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My JummBox SoundFont

Category: Your creations
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    Message from stgiga on
    Here's a libre chiptune SoundFont I did in collaboration with many others, 
    https://stgiga.itch.io/jummboxsoundfont

    It is made from the default GM melodic patches of BeepBox and its fork JummBox, including the beyond-GM stuff, as well as two sets of community-made JummBox patches. For drums, the regular BeepBox/JummBox drums proved unusable, so after searching for a day, I landed upon FatMan OPL drums, which I then extended several times to make the drumkit SC-8850 compatible. Basically, this SF2 is a subset of SC-8850 GS, not SC-55 GS. It's also verifiably libre (CC-BY-SA4, and I acknowledge and embrace that license's GPL3 compatibility, so have fun with putting this in your retro gaming Linux distros for MIDI playback, especially with ScummVM, DOSBox-X, Neko Project II, and the various emulators out there for other systems with MIDI output).

    A word of note is that my contribution to this bank is significant renovation. It's a quirky bank not just because of chiptune, and I am very lucky it all worked out. There were many ways it could have gone wrong. The quirks it has are reminiscent of the quirks some sound chips and synths have. Nothing outright debilitating, and in fact some of them are useful. 

    Note that the bank is VERY compatible. It should work in basically anything you throw it at. Even stuff as picky as OpenMPT. 

    And I'm planning on using Section 11 (Silicon SoundFonts) of the SoundFont standard to make the bank into a physical sound chip, the first new FM chip in years. And I say FM because according to BeepBox's dev, the default patches are based on SID LPF applied to OPN-family FM. Though it's certainly better than even the ESS ESFM chip's default patches. If I had to describe how it sounds, it sounds somewhere between a Sega Genesis (including the PSG when running SnoozeTracker), Super Nintendo, TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine, Neo Geo (including the SSG and its envelopes), and by extension NEC PC-98, which of course also had OPL cards. Basically, it sounds 16-bit, but it doesn't shy away from 8-bit either. It thus would be VERY useful in an indie game. It would also work well in something like a WaveBlaster, or you can use it as oscillators in your DAW to make even more detailed synthetic patches. It never goes below CD quality either. In fact, most of the bank is DVD-quality. So it's quite crisp chiptune, yet also sweet-sounding compared to something like an SN76489. It has a LOT of things you could use for chords. And getting it to clip probably won't happen because it's gentle chiptune. Now, of course, the way in which some of my co-authors did things lends the bank a quirky feel. Oh and it has a LOT of chiptune staples. You can do some extremely impressive chiptune MIDI with this instead of MSGS. And because of OpenMPT compatibility, you can then bundle the song into an MPTM rather than relying on someone else having the SF2. Not to mention its waveforms are handled fine by corrscope even on default settings. So basically you can do pretty wild stuff with this bank that absolutely cannot be done on other banks. It's capable of even doing Nintendo and Atari sound effects, among others and other instruments. So you may not even need to include SFX samples if you're clever. It's also capable of doing SO many other things. 

    The Itch.io page is even themed around the bank's retro status to appeal to game devs. For the record, I don't care if you use the bank in a game that ends up on Switch 2, even first-party. I mean, it has enough sounds to pull off even expanded Famicom and Nintendo DS PSG, not counting all the ways it can pull off SNES sounds. And for the Sega fans, it can pull off Genesis and SCSP quite well. And it has the needed sounds for Atari songs. It also has SID specialties. Mind you, a LOT of things can be done if you're clever. Now why would you want to use an SF2 rather than pre-rendered songs, well you would want to do this if your game is to have some form of custom levels or minigames where music can receive customization as well.

    I could also see the bank being useful in a toy organ or a Pocket Miku derivative. Basically, the sky is the limit with this retro-style bank that is certifiably libre. I hope y'xll make something nice with it. It started as a 2020 project and has now hit its fifth calendar year. Let me know what you do, and I make WAY more SF2s. This one is one that is an open-source jewel though. A friend actually used it to make libre replacements for the AWE32 and AWE64's ROM samples to use in our extensions of SF2. 

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