Vintage Dreams Drums / Vintage Dreams Waves Soundfont 2 banks

I have been working on the Vintage Dreams soundfonts for a long time now,
gathering info and waveforms, and generally trying to perfect the soundfonts.
These have now progressed from soundfont version 1 to soundfont version 2,
and are looking and sounding a lot better than their predecessors. The
original soundfonts were individual banks for each class of sound or drumkit.
The new versions follow semi-GM standards by allowing patch changes to change
drumkits ... etc. It has taken many, many hours of hard work to mould the
sounds into their present form, and the banks are quite varied, very small
(no mem guzzling!!), loop points are very precise (no clicking), and the
quality is great because no live sampling took place. The waves were formed
mostly using a Visual Basic program I wrote to generate waveforms (additive,
FM ... etc) and output these to .WAV files. The program was very slow, but
worked well for it's intended purpose. Other waveforms were generated using
Cool Edit for Win95. The waveforms, being mathematically generated, are thus
noise-free and very precise. The bell-sounds are generally FM or additive
oriented, while the rest are "analogue" oscillators. There are also a few
mixed-bag sounds, where several waveforms were jumbled together randomly.

My original intention was to create a soundfont for commercial purposes, but
unfortunately the music industry in South Africa doesn't seem to support the
AWE32 (Fools!!), so the idea was shelved. In fact soundcards are totally
neglected in this country. Moreover, electronic musicians are still seen to
be a novelty (unbeleivable!!!!), and the guitar-based bands still dominate.
When I noticed Robin Edwards' Virtualog32 site, I thought it was a great
idea (thanx Robin) for promoting the Vintage EMUlation capabilities of the
AWE32. Perfect for the Vintage Soundfonts of mine!  Hopefully it will prompt
others to create their own vintage soundfonts and MIDI files to go with them.
I have submitted several Depeche Mode songs (and some others) with the font
to front the soundfonts because I feel that they are the epitomy of the type
of music I was trying to emulate. Besides, I love Depeche Mode so the choice
was obvious to make them a concentration of the project. The songs submitted
are as follows :
  Dreaming of Me              Depeche Mode
  New Life                    Depeche Mode
  Photographic                Depeche Mode
  Just Can't get Enough       Depeche Mode
  Puppets                     Depeche Mode
  My Secret Garden            Depeche Mode
  Nodisco                     Depeche Mode
  Somebody                    Depeche Mode - my own Version
  Enola Gay                   O.M.D.
  Telephone Call              Yazoo
  Axel-F                      Harold Faltermeyer
  Shuttle Flight              Actually, I don't even know if this is called
                              Shuttle Flight. It was an old Hi-NRG song which
                              I never new the name of, or who composed it.
  Eighty Days                 My Own Composition (Title says it all!))
  Soother                     My Own Composition
  Iceman                      My Own Composition
  House Rain                  My Own Composition
  House Down                  My Own Composition

In fact, I have many unfinished songs and this phenomenon is a mystery to me.
I just can't seem to finish songs!?  Either I get bored with it, or another
idea grabs me before I finish the last idea. This leaves me with many
song fragments which are all totally unrelated. What should I do with
them?! :-)

make sure you use controller 0 changes to initiate the soundfonts, which are
set up in the AWE Control Panel as follows :
0 - Empty
1 - VINTAGE.SBK  (not used with any of the new songs)
2 - VDDRUMS.SF2
3 - VDW.SF2
4 - Any good Paino soundfont

I have only a couple of stipulations when using the Soundfonts. Please don't
upload them anywhere in any altered format - I would like the fonts to be
spread in their original state. Please don't import any of the patches into
your own soundfonts, but by all means use any of the waveforms. If you like
the soundfonts, tell me. If you hate them, tell me!  If you don't give a damn
about them, tell me!  If you like the MIDI files, tell me ... etc ...
etc ... get the general idea?!  Give me some feedback if you have the time.

Anyway, I hope some of you out there will get a kick out of these Vintage
soundfonts, or maybe even use them for some great composition :-)


Ian Wilson

eMail     : Durban1@IscorLtd.co.za
          : JustinS@IscorLtd.co.za
snailmail : 16 Carmichael Place
            Woodlands
            Durban
            4004
            Republic of South Africa