soundfont v other sample formats?

[iain_morland]

Following the question I asked about guitar soundfonts in this thread, I've been getting more interested in soundfonts. I don't own a sampler VST, although I do have several synths that can work with wav files in various ways (e.g. Absynth); however these aren't geared towards 'realistic' sample playback.

Now obviously the sfz player is free and so are many soundfonts. And the simplicity of the player appeals to me because I have never been interested in sample-editing, layer mapping etc.

But I'm wondering -

• 1. Where I could go to get high quality commercial soundfonts?...
  2. ...or whether it would be silly to pay for soundfonts at all?
  3. Why there seem to be relatively few commercial soundfonts (in comparison to other formats)?
  4. Whether I'm overlooking any important differences between the soundfont format and other sampling formats, which make the former less good/useful?

Any opinions? Thanks.

[BertKoor]

1. Google is your friend. You may also wade through this thread (probably some dead links, it's quite old...)
2. Depends weather they are worth it In soundfonts there is loads of free crap, some free gems, some commercial crap and gems also.
3. The lack of copy protection may be one reason. It's very easy to share soundfonts, or combine samples of several into a new one. Some of the gems you find on free soundfont sites are actually shameless rips from several commercial libraries.

[iain_morland]

Thanks for the comments.

Lol about the crap and gems...this was why I was asking about good commercial fonts, to save time!

Regarding point 3, it does worry me that some free soundfonts may be illegal - certainly I found some which seemed dodgy. Then again, not having restrictive copy protection is usually a good thing.

[Yossarian]

My favourite source for commercial soundfonts is Sonivox (formerly Sonic Implants):

http://www.sonivoxmi.com/ProductList.as ... =Soundfont

/Yoss

[chickeneps]

SoundFont is a good format, but basic.

Remember, SoundFonts are a sound format without a a sound engine, although an engine that LOADS SoundFonts has certain standards in how what it loads is SUPPOSED TO sound like.

It can handle fairly unlimited structures, there's no voice limit or sounds per layer limit. You cna have howeer many velocity layers you want, for example.

It's basic like Akai is basic, only perhaps better.

Anyone can make a quality SoundFont, that is a natural instrument (not a synth or similar) if their recordings are perfect. No filters would be needed, nor modulations using realtime effects. SoundFonts don't have a capacity size limit. All that owuld be needed is to lay it out properly.

Still, SoundFonts aren't the cleanest,best organized format. Stereo samples have to be stored as two objects, not one. If you want filters, you don't get them. The Envelopes are not multi-stage, and they act a little funny too. There's no modulation matrix. There's no controller switching or key-switching.

[bduffy]

Soundfonts are, for the most part, dead now. Because they were attached to the Creative SoundBlaster name, there was simply no way in hell professionals would ever take it seriously, and that's why you don't see any big commercial sf2 libraries. Sonivox made some nice inroads into this, but the flexibilty and detail that people expect nowadays is simply easier to provide in newer formats (sf2 is a bitch to put together). But still, their libraries are cheap and decent (love those Ambient Drums!), and worth checking out for the home recordist, and there are some very good sounds kicking around, namely the GSCW Drums, some nice big pianos. You can also convert some the more complex formats to sf2 with Extreme Sample Converter, CDXtract or Chikensys.

If you're just looking for simple playback, and aren't that concerned about detail/editing/quality (of the soundfonts, I realise sfz is good quality), then sfz with free soundfonts are great for composing/experimenting/learning about using samples. I started with soundfonts (just loading them into the Soundblaster) and eventually, when I outgrew them, moved on to Kontakt and more complex sample formats. Perfectly good for writing songs, but if you're looking for truly believable strings and such, I think you'd be better off looking at some other options.

[dougsyo]

My favourite source for commercial soundfonts is Sonivox (formerly Sonic Implants):

http://www.sonivoxmi.com/ProductList.as ... =Soundfont

Sonivox, Ntonyx and Creative are probably the three best-known commercial soundfont vendors. Some others (Manytone and Precisionsound, for example) offer soundfont as one alternative delivery format. It IS the "lowest common denominator" format, which implies it has limits as well - see discussion above.

I would not choose soundfont now unless it was the only format that both the vendor and my machine support. I would choose Kontakt or SFZ instead, or in a pinch SampleTank.

Doug

[basic channel]

SoundFont is a good format, but basic.

Remember, SoundFonts are a sound format without a a sound engine, although an engine that LOADS SoundFonts has certain standards in how what it loads is SUPPOSED TO sound like.

Unless you have an Emu soundchip based card (SBLive, Audigy, Emu APS etc.)

If you want filters, you don't get them. The Envelopes are not multi-stage, and they act a little funny too. There's no modulation matrix. There's no controller switching or key-switching.

Hmmm.. the sf 2.1 spec includes a number of built-in parameters (if the hardware or software can address them) whereby sources can modulate various synth parameters

e.g

SOURCES include velocity, pitch wheel, mod wheel, breasth control, CCs 7,11, 21-24, 91,93

PARAMETERS include a LP filter (Fc & Q),LFOs etc. etc.


See
http://www.soundblaster.com/soundfont/sfspec21.pdf and http://freepats.opensrc.org/sf2/sfapp21.pdf for details

These modulators have been available since 1998 ! Although only to people with Emu APS for most of that time (and I still use mine ... all parameter control done by APS Emo10k1 DSP, along with onboard effects)

The recent 2.4 update allows 24bit samples (but is fully backwards compatible with 2.x players.

BC

[iain_morland]

Thanks for these helpful replies about both the pros and cons - and I didn't know Precisionsound did soundfont-format sample libraries, so that's interesting to know.

[precisionsound]

Hello "iain_morland"
Precisionsound does SoundFont if it's possible to deliver an alternative in that format and if it works ok, it's not 24bit but if your DAW project is 32bit who can hear the difference in the final mix? It's when you sum lots of tracks together bitdepth could be an issue… right?

In some cases we have made native Sfz formats for some of our libraries also.
This programs (Sfz) has the same type of functionality as HALion Kontakt, Giga etc. with in our case relates mostly to releasesamples with time related decay of the volume.
Worth mentioning is that "Sfz player" is not only a Sf2 player, it's own format is much more advanced and as a developer I think it would be great business if the developer took time to make a MAC version and a decent editor, at least for developers to licence…
But that is another discussion… anyway…
In cases we do not need this extras, we have made Sf2 (SoundFonts) to have a universal format compatible with almost everything on both MAC & PC. SoundFont is the universal format that could be read by all virtual samplers worth mentioning on both PC & MAC so we stick to it as long as we can.

Lars

[iain_morland]

Thanks for the info, precisionsound - following the recommendations above I've actually just been looking at your site.

I have a couple of questions which I'll PM you in a moment.

[chickeneps]

Worth mentioning is that "Sfz player" is not only a Sf2 player, it's own format is much more advanced and as a developer I think it would be great business if the developer took time to make a MAC version and a decent editor, at least for developers to licence…

Great minds think alike - Cakewalk thought this also. So they created Dimension (for PC and Mac) which is a near cousin to the SFZ player. It has an editor, uses native format SFZ, and probably written by the same author - the SFZ player author works for Cakewalk now. I know it's not exactly what you are pointing out, but it's close.

[joshhunsaker]

I've found about a good 8 gigs of free soundfonts on the internet in my searches. hammersound.com, soundfonts.it, and sf2midi.com are going to give you the most results. Get a free download accelerator, click every single link and give it a go.

[Bassballjg]

Worth mentioning is that "Sfz player" is not only a Sf2 player, it's own format is much more advanced and as a developer I think it would be great business if the developer took time to make a MAC version and a decent editor, at least for developers to licence…

Great minds think alike - Cakewalk thought this also. So they created Dimension (for PC and Mac) which is a near cousin to the SFZ player. It has an editor, uses native format SFZ, and probably written by the same author - the SFZ player author works for Cakewalk now. I know it's not exactly what you are pointing out, but it's close.

Cakewalk Dimension and Rapture are indeed created by Rene Cebalos, and are way more than "cousins" of the free sfz player. It's more like the relationship of descent from the first amphibian to be totally not a fish to a human being or other highly advanced mammal. They are very deep and powerful synths that use sfz as thier native multisample format.

But the format itself is powerful in its own right, in that for players that play it, it can set as conditions of the multisample intrument many key synth parameters like filtering and enveloping and midi controllers, as well as sample playback parameters like pitch, velocity switching, loop type and more. That's why the sfz player has no real controls, you set it all up in the sfz file, which can be edited as text. There needs to be a lot more use of this format by other synths, it is amazing.

[zvon]

We have interesting and unique commercial soundfonts on our website (link in the signature). There's also some freebies.