midi/soundfont questions

[Amfabeta]

What do you recommend to get best sounding midi playback? I've heard that soundfonts effect how midi sounds but I'm not sure how to use soundfonts. I just emerged qsynth and it seems that I can load soundfonts with it but how can I play midi with those qsynth soundfonts since qsynth isn't actually midi player? Or does it load soundfonts in general use for all programs? If so how does aplaymidi and timidity give different kind of midi sounds? What programs do you use? I just need better sounds for midi and then convert them to wav or mp3. My soundcard is SB Live 5.1.
_________________
Socially retarded since 1986.

[Da Fox]

Yo, I mostly use Timidity with the timidity-eawpatches, they sound really good. You just have to use it through the commandline though, as far as I know.
I honestly haven't tried anything else, but I was really pleased with the sound. For some midi's it sounds as good as an actual mp3 (think piano's, some violin etc).
For the rest it still sound way better then anything I everheard from microsoft's midi-synthesizer.
ps.
I think that if you want to convert to wav/mp3 you may need to use timidity, since it converts to WAV naturally. It's 'soundfonts' are collections of WAV files, and everything is rendered in software, so you don't need to load soundfonts or whatever into your soundcard, which I think is a lot easier.

This answer brought to you by the Adopt an unaswered post initiative
_________________
"Man fears the darkness, and so he scrapes away at the edges of it with fire."
- Rei Ayanami

JGBE, a Java based GameBoy Emulator

[Karl-Franz]

SBlive can use soundfonts. A soundfont is instruments for a mididevice. Timidity emulates the whole device and should not be needed if you have a soundfont. You con load soundfonts with i.e. the utils from the awesfx package. Once loaded the soundfonts are utilized by any program using the SBLive midi device. Hope this clarifies things.

Either google for or search the forums for soundfonts for linux.

-KF