Package: musescore-general-soundfont-lossless (0.2.1-1)

General SoundFont from MuseScore (uncompressed)

This is the HQ version for the new standard soundfont of MuseScore 2.2 and newer, in uncompressed SF2 format. It has a significantly larger disc footprint than its corresponding SF3, but is identical other than not compressing the samples with a lossy algorithm. This avoids audible Vorbis artefacts and the excessively long MuseScore startup time with compressed soundfonts and can be used by SF3-incompatible synthesisers.

This release of the soundfont supports Single-Note Dynamics with MuseScore 3.2 and higher.

MuseScore_General_HQ aims at providing the best audio quality and soundfont programming features, while being a compatible drop-in replacement for the less heavyweight MuseScore_General soundfont, providing the complete GM (General MIDI) sound set, with separate ensemble samples for several instruments, and some extras.

It can be used with almost all MIDI synthesisers (with SoundFont 2.01 support) although bugs in early implementations (e.g. MuseScore before version 2.2) cause sound degradation. (Install fluidr3mono-gm-soundfont which has a compatible instrument assignment for those it supports.)

As it comes under the MIT licence, it can be used in most settings, but do remember that waveforms generated using this soundfont are “copies or substantial portions of the” soundfont. It is sufficient to reproduce the licence and copyright notice in any “associated documentation files” provided with your generated waveforms.

The musescore-general-soundfont-small package contains the normal soundfont (as shipped with MuseScore 3.x), lossily SF3 compressed. The musescore-general-soundfont package similarly provides the HQ version of the soundfont (with separate ensembles instruments and other large improvements) as SF3, whereas the SF2 HQ version is packaged as musescore-general-soundfont-lossless for use with synthesisers lacking SF3 support, by audiophiles, and to avoid long MuseScore startup times; however with a large disc footprint.

This package will be installed into /usr/share/sounds/sf2/ which is the standard Debian location for system-wide SF2 soundfonts.