bloody stupid for the > > industry to try to move towards all-software synthesis. > > Soundfonts are great, but they can just as easily be loaded into > > the synthesizer card's RAM as into the PC's. > > Soundfonts pale in comparison to all the great > sample players out there. . . . >From my point of view, a soundfont and a sample are the same thing -- you're taking a synthesizer and loading a selection of sounds into it, rather than being stuck with the ones it came with. This can be done either in software or in hardware. If it were done in hardware, it would make the system much more efficient. If GPO's instruments could be offloaded to a separate DSP on a soundcard, you'd not have the awful problems that occur with loading up too many of them at a time. > . . . And there are cards available that will take > some of the audio processing away from the computer, though its more > for plug ins. As horsepower increases, why do you need a card to > handle the task. You could probably easily run a full 30 piece band > using an intel version of GPO or something, and it would sound more > convincing than using soundfonts. I don't distinguish between soundfonts and samples. > Seriously though, soundfonts are a thing of the 90s. Well, I've never used any. I don't know the terminology. All I meant was that you're loading your instrument sounds from data stored in files, rather than hard-encoded into a particular soft synth or ROM on a soundcard. -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
