I remember along time ago, soundfonts were all the rage. But in today's Sonar, what with VST synths EVERYWHERE and AMAZING sample sets available to everyone, why use soundfonts? Are you? Why? I just downloaded the free soundfont player from Cakewalk, and I am wondering what to do with it. How do you use it?
 
Thanks!
 
And as George Harrison once said, "Our first album was recorded in a day, and our second album took even longer!"

I have a large collection, Including EMU Protious stuff I bought way back when EMU were selling them.  Unfortunatly I can't seem to be able to use them in Sonar 64 bit using SFZ or SFZ plus.
 
I have not invested a lot of time in getting it working, but others posting here indicate I am not alone. I am not losing any sleep over it. While it would be nice to be able to use them if I wanted when you compair them to what available today they are a little lack-luster.  

Dimension uses sound fonts

jm24


Dimension uses sound fonts

Are you sure?? I thought it just loaded SFZ and its own prog format but I may be mistaken.
 
I had converted a soundfont to SFZ format using the demo Chicken Systems converter, that worked in Dim Pro and 64 bit SFZ.

Thank you for the clarification.

I figgered it was similar to other samplers' file format.
 
Only different.

But, sound fonts are still useful. Recently found nice tuba and autoharp samples i am using in vsampler.

A1MixMan


I remember along time ago, soundfonts were all the rage. But in today's Sonar, what with VST synths EVERYWHERE and AMAZING sample sets available to everyone, why use soundfonts? Are you? Why? I just downloaded the free soundfont player from Cakewalk, and I am wondering what to do with it. How do you use it?
 
Thanks!
 
And as George Harrison once said, "Our first album was recorded in a day, and our second album took even longer!"

I have a lot of old SF2 format samples that I use ...
 
The SFZ player comes with Sonar but only works in 32bit not 64bit. There is a trick to getting SFZ player to work on a 64bit install ...
 
Download SFzed SF2 to SFZ convertor and don't install it but rather take the sfz.dll from it and replace the sfz.dll that comes with Sonar. It still won't load SF2's by clicking and browsing, but you can drag them to it. ;) When I want to use an SF2 sample, I replace Sonar's sfz.dll with SFzed's, load my SF2's, bounce to track when I'm done, save the project, close Sonar and put the original sfz.dll back.

The reason I do this is, the SFzed version of sfz.dll screws up the listing of all the other samplers for some reason. When SFzed's sfz.dll is being used it seems to load the synth listed below the one you click on, so I always use this as the last synth in my project, bounce it to a track, save my project, close Sonar, and put the original Sonar sfz.dll back and everything works normal again. Example of the problem ... I had SFZ then Dim Pro then Session Drummer on my list of synths. I click to add Dim Pro and Session Drummer would load.
It's a pain and they need to fix this ... but this is a work around temporarily until someone at SFzed and Sonar read this and make it so my little drag and drop trick won't work. :)
 
I have some really good SF2 samples I downloaded over the years and hate to give them up. The cool thing about SF2's were ... people really did some great work making the samples and posted them for free! Real instruments, multi sampled and multiple velocity's. I have an 80Mb GM bank that is much better than TTS-1.
 
http://www.hammersound.net/
 
Check out everything posted by the guy named Campbell. The Harpsichord is amazing. One guy went in to an old church in England and sampled every note/velocity of an entire pipe organ. I've used it several times. Amazing sound quality and free. That was the beauty of Sound Fonts.
 

Glyn Barnes

jm24


Dimension uses sound fonts

Are you sure?? I thought it just loaded SFZ and its own prog format but I may be mistaken.
 
I had converted a soundfont to SFZ format using the demo Chicken Systems converter, that worked in Dim Pro and 64 bit SFZ.

Dim Pro will not load SF2 files. You have to convert them to SFZ files and sometimes they don't sound right when you do that.

Sure, Sound Fonts aren't an extinct tool.  I'm use the now-free SFZ+ in my current project, using some Sound Factory SF2 sets.  The SFZ+ is nice since you have so many parameter controls to work with, making the Fonts much more adaptable to your needs than the original one-shot SFZ player.  Nothing wrong with SFs!

Randy B.

All the new "voices" of instruments are soundfonts. Whether or not they are called soundfont 2-SFZ or Yamaha whatever or this or that, they are all derivations of the code that have been captured and given a new identity and texture. The problem is the new identity-code tag. Sometimes competition kills.

rbowser


Sure, Sound Fonts aren't an extinct tool.  I'm use the now-free SFZ+ in my current project, using some Sound Factory SF2 sets.  The SFZ+ is nice since you have so many parameter controls to work with, making the Fonts much more adaptable to your needs than the original one-shot SFZ player.  Nothing wrong with SFs!

Randy B.

 
I got all excited after reading your post Randy. I downloaded SFZ +, which BTW is a PITA, and rushed right home to install it and it didn't work.
 
"DARN DARN DARN DARN DARN!" *Herman Munster Voice*
 
I tried it as a DXi and VST on XP 32bit and Windows 7 64bit.
 
It will load SF2's if I double click on the sfz+.exe ... but when I load it as a soft synth in Sonar it won't load any SF2's.
I sure have the luck don't I? :)