64-bit Alternative to Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth MIDI Generator?

Anonymous
2010-03-16T09:40:24+00:00

I'm trying to find an alternative to the MIDI synth driver built into Windows 7 64-bit - namely the MS GS Wavetable Synth.

I have a Creative X-Fi card (64-bit drivers of course) but to my woe I discovered that the very nice Creative MIDI synth supports 32-bit systems only.

I do a lot of work with MIDI files and am supremely dissapointed with the Microsoft Synth - it sounds like the instruments haven't been updated since Win 3.11, which is probably true. I'm trying to find a better-sounding alternative that is compatible with a 64-bit operating system, but hours of searching have yielded nothing useful.

Does anybody have any reccommendations?

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Music, photos, and video

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Anonymous
2011-06-05T20:03:20+00:00

What I do, is I use this card for my music, games, movies, etc. but for MIDIs, I have an old Pentium III computer with an ISA SoundBlaster AWE64gold sound card. It's a much older card and is not as good with games and media, but it actually has a better synthesizer than the SB X-FI HD.

Yes, all of the AWE32/64 cards *had* near professional quality synthsizers [1], but they are a bit old now.   The super awesome synth of the AWE32 was a benefit Creative Labs got when they bought the professional synth company EMU out years ago.  If you are a professional and you are willing to use a standalone synthesizer, then you can consider getting a rack module for a few hundred dollars off of ebay:

http://www.vintagesynth.com/emu/emuxl1.php   [2]

or you can get the highly recommended EmulatorX3.  EmulatorX3 is without a doubt absolutely awseome and it can run on your main computer or a standalone separate computer:

http://www.emu.com/products/product.asp?category=501&subcategory=168&product=17681

Also recommended is the kx project that Poidude mentioned.  If your emu10kX based sound card/OS is supported by the kx project, then you can do almost anything with it...

[1] - The Wave Table synthesis of the AWE Cards was near awesome, but the cards were a bit lacking in real time filters that are available in the more recent and expensive EmulatorX and stand along rack products for professionals.

[2] - While these stand alone rack modules work well for pro-audio, they probaby won't work that great for gaming because they don't tend to come with a General MIDI bank.  You would have to find such and expansion card and that might be difficult . On the other hand, EmulatorX3 does come with a General MIDI bank if I remember correctly, but it is a software only solution.

Best,

Shawn

Lastly, this whole dicussion is a bit on the silly side since I don't think most modern games actually use MIDI and SoundFonts/Wavetable/SoundBanks anymore.  Instead, I think game writters tend to compress their sound tracks into variations of MP3/OGGs files which are then decompressed by by main CPU and send straight to the Digital to Analog chip on the sound card thereby completely voiding the need for Wavetable or MIDI.  If I understand this correctly, mostly only professional musicians use MIDI these days. 

Note: I am a professional *.NET programmer and hobiest musician.  While I don't know much about writing video games, I do know a bit about music and Creative Labs...

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Anonymous
2011-05-28T07:20:02+00:00

I don't know if you still need help (your post is really old) but I'm having the same problem with my SB X-FI HD card. I have searched high and I have searched low and, sadly, I don't think there's any solution to this. What I do, is I use this card for my music, games, movies, etc. but for MIDIs, I have an old Pentium III computer with an ISA SoundBlaster AWE64gold sound card. It's a much older card and is not as good with games and media, but it actually has a better synthesizer than the SB X-FI HD. You can buy this card on ebay for like $7.00 it's really cheap. I know this doesn't really help at all, but it is a very good synthesizer, and I highly recommend trying it!

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-04-01T22:53:36+00:00

    I'm not from the creative sound blaster days, but have as well suffered due to technology giving up on good sounding general midi synths.

    My problem was that I was trying to compile all my songs into one guitar pro 5 file (bad idea), and needed to add better sounds, and more channels. So after some searching i came a crossed the virtual midi synth, and installed it, and the "Timbres of Heaven" sound font, which worked really well, except for one exception. I really didn't like the drum sound much, so i had to play a round with the latency in guitar pro's audio settings till I got a good match comparing the metronome of virtual midi synth, and the old school Microsoft wave table.

    I'm currently trying to find a general midi compliant VST, that is 64 bit os capable. I've been using Edirol's Hyper Canvas, since it was updated to vista, but I have issues with it in windows 10/ Reaper, that causes the sound on channel 1 to keep on going on forever.

    I managed to find a program called vstsoundfont 2 that will work somewhat. I need to figure out how to load the sound fonts in it still though.

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