The DIGMID wavetable music driver needs a set of instrument samples, which
can either be in the GUS patch or SoundFont 2.0 formats. GUS patches can be
read directly from disk or converted into a single patches.dat file with the
pat2dat utility. SoundFont banks must be converted prior to use.
A GUS patch set consists of around 180 .pat instrument files, plus a
default.cfg index file listing which patch goes with each MIDI program
number. To use these files directly, point the "patches=" line in your
allegro.cfg at the default.cfg file. To convert them into the patches.dat
format, run "pat2dat -o patches.dat samplepath\default.cfg -8", and then
copy the resulting patches.dat into either the same directory as your
program, the location pointed to by the ALLEGRO environment variable, or the
location specified by the "patches=" line in your allegro.cfg.
A SoundFont bank consists of a single .sf2 (SoundFont 2.0) file. Allegro
cannot read the older .sbk (version 1.x) format, but there is a utility to
convert such files: see the links below. The SoundFont should contain a set
of GM instruments on bank 0, presets 0-127, and a GM drumkit on bank 128,
preset 0 (this will be true for anything described as GM or GS compatible).
It is possible to convert non-GM files as well (pat2dat has an option to
grab samples from any bank you specify), but obviously the results will only
work with MIDI files that were specifically written for those instruments.
Some SoundFont banks make use of the AWE32 ROM samples, which are not
available to Allegro, so it is only possible to convert instruments that
include all their sample data within the SoundFont. To convert a SoundFont
into the patches.dat format, run "pat2dat -o patches.dat filename.sf2 -8",
and then copy the resulting patches.dat into either the same directory as
your program, the location pointed to by the ALLEGRO environment variable,
or the location specified by the "patches=" line in your allegro.cfg.
It is very easy to customise a GUS format patch set. You can either just
copy new instruments over the top of the existing .pat files, or edit the
default.cfg index to use different patches. If you want to modify a
SoundFont bank, you must first convert it into the patches.dat format,
which can be edited using the grabber. Each instrument is stored as a
seperate object, so you can export them to .pat files, import from other
files, move them around, rename them, etc. The patches.dat also contains a
default_cfg index object in the standard GUS format, so you can edit this to
use different samples (in particular you can list a single instrument for
multiple program numbers, so for example you could use a single brass sample
for the trumpet/trombone/tuba/horn/etc, if you are trying to reduce the size
of your sample set).
I am no lawyer, and I didn't make any of the patch sets listed below, so I
can't tell you what the copyright situation with these samples is. Apart
from the Emu bank, I think you are probably quite safe to redistribute them
with a freeware game, but I would be very careful about using them in
commercial products. It may be possible, but check the details first. I
can't give any guarantee about the legality of these files...
Richard Sanders's GUS patches
[1]
[2]
Allegro .dat
|
ca. 30 meg GUS patch set |
Gravis patch files. Eawpatches is the best GUS patch set for
TiMidity++. Eawpatches is maintained (tweaked and tuned) by Eric A
Welsh. The first two links are mirrors to the patch. The third link
is provided by Evert Glebbeek and was created from the full EAWPATS
set so it weighs about 25MB. The latter can be used directly with
the digmid driver.
|
Gravis Pro Patches FTP Archive
| Various patches |
The install program doesn't work on my machine, and the distribution doesn't
include a default.cfg file, so you will need this
one that I made. A pretty good sample set, with some nice powerful
sounds, but there are a few tuning problems (eg. the panflute), and most of
the instruments have very long release phases, which makes some music sound
too muddy. I'm not sure what the legal situation with these patches is,
because many of the sounds are based on the original GUS set (copyrighted by
Eye&I).
|
Freepats |
Unknown size |
Freepats is a project to create a free and open set of GUS compatible
patches that can be used with softsynths such as Timidity and
WildMidi.
|
Midia bank |
8 meg GUS patch set |
This distribution doesn't include the default.cfg index file, so you will
need this one that I made. Basically good and rich
sounding, although a few of the instruments (eg. the solo violin) are very
quiet.
|
ftp.lysator.liu.se |
Unknown size |
A large collection of SoundFonts, both .sf2 and the older .sbk format. Many
non-GM banks, plus copies of some of the files mentioned above.
|
MAZ Sound |
Unknown size |
Huge collection of instrument samples in various formats, and links to many
related sites.
|
Instred |
Unknown size |
Patch editor by Martijn Versteegh. |
SoundFont library |
Unknown size |
The SoundFont Library is a database containing SoundFonts submitted
by people from all over the world. The database lets users register
their own (or somebody else's) SoundFonts. You can find more info
about samples at the homepage of its creator Thomas Hammer (link
at the bottom of the page).
|
shominst-0409.zip |
ca. 10MB |
The GNU/Linux Gentoo distribution has a package
timidity-shompatches, which gets its data from
shominst-0409.txt
|