Beach Pageant 2 — Family

Last year, we watched dads strut in snorkel fins, moms command the runway in oversized sun hats, and toddlers melt hearts with unintentional sandcastle destruction. This year, we are doubling the fun, the laughter, and the family-friendly competition.

Entry for all family members, one pageant bib per person, a small goodie bag, and one voting token for the Crowd Favorite Award. family beach pageant 2

Forget tuxedos and ballgowns. We want sequin-covered rash guards, shell-encrusted bow ties, sandals with glitter straps, and linen suits paired with waterproof mascara. Each family will have 60 seconds to introduce themselves with a pose, a wave, or a dramatic turn. Bonus points for families who roll in on a wagon or surfboard. Last year, we watched dads strut in snorkel

We do this because every family deserves one day where the only competition is who can laugh harder. Forget tuxedos and ballgowns

All proceeds go to the local beach preservation society and the purchase of new life rings for the public beach.

This can be used as an event script, a promotional email, a blog recap, or an announcement for social media/community boards. Tagline: More Sand. More Smiles. More Crowns. Part I: A Splashing Return After the overwhelming success of the inaugural Family Beach Pageant last summer, the sea has been calling us back. The tides have turned, the sun is higher, and the stakes are—well, not exactly higher, but definitely sunnier . We are thrilled to announce Family Beach Pageant 2: The Next Wave.

According to stgig: This is a layered mashup of the Yamaha Tyros 4 fixed Soundfont by Milton Paredes and the JV-1010 Soundfont. This results in a layered GM bank with snazzy timbre. The acoustic guitar is really realistic, among others. Now with even more SC-8850 patches, to the point of hitting SC-8850 compatibility.
The best SoundFonts in both SF2 and SFKR format, provided by the group behind GoldMIDISf2, MidiSoundSynth and SynthFont.
Here you find some GM/GS SoundFonts banks to purchase. Additionally there are a few free saxophone SoundFonts.
There are more and more large SoundFonts popping up. Here's another one, 4 GB in size!. It is claimed to be SC88-Pro compatible. It has 24 bit audio, which makes it bigger than usual SoundFonts with 16 bit audio.
"Musical Artifacts is an open source web app helping musicians to find, share and preserve the artifacts they use for producing their music." Among other things you find one of the largest GM/GS SoundFonts here: the DSoundFont by Strix SoundFont Team. But you don't really need the big one - get the smaller DSoundFontV4 instead.
SoundFonts4u by John Nebauer
John Nebauer has released a Steinway Piano SoundFont from the samples provided by University of Iowa (Samples are Creative Commons Licence) as well as a nice Acoustic Guitar using the samples provided by Keith Smith.
OmegaGMGS2 by Rick Simon
Says Rick Simon: "I made a SoundFont that is General Midi, General Midi 2, Yamaha XG, and Roland GS compatible." ... " I have tried many SoundFonts, commercial and free, and I think it comes in favorably with higher quality samples yet keeping a smaller size for ease of use and quicker downloading.  It is also compatible with virtually every midi song file available. "
Says Marcin Dziembor: "I decided to create my own GM .SF2. Something made out of precisely picked out samples out of every single SF2 file that I will stumble upon."
This Interner Archive contains an unsorted list of around 500 SoundFonts, some full GM sets
Arachno by Maxime Abbey
This bank includes many famous sounds from the best synthesizers by Roland (D-50, Sound Canvas...), Korg (M1, X5...), Yamaha (MU, Clavinova...), Fairlight (CMI), E-MU (Emulator), Ensoniq, and many others.
Giant Soundfont 5.5: Note that you will need to download banks 1, 2, and 3 of v5.5 as well as the drumkit which is labelled v3.0. Giant soundfont is 450 MB uncompressed, the author updates it regularly.
Virtual Playing Orchestra is a full, free orchestral sample library featuring section and solo instruments for woodwinds, brass, strings and percussion.in SFZ format (not a SoundFont)
"Original good quality soundbanks, in different formats, mainly harpsichords and pipe organs"
"High quality sound samples for music production and sound effects for the multimedia/movie industry" Various formats. Mostly commercial packages, but also some free.
Some free SoundFonts
A classic place to go. Large selection.
GeneralUser GS is a very good GM and GS compatible SoundFont
This is a Swedish FTP server with mostly old stuff. Use e.g. FileZilla to get access
Soundfont Resources, lots of links.
Well, eh... The Jazz Page.
The Maestro Concert Grand by Mats Helgesson.
Here you will not only find a collection of SoundFonts, but also SoundFont editors, players, and utilities.
... a SoundFont archive since 1995. Here you can find some of the classic GM SoundFonts (in "Banks").
Ethan provides a set of original musical instruments.
Seems to be a large collection?
126 free hip hop soundfonts.
"This library is online for ten years and is one of the earliest soundfonts library on the Internet." 32 SoundFonts to download.
Timbres Of Heaven by Don Allen
"Don has worked to perfect this unique soundfont, and has authorized Midkar.com to share it as a Free SF for all MIDI enthusiasts. Timbres Of Heaven is Roland GS compatible. This means that there are many more instruments available than a standard GM set."
"I have made a large soundfont for orchestra with realistic (mostly studio recorded) audio instead of generic MIDI... I then mixed those into the default soundfont, so that my good ones replace what they can, but the old MIDI for the ones I didn't have are still there..."