Sound fonts

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Sound fonts are used by most software synthesizers for MIDI playback. There are three main formats as far as ZDoom is concerned:

DLS, or Downloadable Sounds, the standard backed by the MIDI Manufacturers Association. The TiMidity++ synthesizer can use them.
SF2, developed by Creative. The TiMidity++ and FluidSynth synthesizers use them.
PAT, or instrument patches. (Technically not a sound font since they are separate files.) The TiMidity++ synthesizer uses them.

The choice of a sound font determines the quality of the MIDI playback.

Forum threads

"MIDI soundfont menu mod" - How to create a custom menu to quickly change which sound font to use.
"Music source" - discussion on everyone's favorite choice of software synthesizer and sound fonts.
"Best SoundFont for Doom?" - a similar, and larger, thread to the previous
"Recommend Me Some Great GM Sounfonts" - another such thread
"Weeds General MIDI SoundFont v3.0" - presenting a sound font created with Doom and other classic games in mind
"Cannot get .sf2 to work!" - might contain useful troubleshooting advice if you have the same problem as the thread starter

SKArk - a utility to uncompress .sfark files into .sf2 files
SFPack - a utility to uncompress .sfpack files into .sf2 files
FluidSynth soundfont page - contains many useful links
EAWPats at Doomworld/idgames - can be used with TiMidity++ to emulate a Gravis Ultrasound
8MBGM and 8MBGSFX Gravis Patch Set v1.3 at Doomworld/idgames - another set of GUS-emulating patches
GUS Patches at Doomworld/idgames - the actual deal, along with a few extras
Debian Fluid R3 package page - once extracted from the ".orig.tar.gz" archive, the SF2 files can be used on any system, not just on Debian