Soundfont technology out-of-date?

[marce]

Ole, is Emu supporting sf2.1 in their emulatorX products? Are Audigy series supporting it?
Is not sarcasm, im asking because i really dont know.
I believe that they drop the support of 2.1 when they finish the APS series (that dont have new drivers from i dont remember when)

I have the Win XP drivers installed for my old soundblaster live card and this support at least playback of soundfont 2.1
And i´m pretty shure that the Audigy cards do as well.
You can do SO many more things with SF 2.1

Hi thanks your answer, and sorry my ignorance.

[paul minot]

Since my music is not very sample-driven, Soundfonts are still my sample medium of choice. I prefer the flexibility of synthesis most of the time, and when it comes to synths I like the sound to be clean and smooth. But when I DO use samples, I kind of like the graininess and artifice of 16-bit samples. Basically, low-fi samples are more rock and roll, IMHO.

You guys can always use other sample formats if you want 24/96 sound, velocity layers, and want to pay money for your samples (I'm too cheap myself). Leave the Soundfonts the way they are--it's about the only good thing that Creative ever did, IMHO.

[birrbits]

But when I DO use samples, I kind of like the graininess and artifice of 16-bit samples. Basically, low-fi samples are more rock and roll, IMHO.

16 BIT = GRAINY? do your cd's sound grainy?
12 bit for guitar is grainy(and good), but dude....

[rpc9943]

lol, cd audio is 16bit

RonC

[nutsadamus]

I don't think soundfonts themselves are dated, its just that there aren't any good programs for editing/creating your own. Vienna sucks (and hasn't been updated in what 15 years??), Alive is buggy, Awave works ok but its expensive if all you want is a SF editor. What else is there thats current?

We need an easy to use SF editor to inject some new life into the format. SFZ format seems like a good alternative, but I'm too slow and lazy to learn a text based editing system, need a pretty gui and a familiar interface to stare at I guess.

[useruseruser]

Just to make my standpoint somewhat clearer once again:

There are really important things missing in the SF2 formats and thus the soundfonts in general.

Today, soundfonts mostly will be used for "realistic real world instrunent simulations". (Because we have very good VA synthesizers to reproduce this genre much much better.)

Do most of you guys actually know, how cumbersone and rudimentary for instance filter-velocity dynamic instruments are created with most available sf2 soundfonts?

Here is is: The designer of the font uses several layers with different filter amounts and mappes it to the keyboard. The count of layers is still limited, cause nobody really would do the job with the maximum of 128 velocity layers.

Do you see something now?
Rather than to use merely a simple velocity to filter modulation routing (which is simply not implemented in the soundfont spec) the creation and finally the sounding result is very unsatisfactory this way.

Thereby this could be such as easy!

The same, if you want an decreasing attack time in dependency of the velocity (still very usefull for creating all kind of realistic instrument sound, pianos, violins, saxophones, flutes ...).

This is not possible at current time, due the lack of missing features.


Furthermore, the simplest thing (even implemented in the simplest synthesizers today) are not possible with soundfonts: portamento, legato, free definable aftertouch and modwheel routing, possibly a HP filter or dynamic EQ, definable basic modulation matrix, possible layer and keyrange crossfading ...


And yes, thus, the soundfont is old fashioned, because there is a technological standard from 1990's EMU sound chip still used today.

But it seems, that most of you didn't even take a note of all this.

Example: I created one very realistic sounding Grand Piano sound with only 128 MB single soundfont layer with Kontakt. This sound just "blowes away" the Steinberg and probably all other gigabyte heavy sound libraries with ease! So I finally can use it, (without f**king my sytem) in my songs...

Why? Because I used some simple but very smart modulation possibilities with Kontakt.

I wish, I was able do similar with soundfonts directly ...

AGAIN: The underlaying Technology is an enormous potential. Why not request the necessary extensions for evolution now?

.

[Lunch Money]

I simply doubt that Creative/EMU will see the profitability in doing so.

[paul minot]

One can NEVER lose betting that Creative will be unresponsive...

[paul minot]

But when I DO use samples, I kind of like the graininess and artifice of 16-bit samples. Basically, low-fi samples are more rock and roll, IMHO.

16 BIT = GRAINY? do your cd's sound grainy?
12 bit for guitar is grainy(and good), but dude....

I don't know why, bu tSoundfonts DO generally sound sort of grainy to me most of the time. Then again, I DO use freebies.

[useruseruser]

And by the way: I just took a closer look at the soundfont 2.1 spec (also some years old now).

The spec for more modulation flexibility is just there. Merely the soundfont players don't implement it !!!

That's my point.

.

[useruseruser]

I simply doubt that Creative/EMU will see the profitability in doing so.

Wide parts of the soundfont spec (if not all) are open.
Or is rgc:audio for instance a division of the company above?

We must not wait for Creative/EMU to get improved soundfont player/editor software.

All world is ravin about the sfz / sfz+, but it gives us merely just an old EMU sounchip emulation.

.

[bugs]

Athough I now use a highend FW audio interface, I still find ample use for my Audigy 2 eX Platinum as a hardware soundfont player, especially with Sibelius 2. I am using the Xioad GM soundfont as a default and can load anything else I want. Soundfonts are certainly not as good as say routing the MIDI from Sibleius to GS3 loaded with VSL, but they can be very useful--plus there are many quite good ones available for free.

[useruseruser]

Athough I now use a highend FW audio interface, I still find ample use for my Audigy 2 eX Platinum as a hardware soundfont player, especially with Sibelius 2. I am using the Xioad GM soundfont as a default and can load anything else I want. Soundfonts are certainly not as good as say routing the MIDI from Sibleius to GS3 loaded with VSL, but they can be very useful--plus there are many quite good ones available for free.

Right. Nobody doubts.

.

[Lunch Money]

I just assumed you've been going on about making fundamental changes to soundfont technology, ie. stuff that's still owned and unreleased by Creative/EMU. My mistake.

[pljones]

Wide parts of the soundfont spec (if not all) are open.

Compatibility is extremely important: what's the point of having a soundfont that plays perfectly for one person but sounds useless to everyone else? An open specification isn't a solution.

We must not wait for Creative/EMU to get improved soundfont player/editor software.

We're not, as far as I'm aware... I've never used Creative or EMU for soundfont playing. I can't think of any reason I ever would. Do you have a reason to think anyone is waiting on Creative/EMU?

Or is rgc:audio for instance a division of the company above?

Huh?

All world is ravin about the sfz / sfz+, but it gives us merely just an old EMU sounchip emulation.

Huh? Have you actually read the sfz format spec and the sfz thread in the rgc:audio forum? Particularly the latter, as it demonstrates how the format has been developed. You come across as someone with a fixed view of the world trying to make sure any facts presented are "dealt with" in such a way as to leave their view unaffected, rather than actually trying to make some progress.

Yes, having a GUI editor for sfz format might be nice. Download one, then! There are two, after all. Why should René spend time on such a thing? He's not even being paid for sfz format and sfz, so to complain he's not written an integrated GUI is just... well... rude, if nothing else.