Re: [fluid-dev] How to recreate music originally composed using Logic X and Native Instruments Komplete patches?

[Garth Hjelte]

At 11:42 PM 12/8/2015, you wrote:

>What I'm trying to do is to interactively synthesize some musician-composed 
>tracks in my program using FluidSynth.
>These tracks have been provided to me as MIDI files with the names of Native 
>Instruments Komplete and Logic X instruments.
>As far as I can tell, both Komplete and Logic X use their own sample/patch 
>format, not Soundfont 2.
>Given this, what's my best option for recreating the tracks using FluidSynth?
>Is it is somehow convert Komplete and Logic X patches to Soundfont 2 format? 
>If so, how do I do this? 
>Or should I just try to find Soundfont 2 patches that are as similar as 
>possible to the original instruments used? If so, are there any Soundfont 
>libraries that map to Komplete and/or Logic X libraries?

>This is not quite fluidsynth related issue but MIDI sequencing issue. There is 
>no way to "convert" MIDI files optimized for one patch. Depends on the 
>characteristics of the optimized patch being used, the differences vary.

Since FluidSynth uses only SoundFonts, it IS a topic very much dealing with 
FluidSynth. The poster wasn't asking to convert the MIDI files to SoundFonts, 
he wanted to know if he should convert the Instruments so-named (I assume he 
has them or has access to them) to SoundFonts or if he should use replacement 
instruments.

To answer the question: Komplete actually is a suite of different playback 
engines, and in context so is Logic X. There's really no such thing as 
"Komplete patches" or "Logic X patches". The named patches could be referring 
to any one of those instruments, but since you asked about SoundFont, I'll 
assume the referred Komplete ones are Kontakt instruments and the referred 
Logic X ones are EXS instruments (both being members of those suites). (But 
they may not be.)

With my product Translator www.chickensys.com, you can convert the EXS files to 
SoundFont, and you can with Kontakt to SoundFont ONLY if it's an older version 
of Komplete. If your Komplete contains Kontakt 5, you can't, because Native 
Instruments chose to lock up (encrypt) the factory libraries so it could only 
be used in Kontakt.

However, Translator DOES have a autosampler, so you could use that to get the 
instruments either in Komplete or Logic X - and that goes for ANY of the 
instruments aside from Kontakt or EXS - it's not a perfect solution but it's 
really close. If you MIDI's have lots of controller information you'll have to 
reprogram that in the new autosampled instruments.

Translator does do an admirable and accurate job converting these things to 
SoundFont. SoundFont in some ways is more capable than EXS, but Kontakt has 
more chance of exceeding SoundFonts capability. Still SoundFont is an excellent 
container for the basic parameters (tuning, loops, envelopes, etc.) and it may 
work very well for you.

But Instrument-replacement may be good to; and it's a probably simpler and 
easier route to go. Use good SoundFonts though - the GM stuff and small chincy 
things are just toys. There are high-quality SoundFonts out there. And even in 
this case, if you find quality instruments in another format, Translator can 
usually convert them to SoundFont for use in FluidSynth.  

Garth Hjelte
Sampler User