>> > 1) Do real musicians want/need one? >> >> Sure. Probably not a GM synth though. >> >I generally agree with the anti GM sentiment, although one might imagine >that there would be people in the small-time game development category who >would benefit from a GM kit. It also seems like it could be good to have a synth for times/places when you are not near your "stuff" - say, composing while on a laptop... But I see gaming and web sites with MIDI as being the main sources. >> > 2) Are there any out there that are ok and reasonably well licensed? >> >> I found http://www.iiwu.org/iiwusynth/index.htm . It is GPL. I don't think >> that should be a problem since linking with libraries that "come with major >> parts >> of a proprietary operating system" (gpl-faq) then you can link with them. > >I like this one, particularly because of the support for soundfonts. If >we are to provide a built in softsynth, it would be very crucial in my >opinion for it to be extensible. Plus there is a massive amount of free >soundfonts available. I emailed them and asked if we could use it (not that I promised that we would, only IF we could) and if they would consider relicensing. >> > 3) Are they as hard to write as I think that they would be? >> >> Probably yes. > >depending on the system used to create it of course. For example, I've >been working on >a standalone software synth for MacOS for a few months that is being >developed with the MAX/MSP programming environment as a base. This is >irrelevant in context with a built in MIDI synth for the kit, as systems >like the above mentioned open source synth would better serve those goals. Hopefully, this will be a non-issue. :-) Anyone object to using this particular synth? >But...this brings me to an idea that I've been pondering. A lot of this >is out of the scope of the MIDI kit, but it is related rather closely. >Something I would love to see at some point, would be a set of >tools/functions/objects that are made to make the writing of 3rd party >softsynths/DSP simpler and integrated. Sort of like VST, LADSPA, etc, >only integrated with the OS in a way that encourages the development of >these sort of apps. A Beos synth/dsp api would be wicked cool. Sounds like an R2+ type of thing. Outside of my realm of knowledge, to be sure.