almeath wrote:I tested the latest UHD version and it is sounding very nice and balanced using FluidSynth. My reference point is the opening two tracks in Kyrandia 2.
Thanks, glad all that fine tuning paid off! Sometimes being sick and miserable is the best motivator for pet projects.
almeath wrote:Is there any chance you could provide a version that is optimized for the Apple DLS synth?
The aforementioned tracks in Kyrandia 2 are a good point of comparison, as you may notice the bass is slightly overpowering when using the Apple DLS synth.
The problems with Apple DLS, from my limited observations, is two-fold. The first is the strange EQ, and I haven't seen any way for a user to actually adjust it. I'd think a flat EQ would make the most sense by default, but apparently this is not the Apple way.
The second DLS issue is a huge amount of extra reverb added on top of the synth, regardless of whether the MIDI, systems settings, or SoundFont call for verb. This makes a lot of stuff seem either too "busy", washed out, or sometimes straight up chaotic (especially if the MIDI itself adds its own heavy reverb).
Because of these, probably the best course of action is just to use FluidSynth on OS X instead. That's what I wound up doing on my MacBook, and it's worked very well so far. So much more control over Fluidsynth and, believe it or not, it seems more responsive in terms of latency too.
Now, that said, I
may do a custom spin of UHD just for Apple DLS. But it would take a lot of work, so if I did build one, it'd probably just be a one-off rather than a separate development track. I'd have to re-EQ a lot of instrument samples, which also means re-looping, and also take down all reverb settings on individual presets to 0, which also implies yet another volume envelope re-tune.