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English Language : Music Technology : News : Spring 2007

Saturday 3 March 2007 : "Dare to Compare" : 5 General Midi synthesizers examined
 

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Remember last year, when I was trying to evaluate Native Instruments's "BANDSTAND" ?

Well, here is the continuation of the story. I just found a site that compares the actual waveforms produced by 5 products : GS Wavetable, Roland VSC-DXI, Forte-DXI, Native Instruments Bandstand and Connexant GM-500 library (*) when certain MIDI passages are passed through those General Midi Synthesizers. As you can see, the result is ideal for comparing the quality of all those software synthesizers. The name of the page is "Dare to Compare..."

The site is PG Music Inc (**) and the actual web page of the comparison is HERE (Dare to compare) . In each test case there is a human voice to help us understand what is going on with the samples. The sounds being tested are taken from a variety of General Midi sounds. Of course, they are all physical instruments.

Here is our own conclusions :

GS Wavetable : the standard wavetable synthesizer - heavily depending on its featured size - usually it's for free.
Sound in the test : You can use it but is sounds weak and plastic sometimes : seems natural to me since it's free.

Roland VSC-DXI (Virtual Sound Canvas - DXi) : a low cost General Midi software synthesizer.
Sound in the test : well programmed, satisfactory sounds, but not the best.

Forte-DXI : another low cost General Midi software synthesizer.
Sound in the test : not at all bad, but perhaps should sound more "fat" in some occasions.

Native Instruments Bandstand : the General Midi software module by Native Instruments (cost not so low).
Sound in the test : the best of the set, "deep" sound in general and interesting enough for writing music.

Connexant GM-500 library : the well-known old library for GigaStudio (cost not so low).
Sound in the test : not at all bad, but sounds a little bit old nowadays. Its waveforms are a little bit uneven.

* The corresponding (available) pages inside PG Music Inc's website are : Roland VSC-DXI , Forte-DXI , Native Instruments Bandstand .

** A very interesting web site actually! Especially if you are interested in "Band-in-a-Box", "PowerTracks" etc. or in General Midi modules like the ones that are being examined !

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