Posted January 31, 2020 by Yal
This is a pretty huge update to the YaruChipFont! I realized I was missing some classic instruments (like the Weave Square), so I've gone through all my really old chiptunes and extracted every instrument - for real this time. The file ended up getting a bit messy to navigate with 40 instruments, so I ended up biting the bullet and rearranging it to match the General MIDI layout (picking whatever instrument felt most natural). This should hopefully maximize YCF instruments sounding "right" when you replace a soundfont file without changing the MIDI bank / patch.
Instruments should now all sound pleasant around the center octave (C5 - C6), though the leads generally sound better for higher pitches and anything with "Dark" or "Bass" in the name sounds better for lower pitches.
The zip file with the raw samples also got updated with the new samples! If you don't care about SF2 soundfont files, this is the download you should grab.
Since I've achieved my goal of preserving all my old chiptune instrument files, this should be the last update to YCF for the forseeable future. I might make a 4th version which includes my old drum samples, and if the stars align I might make a full MIDI soundbank version with 128 instruments, but neither of those stretch goals will be in the foreseeable future.