Who Uses SoundFonts In Sonar Still?

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A1MixMan
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2010/05/09 07:01:41 (permalink)

Who Uses SoundFonts In Sonar Still?

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!"
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    Glyn Barnes
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    Re:Who Uses SoundFonts In Sonar Still? 2010/05/09 08:05:37 (permalink)
    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.  
    post edited by Glyn Barnes - 2010/05/09 08:07:06

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    jm24
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    Re:Who Uses SoundFonts In Sonar Still? 2010/05/10 10:40:51 (permalink)
    Dimension uses sound fonts
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    Glyn Barnes
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    Re:Who Uses SoundFonts In Sonar Still? 2010/05/10 11:11:24 (permalink)
    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.

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    jm24
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    Re:Who Uses SoundFonts In Sonar Still? 2010/05/10 11:32:21 (permalink)
    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.

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    Shane_B.
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    Re:Who Uses SoundFonts In Sonar Still? 2010/05/10 13:33:41 (permalink)
    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.
     

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    Shane_B.
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    Re:Who Uses SoundFonts In Sonar Still? 2010/05/10 13:34:48 (permalink)
    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.

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    rbowser
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    Re:Who Uses SoundFonts In Sonar Still? 2010/05/10 13:49:02 (permalink)
    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!

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    Crg
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    Re:Who Uses SoundFonts In Sonar Still? 2010/05/10 19:16:30 (permalink)
    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.

    Craig DuBuc
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    Shane_B.
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    Re:Who Uses SoundFonts In Sonar Still? 2010/05/11 12:55:45 (permalink)
    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? :)

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    Danny Danzi
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    Re:Who Uses SoundFonts In Sonar Still? 2010/05/11 14:08:12 (permalink)
    I use SF's all the time actually because quite a bit of my library was created by me. I first sampled all the sounds I wanted to use, made them the correct level etc and used Creative's Vienna software to turn them into SF's. There is now another version of Viena (1 "n" I think) that you can download for free that works just like the Creative version and even looks like it that can be used on XP and Vista. From there, once they are saved into SF format, I can run them into sfz or Live Synth Pro which was what I used before sfz was a part of Sonar.

    Of course I just use most of these for quickie ideas these days, or maybe for a piano or synth sound, but I have loads of drums as well. The thing that pretty much stopped me from using them as much as I used to for drums was the ability to load my samples into Drumagog and even BFD 2. This opens up more doors for individual tracks etc. But yeah, they still get quite a bit of use here on this end and if you create them good enough, they can sound incredible. I've actually had better luck with the ones that I've made vs. the ones you pay for. :)

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    rbowser
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    Re:Who Uses SoundFonts In Sonar Still? 2010/05/11 15:52:33 (permalink)
    Shane_B.


    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? :)


    I don't know what to tell you, Shane.  I'm on Vista, 64 bit machine, but staying way clear of Sonar 64, so running it in 32 bit mode.  The SFZ+ installed fine, there was nothing unusual in the set up of it, I just scanned the Plug-in Manager to find the .dll, and there it was, working from day one.  I have no idea why it's not working for you.

    Randy B.

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    Shane_B.
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    Re:Who Uses SoundFonts In Sonar Still? 2010/05/11 17:06:24 (permalink)
    rbowser

    The SFZ+ installed fine, there was nothing unusual in the set up of it, I just scanned the Plug-in Manager to find the .dll, and there it was, working from day one. 
    Randy B.
    Thanks Randy ... I'm at a loss also. It's odd ... when I click on 'File' to browse for an SF2 file ... it stays grayed out on Win764 and on XP32 it gives me an error saying not enough memory.
     
    btw I really liked your Roll Over Beethoven vid on Youtube ...

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    rbowser
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    Re:Who Uses SoundFonts In Sonar Still? 2010/05/11 17:13:54 (permalink)
    Hi, Shane--HEY nice, thanks for letting me know you watched my off-beat version of "Roll Over."  hehe, that was fun to do.

    Hey, I'm downloading something right now, can't risk opening Sonar right now, but as I recall the SFZ has kind of a funky browser mechanism--like maybe you need to click the window itself?  Something like that.  Give it a try.

    Randy B.

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    fresh101
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    Re:Who Uses SoundFonts In Sonar Still? 2010/05/11 20:58:39 (permalink)
    Shane_B.


    rbowser

    The SFZ+ installed fine, there was nothing unusual in the set up of it, I just scanned the Plug-in Manager to find the .dll, and there it was, working from day one. 
    Randy B.
    Thanks Randy ... I'm at a loss also. It's odd ... when I click on 'File' to browse for an SF2 file ... it stays grayed out on Win764 and on XP32 it gives me an error saying not enough memory.
     
    btw I really liked your Roll Over Beethoven vid on Youtube ...


    Try PR32 mode in the top right hand corner instead of SF32.
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    rbowser
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    Re:Who Uses SoundFonts In Sonar Still? 2010/05/11 21:07:05 (permalink)
    I've had a chance to look at SFZ+ since my last post.  It's as I remembered - You don't click the arrow pointing at the load window, you have to click inside the window itself.  And you need to click in the very top window first, File.  Then the first instrument in that file will show up in the lower Program window.  You click on that second window for more programs if the file has any.

    Just in case that helps.

    Randy B.

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    Shane_B.
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    Re:Who Uses SoundFonts In Sonar Still? 2010/05/14 10:00:53 (permalink)
    fresh101


    Try PR32 mode in the top right hand corner instead of SF32.
    That did the trick! I never thought of doing that because I never had to touch that setting in SFZ ... I assumed SFZ + would work the same way.
     
    I am now able to use SF2's in Sonar 8.5.3 on Windows 7 64bit and Windows XP 32bit. I really prefer Windows 7 64bit ... only a few more bugs to get worked out of Sonar and I'll be able to switch to it exclusively.
     
    I was going through some strings and drums/percussion I have in SF2 format last night ... amazing quality. I can't wait to start using them again. Funny how some of these old SF2's sound so great compared to newer samples isn't it?
     
    Thanks everyone for helping me with this!

    Shane :)
     
     

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    twaddle
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    Re:Who Uses SoundFonts In Sonar Still? 2010/10/13 10:43:32 (permalink)
    Big thanks to Fresh101.
    Glad I found this thread as I was having the same problem and now I'm a happy man.

    Steve

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    Silverthroat
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    Re: Who Uses SoundFonts In Sonar Still? 2018/02/01 15:42:50 (permalink)
    I bought Sonar Artist last year and I sure miss using my Grand Piano Sound Fonts. Is it even possible anymore to use them?

    Thanks,
    Mike
     
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    msmcleod
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    Re: Who Uses SoundFonts In Sonar Still? 2018/02/01 15:48:42 (permalink)
    You can use Cakewalk's sfz for playing soundfonts.
     
    Personally however, I use Samplelord as it more control options and works perfectly with my two V-Machine's for live use: http://www.samplelord.com/
     
    You might also want to look at DSK SF2 v2, which is free : http://www.dskmusic.com/dsk-sf2-v2/
     
    M.
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    LunaTech
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    Re: Who Uses SoundFonts In Sonar Still? 2018/02/02 11:15:54 (permalink)
    Hello,
     
    Glad you are working but here is another option that has worked for me using sound fonts in Sonar.
    http://www.tx16wx.com/

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    JoeGBradford
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    Re: Who Uses SoundFonts In Sonar Still? 2018/02/02 14:54:25 (permalink)
    I've got Plogue Sforzando installed which appears to work ok with Sonar HS. I've got both 32 bit and 64 bit versions installed
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    BRainbow
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    Re: Who Uses SoundFonts In Sonar Still? 2018/02/03 03:18:12 (permalink)
    I use both http://www.tx16wx.com/ and Plogue Sforzando and they both are very flexible and work great. 

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    bitman
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    Re: Who Uses SoundFonts In Sonar Still? 2018/02/03 15:19:09 (permalink)
    I have a banjo.sf the I use with sfplayer.
    Because I don't have another banjo of any other kind today.
    #24
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