Also I did a lot of experimenting with different instruments throughout the week to get the sounds right and balance the whole soundtrack but found it really difficult without a game to write for, and I couldn't quite balance the soundfonts and sampled instruments (as you say). I'm still quite new to working in a DAW so if anyone has suggestions for sound libraries that will compliment my writing style I would love to hear them! This comment is really helpful, thanks for putting so much thought into it!
Viewing post in Across the miles jam comments
Thanks for responding. The fact that you're still new to all this DAW stuff is pretty cool, and honestly the strong composition does help in mitigating the scarce mixing problems. Listening to your soundtrack, here are a few stuff I'd recommend (Assuming you don't already have those) (These go from most likely to be useful to you to maybe not as important, I also assume you already have a soundfont player, but if you don't, Sfzorando is a popular pick, I personally prefer Juicy, it's more simple and to the point):
- The SGM Soundfont is the gold standard when it comes to soundfonts in general. It has probably the highest quality instruments out of any other soundfonts I've used (the pianos are really amazing on this one lol). Of course, as with any soundfonts, it will require you playing with velocity, pitchbending, volume control and effects to get the sound you're looking for, but this one stands out as it already sounds really good out of the box. I wouldn't be surprised if you had it already. If you're not gonna use anything else from this list, I recommend downloading this
- There's a ton of other soundfonts out there that some might recommend, usually a lot of older games have soundfonts made for them by fans, so if you for example played Mother 3 and wanted to use the instruments from that game, you're in luck!
Some soundfonts I use often:
- Airfont, it's a bit like SGM, although some people swear by it. I find its instruments a bit hit or miss, but it has a really nice harpsichord. the Arachno soundfont is simillar in that regard.
- Unironically, the Undertale soundfont is really good. While it has a lot of the instruments for the SGM one (Undertale uses that soundfont a lot) it has other stuff which I think really help it stand out (Most notably the Earthbound soundfont). The 17 violin in particular is one I used a lot, it plays longer, held notes at low velocities, and sharp, short notes at higher ones. It's amazing. (I think it's supposed to be an instrument from some expensive orchestral plugin but I'm not sure)
- 126 Hip Hop Soundfonts (There's a file in there called +Hip Hop Combo that basically combines them all together, use that) has a lot of weird little instruments and sounds that I quiet like, even if they don't work a lot of the time. The drums found there are okay, but they don't have any velocity control which sucks a bit.
- The Touhou soundfont has a lot of nice instruments (it has the game series famous Romantic Trumpet, which alone makes it worth downloading). I've never actually played the games much myself though lol, I find them too hard
- The free instruments from LABS, lots of really good stuff there. It's mostly famous for it's soft piano instrument, which I find myself using a lot. There's also a few drumsets there I find myself using often (One in particular can be found in the Undertale soundfont lol) as well as some nice guitars and strings.
- MT Power Drumkit is a free drumkit tailored specifically for more rock oriented tracks, but is still really versatile. Its samples are high quality and I find myself always resorting to its hi-hats and cymbals, they're pretty good. It even contains pre-made midi drum patterns that you can use in your songs. While the plugin is free, it does have a weird little "intro" screen that requires you to skip it each time the vst is loaded. The intro screen goes away if you make a 9 dollars donation to the team who made the plugin. It's a bit annoying, but it's more than worth it considering that thing is free (I'm sorry to say that I never made the donation myself haha)
- Kontakt 8 is basically a plugin reader: Letting play other plugins made specifically for Kontakt. There's free and paid stuff in there that tends to be of high quality. The caveat is that Kontakt itself isn't: There's a version of it called Kontakt Player that is free, but will only work for 15 minutes each session before needing to be re-loaded, which is really annoying. Add to that the fact that some free plugins only work in the PAID version of Kontakt, and you've got yourself a few problems. If you're willing to deal with the free Kontakt Player's quirks, the SAM Orchestra has some really nice sounds to it
- I'm not sure whether or not this really fits your style, but S8QL has some really nice retro synth presets you might like. Actually using this thing is pretty hard compared to a more modern synth like Vital, I often find myself just tweaking the presets.
- Similar to last entry, Lokomotiv is a nice synth with cool presets, although they can be quite harsh in actual songs even if they sound good by themselves.
- Last and maybe least, the VST I use the most is Xpand!2. It doesn't have the best instruments and it's not free either: You could only get it for free for a limited time in 2017. However I always use it as a starting point for a lot of my tracks, and I grew attached to its weirder synths. Some of its instruments are also pretty good, to be fair.
I don't recommend buying it (It's like 100 dollars it's really not worth it lol, people often say it's just a worse version of a plugin called Omnsiphere, which I've never used), but I thought I should at least mention it.
- You can probably find other cool stuff if you go to websites like Plugins4Free, although it's very time consuming. A lot of stuff there just straight up sounds horrible or is literally unusable lol. But if you're bored one afternoon and you don't have much else to do, it can be fun to look there for free stuff.
That's all for the stuff I use, maybe others can point you in the right direction. You already got the important part figured out, which is the composing, so all of this should be a breeze lol
Good luck!
You're the gift that keeps giving! I use soundfonts from earthbound and Pokémon diamond/pearl lol, I make synths in vital, have used the power drums, lots of stuff from labs, there's a the sine player that Berlin orchestra runs in has stuff too. Got Kontakt but nothing from there took my fancy yet. Going to keep coming back to this comment I think for my next project! Listening to your soundtrack now!
Update, the soundtrack is incredible, anyone reading should check it out immediately.