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i'm really glad that nukeykt made Nuked SC-55, a fully accurate software emulation of the Roland SC-55. the SC-55 is a very important device: it's the original General MIDI and GS synth, used for e.g. DOOM's OST. but most people know it only through bad imitation soundfonts
soundfonts are a wonderful thing, don't get me wrong, but they are not a good substitute for the original hardware that these MIDI compositions were written for. a soundfont can't reflect all the nuances of a synth, because that is not what a soundfont is for. it is only samples.
even the humble SC-55 from 1991 could do a lot more than your average soundfont player. it has many extensions to General MIDI: a song's MIDI data can adjust the parameters of the reverb and chorus effects blocks, remap MIDI controllers, route LFOs, edit envelopes, etc.
@hikari this sounds really interesting. I recently finished my first sound font and started working with it, finishing my first track today. One of my considerations is how I should do bus effects. N64 games used some actual digital delay at runtime. I’ve considered doing it in-engine to emulate but it seems wasteful. I can absolutely do it in DAW and that’s my method so far. Arguably the choices are too rich though. This looks like something I could use to impose reasonable restrictions. But also a bit complex x)
@jorin i enjoy the constraints. when i try to write for stuff that's less constrained, it's harder, there's too much choice