help: sound design for church bells

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You are all way ahead of me. I'm building a music player for my parish church bells. I've used lmms for creating the hourly chimes with a bell sample I found....Now I want to play some songs with the same sample. I'm importing midi files I find, but things don't sound good.

Within the register around middle C, the sample sounds fine....but in the higher registers, the bell sample sounds like a toy xylophone; nothing like I'd want from my church's bells. The bell sample sounds really muddy in the lower registers, like a truck running past my house kind of muddy. The bell sample doesn't really sound like a bell.

So....how can I create a bell sound that sounds like a bell in the lower and higher registers?

I can think of a few options:
1) edit the song after importing the midi to exclude notes outside of the middle C register. I don't like this so much because tracks with good harmonies must be dropped. This is doable.
2) find samples that play well in the higher and lower registers. The problem with this.....there are very few free samples available....If anyone knows of some good church bell samples to buy.....I'm willing to pay a few bucks; but they have to have good sounds in the higher and low registers. I like a church bell with some resonance....a lingering sound after the song ends.
2a) If I get three different samples, one for middle-C, the other for higher and another for lower registers, is there any way to get them to sound alike?
3) ?

Any ideas? Thanks.
Welcome to the Lmms Forums jjfraney.
jjfraney wrote: Within the register around middle C, the sample sounds fine....but in the higher registers, the bell sample sounds like a toy xylophone; nothing like I'd want from my church's bells. The bell sample sounds really muddy in the lower registers, like a truck running past my house kind of muddy. The bell sample doesn't really sound like a bell.

So....how can I create a bell sound that sounds like a bell in the lower and higher registers?
Hmmm......I suggest searching the web, for some good free Bell Soundfonts. :)
There are lots of good free soundfonts on the web.

This site has choirs too: http://johannes.roussel.free.fr/music/soundfonts.htm

This one is a classic site and has tubular bells: http://nando.oui.com.br/pages/soundfonts.html
jjfraney wrote:I can think of a few options:
3) ?
Maybe you could make, the bell sound, in a Vst synth. eg. Synth 1 etc.
http://www.geocities.jp/daichi1969/softsynth/
That might work. It might take some trial and error to make the sound. But in the end, it's worth it. :)

Also, is it possible to hear this church bell sound you have? Why not temporarily, post the sound on soundcloud
so we can hear it.
You've certainly discovered the main problem with using samples. A single sample rarely sounds good over more than about half an octave.

I find that FM synthesisers can make fairly good (and wide-range) bell sounds, generally better than subtractive synths like Synth 1. Within LMMS ZynAddSubFX has probably the best bell sounds. Have a look in Misc presets for a start, but there are many more presets available out on the Internet.

Steve
jjfraney wrote:You are all way ahead of me.
These links maby get you up to speed :p
So,Hi and Welcome to the forum jjfraney! Heres all important links:
http://lmms.io/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4740
And a few rules for Avatars, signatures, posting and using the right sub-forum :)
jjfraney wrote:Any ideas? Thanks.
I put another new SoundFont link, in my post and the others gave good advice too.
We hope you got through.
Thanks for the help.

I didn't try looking for a soundfont yet. Will do.

Tubular bells....they sound good in a general sound fonts file (TimTechSoftware General MIDI Soundfont). They sound too pure. Maybe that is the trade off? The more 'musical' the bells, the less they sound like traditional church bells? Maybe there is a way to distort the tubular bells so there is a little more imperfection :)

Here is the bell sample I favor. I have two or three others, but this is the one I settled on. http://www.orangefreesounds.com/church-bell/

Thanks all....you gave me much to think about.
jjfraney wrote:Thanks for the help.

Here is the bell sample I favor. I have two or three others, but this is the one I settled on. http://www.orangefreesounds.com/church-bell/

Thanks all....you gave me much to think about.
Wooah! That Bell sample sounds very organic. I can now understand, why you like it so much.
Cool Orangy site too. 8-)

Now I'm wondering, I wonder if that bell sound, could be replicated in Synth 1? :geek:
Tsk, Tsk,....Hmmm....... 8-)
jjfraney wrote: Here is the bell sample I favor.
No synth will be able to do that imo. That is a complicated sound conglomerate that newer will be identical. In fack real church-bells (just like this one) can be identifyed by experts, and can be used for localization of positions of the recording, so a bell sound is very distinct
But the point is that it's a very specific bell and tuned exactly as it is. You can't seriously expect to change it's pitch a lot (to play tunes with it) and still have it sound the same particularly with a very simple sampler like AFP.

One thing that might be worth trying (though it's a bit of a fuss) is getting hold of Audacity and using it's "Change pitch" effect to make several different samples, each of which you only use for a small range of notes. Change pitch preserves the note envelope and length and it's mostly that which causes the muddy and toy-like sounds.

Personally I'd find the nearest bell sound from ZynAddSubFX and modify that to sound better. If I get some time I might have a go now that I know what you're listening for (but don't hold your breath, it could take a while ;)).

Steve
slipstick wrote: is getting hold of Audacity and using it's "Change pitch" effect to make several different samples, each of which you only use for a small range of notes.
Change pitch preserves the note envelope and length and it's mostly that which causes the muddy and toy-like sounds.

Steve
Ahhh, I remember that effect now. :)
Speaking of it, I think I'll test out that Change Pitch effect, on some Choir samples I found on the net.
Hopefully, they sound good enough. :)