What is a SOUNDFONT?

D

DVZON

New member
I've been hearing people say they use soundfonts with sequencers and wave editors, but what is it, and what does it do?
 
It's a concept of put a MIDI synth's sound data on a files, rather than being burn in a sound card's chip. So, everytime you want to change the internal (sound card's) MIDI synth sound, simply load the pre programed files into your card / system's memory using soundfont utility programs. You can upload many soundfont files into memory, and each stored in different banks. Then you can call the sounds in the banks with your sequencer. It acts as a internal MIDI sound module. Although almost all earlier Sound Blaster family cards do have, NOT every sound card on the market have this ability. Sound font almost used in MIDI world. That means, you can only handle this technology if you do MIDI things. Soundfonts files (*.sf2) contains -sorted, edited, sequenced- samples / waves and compressed/ripped into single file which also contains attribute like banks, patches, etc. You can find alot of sf2 files on the internet. There will be many other members here will post more explanations... I leave them a room. ;)
 
What the S#%&? IS a SOUNDFONT, anyway???...... :D

To cut it short: a Soundfont is just a silly NAME given by E-MU/Ensoniq and Creative Labs to their concept of Playing Back Digitally Recorded Instrument Sounds through Your Soundblaster’s synthesizer, and NOTHING more. So we are talking about SAMPLES, plain and simple. :p

SoundFonts is a technology used by many soundcards and software synthesizers that allow you to customize your instrument sounds for MIDI music playback or MIDI sequencing.

Developed by Creative Labs and Emu Systems, SoundFont technology allows the user to improve the sound quality of their MIDI playback by either loading a better sounding General MIDI (GM) wavetable sound-set, or loading new (non-GM) sounds for use in music composition and songwriting.

Go here http://listen.to/ums for 3 tutorials on SoundFonts (click on their ARTICLES button)


For a TON of SoundFonts
http://www.hammersound.net/hs_links.html

Peace....
 
Well Ive never used Soundfonts before and I guess I never will. Ive been on the internet for about 20 years and have downloaded text files, Binary files, Pictures etc. from a 300 baud and up. But no I cant download a simple music sample because my Browser doesnt support it or for some other damm reason.
Ill say it again. Programmers are overpaid Bug Ranchers that work for Greedy coporate types who could care less. Why should I have to upgrade software constantly for these Bozos. At least the web sites should tell you what will work and what wont. This really Irks me.:mad:
 
Well I was right. It was a Bug rancher from Netscape. Sometimes these guys just piss me off. Worked in IE great.
I still think Programmers are Bug Ranchers!:)
 
You're so funny, duck...

duck said:
I've been on the internet for about 20 years...
Click to expand...

LOL. Internet becomes WWW is about 1990..., ~13 years ago. :D

...have downloaded text files, Binary files, Pictures etc. from a 300 baud and up. But no I cant download a simple music sample because my Browser doesnt support it or for some other damm reason.
Click to expand...
Youre provider / IT departement must have closed the download port & put web filter on your network. SF2 is NOT actually music files like .mp3, .wav, etc. Most of them founded on the net is compressed in standard compression format (.sfark, .zip, .rar, etc...), if your browser can't download them, then you probably you'll need better browza... :)
Anyway, what did you do for 20 years on the net without download something precious? Browsing for finding a soulmate? :D
 
James, the www protocol is from 1990 or so but that's not the internet, just what the general public thinks of as the internet. The internet per se has been in existence since the late 60's.
 
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