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The Utopia Live! SoundFont replaces the standard General
MIDI SoundFont provided by Creative. It weighs in under 32MB, and
a newer "lite" version is now available, and it takes up only
24.66MB. The one we reviewed is the 31.5MB version.
In this article, we'll touch on the problems with General
MIDI, the complexity of creating SoundFonts, and let you know what we
think of the Utopia SoundFont. After that, we'll give you an interview
with Roel de Wit from Utopia Sound Division. He speaks in-depth about
the creating SoundFonts, the capabilities of the EMU10K1, and many other
interesting issues. So let's get going!
See the contents bar on the right side for the pages available in this article.
Updates
[26 Oct 2000] Utopia 1.3 has been released. Check out the Utopia Live! web site.
[12 Dec 2002] Christmas offer! Get Utopia Live! v2.0 and the Acoustic Piano add-on v1.0 for only 25$. Also a 'Project-Portabillity' product is in the works. Check out the details from Utopia Sound Division:
Next to free Utopia Live! updates, we are currently working on an operating and soundcard independent set of GM/GS soundbanks currently code named 'Project-Portability'. The main problem with hardware specific soundfonts / soundbanks is that current soundcards on the PC tend to have several limitations, and nearly all have their own interpretation of how certain soundbank formats should be processed (e.g. reverb/chorus, filters etc). Many soundcards claim support for a format like SF2 while none of them play them back the same way. Often these individual characteristics can be taken advantage of to get special effects or reduce the size of such a soundbank (e.g. SB Live!'s 8-point interpolation). By doing this however, such soundbanks cannot faithfully be ported into new formats without starting all over everytime we make a GM/GS related soundbank. We are therefore planning on working around this by not looking at the size of the final soundbank, and by sticking to basic functions that all soundcards and softsynths implement in the same way and only implement minor softsynth or soundcard specific extras. This will allow us to easily convert the product into a new soundbank format without risking critical hardware or driver compatibility issues.
The downloadable size of the product is expected to be less than 50 MB. After buying the product (which is basically a huge file with raw sample data) customers can freely download a small Windows or Linux installer (Mac OS X is being considered) for any destination format they want. If a customers wants to install a special version for the TiMidity++ softsynth under Linux he/she can simply download the free TiMidity++ Linux installer and within a few minutes a 300+ MB soundbank will be installed on the customer's system. If the customer later on wants to use the product with 'softsynth or soundcard X' an installer can freely be downloaded when it becomes available. The formats that are planned to be supported in the first release will be SF2 & DLS-2 (in several variations for different softsynths and soundcards). Other formats are currently under consideration and will be implemented in order of highest demand.
To allow people to decide whether they want to buy the product, a lower quality version will be released to the public (which will only be a few megabytes to download) for free The quality of sound on these next generation GM/GS soundbanks will carry the usual trademark Utopia Sound Division timbre, while being completely OS and soundcard independent.
Reader Reviews
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Review was great, but I have made a better sounding Soundfont on my on with just soundfonts off the Sound Blaster Live! CD and ones on the net.... if you wish I can record a midi of your choice to show you the difference, my Sound Font has been a personal project of mine, to make it sound like the London Symphony Orchestra, Utopia Live! seems more like a synthetic Sound Font when it comes to Orchestra, Jazz, ETC. Well that's just my two bits.
Rating: 8/10
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