Here is a tutorial on how to get good results when using this in modern music:

Firstly, once you download (and unzip it if you downloaded the 7z) it, you should be able to use it in most DAWs and SoundFont environments. Micasddsa had targeted FL Studio, including Directwave (though ironically, his version isn’t usable there due to being over 1GiB). In terms of which DAW allows the most freedom, well, I will say that in the 6 months of experience I had with Logic Pro, I found its “Alchemy” tool to be a very intriguing way to use it. Alchemy isn’t just limited to basic waveforms, rather, it can even work its magic on Sampler instruments. Now, Alchemy can’t directly import SoundFonts, but if you load a SoundFont below 1GiB into Logic Pro’s Sampler, you can then use the resulting Sampler EXS instrument in Alchemy. This will also definitely work in Pro Tools, which is effectively Logic. One thing that Alchemy is GREAT at is making synth pads from input waveforms, but there are other types of modulation things in it you can do. What I DO know is that it massively increases timbral diversity, especially if you throw in one of the SoundFont’s more-unique sounds. I do not know if FL Studio has this type of thing.

Secondly, once you have it in your DAW and sampler component of your choice, you could either do what Alchemy does, or do what Syrsa does, which is taking short waveforms that loop (SoundFonts much?) and pitching it while adding all sorts of effects to it, essentially what he does is turn micro-formants into synth leads and pads akin to techno. I wager that would be interesting.

If you actually want to make MIDI files for this, I have some recommendations: Fretless Bass, Guitar Harmonics, and Guitar Fret Noise are quite mute, though the Fretless Bass makes a better pad. Secondly, Buzz Saw got lowered by the tuning that fixed the rest of the bank, and it became an ambient bassy sound at most pitches rather than a 2A03 periodic noise hybridized with saw. I suggest only playing treble notes with Bass Synth 1, because unless you deliberately drown it out, at lower pitches it WILL sound like Doom 32X to me. If you want a good Bass, the others work. Some notable ones: Slap Bass 1 = Sunsoft Bass, and Bass and Lead is like that fancy synth saw pluck you hear a lot in modern tunes, pitch it right, and you can do epic stuff. On the topic of epic stuff: The synth pads like Goblins, Warm Pad, Feedback Pad, Sweep, Fifth Swell, and such are perfect for epic songs. You can use OvertimeShowdownLe(ad) and NYCTOPHOBIAV2Hard as 25% pulse leads, with the latter being softer. NYCTOPHOBIAV2Lead, Atari Square, Random Pulse, and NYCTOPHOBIAV2Intro are all akin to 37.5% leads, though NYCTOPHOBIAV2Intro is a bit more reedy. Pure saw can be obtained by using VRC6 Saw. NES Pulse is a highpass filtered square. NYCTOPHOBIAV2Square is a warbling square wave, essentially equivalent to a square version of the other special leads. Square in Bank 1 is basically the musical calculator square. Square in Bank 0 is pure. Saw in bank 0 is a free source of PWM sounds. You don’t even notice the saw. Secondly, the Bank 1 saw is PWM but it’s quieter, but if you use a few of them at once, you can get a good supersaw out of it faster. Atari Bass and Klaxon Synth are both loud, so I recommend attenuation or filtering. Bell Synth, Tinkle Bell, and Agogo are all similar to the bell sound in the Famicom Disk System version of Zelda 1. Using NYCTOPHOBIAV2Lead for the flute worked. If you want a VRC7 sound, Gumdrop, FM Twang, and FM Organ will work. OPL2 sounds can be achieved through those as well as Sitar. Also a lot of the chromatic percussion can do this. The FM Bass is basically the Sonic bass. ZX Spectrum Tim Follin beeper can be attained with Mosquito. Music Box 2 is pure sine. Drawbar Organ 2 is effectively Mario Paint car. Distorted Synth 1 and Distorted Synth 4 are effectively SID filter square. Triangle Wave is NES Triangle. Also, Flutter Pad is equal to Inkling vocals. Basically, you can do a LOT of special stuff. One Japanese MIDI I found even perfectly replicated Bubble Bobble in the SoundFont.

Also, the fun part of this SoundFont is that it’s 1,070,495,770 bytes, a clean number. Also, its CRC16 is 0x2900, which is a clean number in decimal too (20065), and octal (24400). Not only is the size a round number, but the CRC16 in all numbered formats is a clean number. I consider this perfect. However, Micasddsa for one reason or another swapped certain patches around, and I preserved that. Basically, Helicopter gets put in Applause’s slot (actually makes clapping sound real, and the helicopter being changed to Applause doesn’t downgrade songs with helicopters because neither do. Also Applause in MIDIs is FAR more common, so to have that not be breath noise is good. Flutter Pad (should go where Ice Rain is) is swapped with Sci-Fi, but ironically Sci-Fi sounds more like Ice Rain. Funnily enough, in the proper order, J. Daniel Orta/Claire Anne Carr (apparently said individual uses Claire as a personality name)’s MIDI of Calamari Inkantation features Inkling vocals that are accurate (but why would you give THOSE to Ice Rain), but in Micasddsa ordering it sounds like w7n’s Namco 163 cover, so it sounds more chiptune. Also, Pipe Organ becomes the patch underneath Drawbar Organ, not Percussive Organ, and Percussive Organ becomes between the Pipe Organ and Rock Organ in this mapping, and speaking of, Rock Organ becomes directly above Reed Organ and this makes songs like Bach’s Toccata and Fugue sound safe for the ears and epic. Though Percussive Organ where it SHOULD be sounds too low on songs that should use it (Pokemon, though the Percussive in the right place also has bad pitch, but in the other direction, but in terms of how GBA Pokemon actually sounds, it’s closer, so I consider it a win), though Pipe is higher but a bit shrill and non-percussive. Though the Micasddsa mapping fixes a LOT of songs, like Toccata, and Pokemon MIDIs already use the Bass Synth 1 at too-low pitches so it already is bad there. Micasddsa also swaps Honky Tonk and Piano 3. This makes some songs more-chiptune and it makes others more-natural, thankfully 99% of the time this works well.

Micasddsa’s mapping works in the vast majority of cases, and it even fixes stuff like Sky Garden. I don’t know if it was accidental, but it works.

Whatever the SoundFont creation operations did or didn’t do (as well as the comment I wrote after generation to get a prettier file size) produced a file with a cool file size number, and a cool CRC16 in hex, decimal, and octal simultaneously, something absurdly rare, so… I mean, it fixes quite a few MIDIs, like Sky Garden, which is missing an entire track in by-the-book MIDI, and it makes Ice Rain and Sci-Fi more accurate to their non-chiptune versions, and it makes Applause better, and Helicopter sucks either way. The Piano swap actually makes songs like Super Mario World’s Athletic Theme, Roblox’s The Great Strategy, and Ray Charles’ “What’d I’d Say” more accurate than by-the-book GM mapping. Also, had I mapped various beyond-GM patches to anything other than what I did, or changed one letter in the comments or other metadata, the hash would have been different. So I treat the resulting binary SoundFont blob as sacred, and if I ever put it in a synth, you would have to emulate ALL quirks, including the whole Root Key stuff.

Tutorial Step 3: Test your MIDIs to make sure they are correct.