I hope I'm in the right forum for this...
I love SF's and I've generally used either the FL Studio SF Player or Jeskola X-1 in the past. Are there any better options these days, and are we still on SF2 or is there an SF3 (or 4, or 5, etc)?
Thanks!
Best Current Sound Font Players
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Karl the Hermit Karl the Hermit https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=203618
- KVRist
- 105 posts since 21 Mar, 2009 from West Pennsyltucky, USA
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- KVRAF
- 2066 posts since 11 Aug, 2012 from omfr morf form romf frmo
2.04 is the latest SoundFont version. Most publicly-available files adhere to the 2.0 spec at most though.
"Better" depends on context. If you just want a player you already have one. But you may be interested in Plogue Sforzando as a free alternative. It converts them to its ARIA-format for more flexibility.
Kontakt can load SoundFonts and you can save it as a Kontakt instrument. With Kontakt's features and scripting it's one of the most flexible/powerful options.
But pretty much any contemporary sampler will load/convert it. Some softsynths will too (Synthmaster if you place it in the appropriate folder, DiscoDSP).
"Better" depends on context. If you just want a player you already have one. But you may be interested in Plogue Sforzando as a free alternative. It converts them to its ARIA-format for more flexibility.
Kontakt can load SoundFonts and you can save it as a Kontakt instrument. With Kontakt's features and scripting it's one of the most flexible/powerful options.
But pretty much any contemporary sampler will load/convert it. Some softsynths will too (Synthmaster if you place it in the appropriate folder, DiscoDSP).
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- KVRAF
- 2696 posts since 19 Apr, 2005 from The City Beneath the Sea
I looked into steroe sf2's a while ago and it received no attention.
Here is what I found:
Recently, I sat down and listened to comparisons between mono and stereo .sf2 files using both ESC and Samplelord. Which got me thinking....
Most, if not all, instruments that I know of that can play .sf2 files do so in mono only. That is to say, even when presented with a stereo .sf2 file those instruments will only play one channel of the file.
In the instruments of HG Fortune, the M42 from AlgoMusic and the instruments of ArtVera - the sound is kept in constant motion giving us a sense of depth. And they sound wonderful. You do not feel you are working with mono sound sources using these instruments.
Where you do feel a lack of depth is if you have a mono sound source (.sf2) file and want to use just a single sound.
I started looking around for instruments/players that were capable of using stereo .sf2 files and found this:
Xen-Arts One-SF2
There is now also this:
XenFont2
Other instruments/players that will load and play stereo .sf2 files properly:
Samplelord
Phenome
SaffronSE
TX16Wx
KXSF2-ST
VSampler - discontinued. But can be used as a VSTi
MaxSynths Cryologic
As I find more instruments/players that will properly play stereo .sf2 files, I will add them here.
Some notes about making .sf2 files. Normally I convert to individual .sf2 instruments from the SFZ files using ESC and then compile all of the SF2 instruments into one SF2 file using VSampler. This has always worked well for me until I made stereo SF2 files.
ESC converts the SFZ/WAV to a .sf2 file as a stereo sound, no problem. The problems arose when using VSampler - it took the stereo file and split it into two L and R mono files and for some reason stripped out the loop points from the audio files and kept that information somewhere else. The result was that the stereo .sf2 files played properly in One-SF2, Samplelord, Phenome and SaffronSE, but would not loop in TX16Wx.
The solution to this was to use Viena to remake all of the stereo .sf2 files. I can also recommend Polyphone.
The SF2 format is not outdated and can match the quality of the SFZ/WAV format. What is needed right now are more instruments that can play stereo .sf2 files.
Quirks
In this section of the page, I will document any quirks or bugs that I find in each instrument so you know in advance what to expect.
Phenome:
There is a bug in Phenome, but it does not have any bearing on the functionality of it properly playing back SF2 presets and multis.
It is not honest, in Multis, in the little graphical display on the Preset menu setting as to letting you know which sound is set on each layer.
However, if you look to the SF2 file display for what sound is loaded - that will tell you accurately what sound is loaded.
It makes sense when you see it....
That is when you are using Multis that use the same .sf2 file.
Forget about Multis using more than one .sf2 file. I spent a few hours today attempting to get it to work. It does not.
SaffronSE:
SaffronSE does let you load different .sf2 files on the different layers, but does not like any .sf2 files above a certain size. I would suggest keeping .sf2 file sizes below 200 Mb. The only file I have so far out of the 7 listed below that is above 200 Mb is Anomaly XX. I will be making a special version of that file for use with SaffronSE. Instead of 80 sounds in 1 .sf2 file, it will be 40 sounds in 2 .sf2 files.
Also SaffronSE created a folder in AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\Steinberg\VstPlugins\SaffronSE\SaffronSE which held the .SEP and .SEM files. This is also where it expects to find .sf2 files and save its .fxp files.
I just moved this folder to Program Files (x86)\Steinberg\VstPlugins\SaffronSE\SaffronSE. SaffronSE now saves to that directory.
Here is what I found:
Recently, I sat down and listened to comparisons between mono and stereo .sf2 files using both ESC and Samplelord. Which got me thinking....
Most, if not all, instruments that I know of that can play .sf2 files do so in mono only. That is to say, even when presented with a stereo .sf2 file those instruments will only play one channel of the file.
In the instruments of HG Fortune, the M42 from AlgoMusic and the instruments of ArtVera - the sound is kept in constant motion giving us a sense of depth. And they sound wonderful. You do not feel you are working with mono sound sources using these instruments.
Where you do feel a lack of depth is if you have a mono sound source (.sf2) file and want to use just a single sound.
I started looking around for instruments/players that were capable of using stereo .sf2 files and found this:
Xen-Arts One-SF2
There is now also this:
XenFont2
Other instruments/players that will load and play stereo .sf2 files properly:
Samplelord
Phenome
SaffronSE
TX16Wx
KXSF2-ST
VSampler - discontinued. But can be used as a VSTi
MaxSynths Cryologic
As I find more instruments/players that will properly play stereo .sf2 files, I will add them here.
Some notes about making .sf2 files. Normally I convert to individual .sf2 instruments from the SFZ files using ESC and then compile all of the SF2 instruments into one SF2 file using VSampler. This has always worked well for me until I made stereo SF2 files.
ESC converts the SFZ/WAV to a .sf2 file as a stereo sound, no problem. The problems arose when using VSampler - it took the stereo file and split it into two L and R mono files and for some reason stripped out the loop points from the audio files and kept that information somewhere else. The result was that the stereo .sf2 files played properly in One-SF2, Samplelord, Phenome and SaffronSE, but would not loop in TX16Wx.
The solution to this was to use Viena to remake all of the stereo .sf2 files. I can also recommend Polyphone.
The SF2 format is not outdated and can match the quality of the SFZ/WAV format. What is needed right now are more instruments that can play stereo .sf2 files.
Quirks
In this section of the page, I will document any quirks or bugs that I find in each instrument so you know in advance what to expect.
Phenome:
There is a bug in Phenome, but it does not have any bearing on the functionality of it properly playing back SF2 presets and multis.
It is not honest, in Multis, in the little graphical display on the Preset menu setting as to letting you know which sound is set on each layer.
However, if you look to the SF2 file display for what sound is loaded - that will tell you accurately what sound is loaded.
It makes sense when you see it....
That is when you are using Multis that use the same .sf2 file.
Forget about Multis using more than one .sf2 file. I spent a few hours today attempting to get it to work. It does not.
SaffronSE:
SaffronSE does let you load different .sf2 files on the different layers, but does not like any .sf2 files above a certain size. I would suggest keeping .sf2 file sizes below 200 Mb. The only file I have so far out of the 7 listed below that is above 200 Mb is Anomaly XX. I will be making a special version of that file for use with SaffronSE. Instead of 80 sounds in 1 .sf2 file, it will be 40 sounds in 2 .sf2 files.
Also SaffronSE created a folder in AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\Steinberg\VstPlugins\SaffronSE\SaffronSE which held the .SEP and .SEM files. This is also where it expects to find .sf2 files and save its .fxp files.
I just moved this folder to Program Files (x86)\Steinberg\VstPlugins\SaffronSE\SaffronSE. SaffronSE now saves to that directory.