What's the best index of free downloadable SoundFonts?

[mjolnir]

What's the best searchable index of free downloadable SoundFonts?
i'm noticing that a bunch of my DAW's have built in SoundFont support and some of them are nice.
Where can I get more, just like the title says. Which is the best site for high quality and variety?

[eLawnMust]

Well, High quality what? Instruments or banks?... I create my own HiQ SF2 & share over at the SunVox forum on the SVArTracker Thread last page is current...

These are all instruments LARGE size as every semitone is sampled, so they sound great no matter what the note...

Many images are not working presently-

https://warmplace.ru/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 4&start=45

The only working links at this time are-

https://workupload.com/start/34jaNsQqkv5

AND

https://workupload.com/start/67bqZKVfJEx

AND

https://workupload.com/start/6c6KbMNKZxt


Last one is sampled from output of MicroRock Pro, the others mostly LinPlug Spectral...

These are all loopers, sometimes I make non-loopers & since SVArTracker has program change for every note if you wish it I also make banks of some of these as high as 500 MB for SVArTracker but they will work in others too...

Oh, to add... i also share same SF2 but in AKAI format for Skale Tracker on the Skale Thread they sound awesome in Skale even a bit better than XRNI in renoise...

[BackInCheck]

Not soundfont (which is a very old format, lots of low quality libraries of questionable origin in terms of copyright), but SFZ (which is a newer and open format, better quality libraries than soundfonts):

This site has a good (but incomplete) overview of quality SFZ libraries available:

https://sfzinstruments.github.io/


Other SFZ lists / repositories:

https://www.pianobook.co.uk/sampler/sfz/

https://freepats.zenvoid.org/

https://versilian-studios.com/#freeware

https://github.com/IsaakCode/freeaudio/ ... samples.md

[surreal]

Cool

[eLawnMust]

Not soundfont (which is a very old format, lots of low quality libraries of questionable origin in terms of copyright), but SFZ (which is a newer and open format, better quality libraries than soundfonts):

This site has a good (but incomplete) overview of quality SFZ libraries available:

https://sfzinstruments.github.io/


Other SFZ lists / repositories:

https://www.pianobook.co.uk/sampler/sfz/

https://freepats.zenvoid.org/

https://versilian-studios.com/#freeware

https://github.com/IsaakCode/freeaudio/ ... samples.md

Questionable Copyrights?... As long as you are not making money with the copyrighted material anything is up for grabs, use it as you wish but never even try to make a penny off it... The 'copyright' is a document of USA govt which is a corporation not a country, if you make money you are under corporate laws if not it's common law...

[whyterabbyt]

As long as you are not making money with the copyrighted material anything is up for grabs

Completely untrue.

The 'copyright' is a document of USA govt which is a corporation not a country, if you make money you are under corporate laws if not it's common law...

This is absolute nonsense, not least because copyright law isnt confined to the US, and dates to at least the 16th century, 200 years before there was a USA.

[sjm]

To echo what BackInCheck wrote, soundfonts (SF2) is a format that is now decades old and has been superseded by more modern formats, with SFZ being the obvious "like for like replacement". Like SF2, SFZ is a format that is supported by lots of different plugins and apps. Because SF2 is so dated, most soundfonts are quite limited - the creators were dealing with massive hardware limitations, as they come from a time when the available memory was measured in MBs, not GBs.

Those limitations are long since gone, so there's really not much reason to use soundfonts these days unless you really absolutely want that "dated 90s" vibe. You probably want to be looking at SFZ, as suggested.

[mjolnir]

Thanks for pointing out SFZ. I think HighLife still plays those too.

[mjolnir]

I'm not sure how to play SFZ packages, but I did certainly get MUCH BETTER QUALITY audio samples out of some of the SFZ downloads. Right now I'm working on getting better drums to cherry pick some oneshots out of. It's working pretty well. I just need to find a batch normaliser somewhere.

[Noisenomad]

Very useful post, saved me much time, thanks.

[audiojunkie]

Not soundfont (which is a very old format, lots of low quality libraries of questionable origin in terms of copyright), but SFZ (which is a newer and open format, better quality libraries than soundfonts):

This site has a good (but incomplete) overview of quality SFZ libraries available:

https://sfzinstruments.github.io/


Other SFZ lists / repositories:

https://www.pianobook.co.uk/sampler/sfz/

https://freepats.zenvoid.org/

https://versilian-studios.com/#freeware

https://github.com/IsaakCode/freeaudio/ ... samples.md

Questionable Copyrights?... As long as you are not making money with the copyrighted material anything is up for grabs, use it as you wish but never even try to make a penny off it... The 'copyright' is a document of USA govt which is a corporation not a country, if you make money you are under corporate laws if not it's common law...

I can't speak for every site being listed in this thread, but I know for certain that several of these are copy-right vetted and good to use. Especially the SFZInstruments page, Versilian Studios, and freepats stuff. Probably the PianoBook stuff too. In fact, it looks like most of the stuff listed in the IsaakCode Github site are pretty reputable too. I'm not disagreeing with you about copyrighted stuff, but I think most of the stuff that you specifically commented on is good.

[audiojunkie]

To echo what BackInCheck wrote, soundfonts (SF2) is a format that is now decades old and has been superseded by more modern formats, with SFZ being the obvious "like for like replacement". Like SF2, SFZ is a format that is supported by lots of different plugins and apps. Because SF2 is so dated, most soundfonts are quite limited - the creators were dealing with massive hardware limitations, as they come from a time when the available memory was measured in MBs, not GBs.

Those limitations are long since gone, so there's really not much reason to use soundfonts these days unless you really absolutely want that "dated 90s" vibe. You probably want to be looking at SFZ, as suggested.

In general, this is pretty much the case. SF2 didn't support round robins or higher sampling rates, and other things. However, I want to point out that there are still plenty of SF2 files being made, and that a lot---I really mean A LOT of SFZ files are simple one sample per octave, 16bit/44.1k, no round robin affairs. You could have a "common" SFZ file that would suck compared to a high quality SF2 that has a sample for every note.

I guess what I am trying to say, is that one should not just disregard an SF2 because it is an SF2. Yes, the format for SFZ is much better, and supports much better capabilities, but when it all comes down to it, the craftmanship of the instrument that is sampled can mean much more. If you are buying Karoryfer SFZ samples, you can count on it being absolute quality. There are many open source multi-gigabyte SFZ instruments that have been prepared with the same high quality. However, there are many, many more SFZ instruments that are not very good. Likewise, there are still some quality SF2 shops that are releasing quality product. I hope people keep this in mind when they are choosing sampled instruments. Cheers!

[lobanov]

500 GM Soundfonts
https://datajake.braillescreen.net/500_ ... l_GM_Sets/

Know nothing about copyrights.