band in a box vibraphone sounds

[Keith Aiken]

i have 2017 biab. anyway to get the vibraphone sounds like are in a lot of hawaiian records?

[Jim Fogle]

Keith,

Chances are the Vibraphone you're hearing originates from the built-in Windows midi player. Better sounds are available. I'll need more information to better assist you.

With Band-in-a-Box open, press the pc keyboard "Control + E" keys at the same time or "Options" > "Preferences ..." to open the "Preferences" window. Then select the "MIDI Driver" button located in the middle of the top row.

What is listed as the "MIDI Output Driver"? Is "Use VSTi/DXi Synth" checked? If so then what synth do you have listed in the "Synthesizer / Sound Card" box at the top, right side of the box?

When you load a style that includes a midi SuperTrack, what sound module plays the midi SuperTrack instrument patch?

The easiest solution is to find a Vibraphone instrument patch that can playback in the same sound module that BiaB uses to play the midi SuperTracks.

[Keith Aiken]

"Use VSTi/DXi Synth" checked? yes when i hit the box under the synth soundcard it has chosen general midi instrument misc. but there seems to be a lot of choices under that tab . like coyote forte, edirol soundblaster etc. midi output driver only has 2 options microsoft midi mapper & microsoft gs wavetable synth

[Jim Fogle]

Keith,

The DXI/VST Synth choices you mention is just a list of synths you might have. It is not a list of devices you actually have onhand.

A software synthesizer, or soft synth, is software that generates sounds you can hear. A soft synth that can playback multiple sounds at the same time is a polyphonic soft synth. A soft synth that can playback multiple instrument sounds at the same time is multi-timbrel as well as polyphonic.

PG Music includes the polyphonic and multi-timbrel soft synth, Coyote WT, with Band-in-a-Box. You can use that to playback midi however most users believe Coyote WT does not sound any better than the midi sounds included in the Windows operating system.

As a side note, PG Music also includes a monophonic (single instrument sound) synthesizer with Band-in-a-Box. Sforzando is used as the sound engine for all the midi SuperTrack sounds.

A polyphonic and multi-timbrel sound engine PG Music has included is version 1.730 of Synthfont1: http://www.synthfont.com/Downloads.html.

The best sounding soft synth instrument is Timbres Of Heaven. Scroll down to the bottom of this page to download: http://midkar.com/soundfonts/

Here is a thread (with links) in the Band-in-a-Box forum with some good how-to-use information. https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthrea ... Post590909.

Finally, another solution is to use an external, hardware synthesizer. Here is an inexpensive Yamaha keyboard that can be used as a synthesizer and as a midi controller: https://www.amazon.com/Yamaha-61-Key-Se ... nts&sr=1-2

[Keith Aiken]

downloaded Timbres Of Heaven. cant get it to extract to program file folder. will it extract to a Timbres Of Heaven folder or something else?

[Jim Fogle]

Keith,

The download filename is "Timbres Of Heaven GM_GS_XG_SFX V 3.4 Final.7z" without the quote marks. The file is compressed in the 7z format.

Right click on the file name to open a menu. The menu should give you several choices. Winzip can extract a 7z file. You can also 7-Zip available from here: https://www.7-zip.org

Once the Timres Of Heaven file is extracted you can place the extracted file at your location of choice. A good place to store the extracted Timbres Of Heaven file would be inside a folder you create. For example, if you are using the Synthfont program I suggested then the storage location would be "c://program files/synthfont2/soundfonts/Timres Of Heaven.SF2"

[Keith Aiken]

i assume u need to make biab use synth font program or whatever program that usese the timbres of heaven synthfont. how do u do that?