A request from a performer to receive MP3 rather than MIDI has triggered an excursion into soundfont design and led me to question Lilypond’s default instrument-equalizer settings.
("flute" . (0 . 0.7)) ("oboe" . (0 . 0.7)) ("clarinet" . (0 . 0.7)) ("bassoon" . (0 . 0.6)) ("french horn" . (0.1 . 0.7)) ("trumpet" . (0.1 . 0.8)) ("timpani" . (0.2 . 0.9)) ("violin" . (0.2 . 1.0)) ("viola" . (0.1 . 0.7)) ("cello" . (0.2 . 0.8)) ("contrabass" . (0.2 . 0.8)) I think I grasp the technical function of the equalizer (squeeze the musical dynamic range into a smaller range of MIDI velocity values than the full 1-127), but I don’t understand the choice of default values. For example, why should a cello at forte use less velocity than a violin at forte? Were these chosen based on the perceived effect when rendered by a specific synthesizer? If so, which one? Were they implemented with the belief that they would be appropriate for use with most synthesizers? Are they? These definitely complicate the design of my soundfont. (I would like velocity to control more than just volume, and having a different velocity range for different viol instruments requires more work.) At the moment, I am inclined to defeat the equalizer in my Lilypond scores so that all instruments use the same mapping of dynamic to velocity, and account for the relative volume of instruments in the soundfont itself. Any thoughts? Thanks and regards, — Dan _______________________________________________ lilypond-devel mailing list lilypond-devel@gnu.org https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-devel