KVR Audio

herodotus · Post by **herodotus** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 1:25 pm

Checked out the links to rgcaudio and ALL of them now redirect to Cakewalk's site, where sfz is nowhere to be found.

I guess Cakewalk decided that a piece of freeware this good was bad for business.

That kind of throws some long term development plans of mine out the window. Sad.

Well, at least I have a copy for my own use.

The vst gods giveth, and the vst gods taketh away....

androidlove · Post by **androidlove** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 1:29 pm

The vst gods giveth, and the vst gods taketh away

backups are gold

P.T. · Post by **P.T.** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 1:46 pm

I got this from the sfz thread at the rgc forum.

http://www.project5.com/products/instru ... efault.asp

The rgc site seems to be gone also. I guess they have been completely bought out by Cakewalk.

At least Cakewalk is a good company.

herodotus · Post by **herodotus** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 1:55 pm

P.T. wrote:I got this from the sfz thread at the rgc forum.

http://www.project5.com/products/instru ... efault.asp

The rgc site seems to be gone also. I guess they have been completely bought out by Cakewalk.

At least Cakewalk is a good company.

There it is!

phew!

I am almost done with a sample set written for sfz, and even though I know the format is used in all kinds of Cakewalk products, I was really going after a different market....

The vst gods merely moved things around a bit.

chuck death · Post by **chuck death** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 2:38 pm

herodotus wrote:I am almost done with a sample set written for sfz, and even though I know the format is used in all kinds of Cakewalk products, I was really going after a different market....

Even if you hadn't found SFZ, there's still a couple of free options both of which are considerably more powerful (proper envelopes for a start!). Both Highlife and Shortcircuit load SFZ files directly.

I don't even have SFZ installed any more, there's no need.

SampleScience · Post by **SampleScience** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 12:42 am

chuck death wrote:
herodotus wrote:I am almost done with a sample set written for sfz, and even though I know the format is used in all kinds of Cakewalk products, I was really going after a different market....
Even if you hadn't found SFZ, there's still a couple of free options both of which are considerably more powerful (proper envelopes for a start!). Both Highlife and Shortcircuit load SFZ files directly.

I don't even have SFZ installed any more, there's no need.

you're quite right! at least highlife have volume envellopes!!

herodotus · Post by **herodotus** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 6:30 am

SampleScience wrote:
chuck death wrote:
herodotus wrote:I am almost done with a sample set written for sfz, and even though I know the format is used in all kinds of Cakewalk products, I was really going after a different market....
Even if you hadn't found SFZ, there's still a couple of free options both of which are considerably more powerful (proper envelopes for a start!). Both Highlife and Shortcircuit load SFZ files directly.

I don't even have SFZ installed any more, there's no need.
you're quite right! at least highlife have volume envellopes!!

Thanks guys, but I assure you, Highlife is in no way more powerful than sfz. It is more intuitive, perhaps, because it has a gui, but it is not more powerful.

In the first place, it has UNLIMITED polyphony (highlife tops out at 32 voices).

In the second place, it not only has proper envelope generators, but they are infinitely configurable (and they have a 'Hold' component in addition to Attack, Decay, Sustain, and release). They are also freely assignable individually to the pitch filter or amplifier of each (potentially unlimited) velocity layer of each note. And it has dedicated LFOs that are equally flexible.

Setting it up might seem like a pain (You need to create a text filecontaining the relevant information), but in terms of what it can actually do, you won't find a more powerful sampler than sfz.

metamorphosis · Post by **metamorphosis** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 9:38 pm

The links in the 'Free samples libraries and where to find them etc' at the top of this board contains working links to both freeware versions of sfz, so don't stress. Cakewalk will probably come out with a payware version someday that works properly with decent multi-threading support, until then, use these-
Cheers,
m@t

chuck death · Post by **chuck death** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 10:30 pm

herodotus wrote:Thanks guys, but I assure you, Highlife is in no way more powerful than sfz. It is more intuitive, perhaps, because it has a gui, but it is not more powerful.

Ooh you want to get pedantic!

You say you can do extra stuff in SFZ by learning a scripting language that makes it more powerful than highlife? You seem to be forgetting a rather important feature of Highlife, namely that it's now open source so if you wanted to you could add any of the features you mention by using a "scripting language" called C++.

gsoto · Post by **gsoto** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 12:04 am

I'm a little concerned that the sfz spec page is no longer accessible neither.
I hope the format doesn't fall into oblivion, it looks like the only decent open alternative at the moment.

shamann · Post by **shamann** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 12:33 am

gsoto wrote:I'm a little concerned that the sfz spec page is no longer accessible neither.
I hope the format doesn't fall into oblivion, it looks like the only decent open alternative at the moment.

sfz file format:

http://www.cakewalk.com/DevXchange/sfz.asp

gsoto · Post by **gsoto** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 12:39 am

Ahhh, thanks shamann

herodotus · Post by **herodotus** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 12:55 am

chuck death wrote:
herodotus wrote:Thanks guys, but I assure you, Highlife is in no way more powerful than sfz. It is more intuitive, perhaps, because it has a gui, but it is not more powerful.
Ooh you want to get pedantic!

You say you can do extra stuff in SFZ by learning a scripting language that makes it more powerful than highlife? You seem to be forgetting a rather important feature of Highlife, namely that it's now open source so if you wanted to you could add any of the features you mention by using a "scripting language" called C++.

No pedantry, just a fondness for the immense possibilities of this wonderful sampler.

I use it almost exclusively these days. It really can do just about anything you can think of a sampler doing.

And in any case, the sfz format opcodes are simple to understand, simpler than html. Whereas C++ is a little more complicated.

G&L_player · Post by **G&L_player** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 2:35 am

herodotus wrote:Checked out the links to rgcaudio and ALL of them now redirect to Cakewalk's site, where sfz is nowhere to be found.

I guess Cakewalk decided that a piece of freeware this good was bad for business.

That kind of throws some long term development plans of mine out the window. Sad.

Well, at least I have a copy for my own use.

The vst gods giveth, and the vst gods taketh away....

The big companies resent the fact that anything was ever given away. However, drugs (e.g. cigs; eds sample; etc...) are an exception to the rule.

Now, of course, they must convince us that the older stuff that we already have (like sfz) is useless. In addition, they must create the bridge to their current offerings. ("SFZ is no good; it's useless! You need what we're selling. How dare those ignorant developers give you that crap to work with!")

I'm sure the "ancient freebies" will continue to make comebacks to the shame (and profit) of the companies that devoured them.

EEK! sfz seems to be gone forever!!