do i need certin s/card for sound fonts

[pattygram]

hi all, ive been hearing alot about the advantages of sound fonts. but do i need a perticular sond card to use them? the piano sound in the edirol dxi sound awful, and am looking for better piano sounds. thanx.

[dachay2tnr]

Originally posted by pattygram
hi all, ive been hearing alot about the advantages of sound fonts. but do i need a perticular sond card to use them? the piano sound in the edirol dxi sound awful, and am looking for better piano sounds. thanx.

You can use Sound Fonts either through a sound card that supports them (e.g., SB Live) or through a DXi that supports them.

For ex., the Live Synth Pro DXi that was bundled Sonar would work. Unfortunately, that is just a demo version, and the company that produced it is now out of business.

I currently am using the Kompakt program from Native Instruments which supports sound fonts. And I believe the VSampler program included with S3 Producer also supports them.

Lastly, I think there is a DXi that comes with Home Studio that also supports them. I forget the name offhand, but check some of Bluesmeister's posts. I think he wrote a tutorial on it.

[guttadaj]

I know a demo of Live Synth Pro came with Sonar 2, but doesn't Sonar 3 (Studio) come with a full version? I bought the full version back when I had version 2, so I'm not sure, but I thought I remembered hearing that and thinking to myself that I got screwed since I would've gotten the full version for free if I had waited until I upgraded.

[moskus]

Originally posted by guttadaj
I know a demo of Live Synth Pro came with Sonar 2, but doesn't Sonar 3 (Studio) come with a full version?

Nope. Sonar 3 Pro comes with VSampler (which also supports soundfonts).

[James Argo]

What version of Cakewalk do you use, pattygram?

[dachay2tnr]

Originally posted by pattygram
hi all, ive been hearing alot about the advantages of sound fonts. but do i need a perticular sond card to use them? the piano sound in the edirol dxi sound awful, and am looking for better piano sounds. thanx.

BTW, I assume you are aware of and have tried the GS sample set in the Edirol VSC. Much broader selection there.

I keep hearing complaints about the Edirol DXi, but I actually find a lot of the samples very useful. Of course, with a piano sound font, context and desired tone make a lot of difference. And it's always good to have choices.

[pattygram]

hs2002

[acidrock]

I'm guessing that HS 2002 only supports DXI's.If you have a VST adaptor/wrapper you could use this...

http://www.rgcaudio.com/sfz.htm

The Best sample/soundfont players are the ones that stream from disc.This means the sampler can read fom the hard drive as well as from RAM,allowing for larger size samples,and much more realistic instruments.Gigastudio,V-sampler and Kontakt/Kompakt all support disk streaming.There may be others that I'm not aware of.
Most newer samplers import multiple file types,and there are plenty out there for free.If you are willing to spend a little money you can incredible sounding instruments.Also you can make your own instruments.
I use Kompakt,simple yet powerful.


You could also buy a standalone Piano such as this one...

http://www.soundsonline.com/sophtml/...tml?sku=EW-157
This one gets rave reviews on other forums.

[acidrock]

Oh,about the soundcard.Soundblasters support soundfonts,along with other consumer cards,but you don't want to go there.

[TimOBrien]

I used to keep an SBLive in my PC along with my 24-bit card (Echo Mia) just for soundfonts & MIDI, but tossed it after trying out a soundfont VSTi.

I sprung for the Bismark BS-16 sounfont VSTi (you can load up multiple soundfonts in it at the same time). Works tremendous and when I moved up to my new DAW I dumped the SBLive.

[James Argo]

Originally posted by acidrock
Oh,about the soundcard.Soundblasters support soundfonts,along with other consumer cards,but you don't want to go there.

Oops... not realy, acidrock Only Creative's products (and some from E-MU) support soundfonts. SBLive! and Audigy PCI series (not USB) do. Consumer cards like AC97 doesn't support it


Jaymz

[acidrock]

Oops... not realy, acidrock Only Creative's products (and some from E-MU) support soundfonts. SBLive! and Audigy PCI series (not USB) do. Consumer cards like AC97 doesn't support it

Sorry
I guess my point is that you're better off investing in a virtual instrument that works "inside"your software,than buying a sound card to to that job.

[James Argo]

Originally posted by acidrock
I guess my point is that you're better off investing in a virtual instrument that works "inside"your software,than buying a sound card to to that job.

Yeah, that's right I used to believe no software can replace Creative cards concerning soundfonts. I tried LiveSynth Pro back in 2.2XL days, and found something's not working right. I dunno, it just sounded better using the card. Now, Vsampler3 changes my belief. Recording final sequenced MIDI to audio track is getting easier using software anyway (bounce to track!).

From what I found, -if you use soundfonts with software/sampler- you better check soundfonts property first. Most soundfont's samples saved in 16/44.1 format. If you set your sequencer to record (say) 24 bit 48KHz, then you'll notice minor sound differences. I can't say how it sounds, it just a bit different than it's original sound. To avoid this, record the soundfont track (or "bounce to track") in 16/44.1 first, then edit the result to 24 bit 48 KHz using external editor (Soundforge, Wavelab, etc.). In most of my case, it sounds better (closer to original) than purning sampler to record 24/48 out of 16/44.1 samples. What do you think?


Jaymz

[acidrock]

Yeah, that's right I used to believe no software can replace Creative cards concerning soundfonts. I tried LiveSynth Pro back in 2.2XL days, and found something's not working right. I dunno, it just sounded better using the card. Now, Vsampler3 changes my belief. Recording final sequenced MIDI to audio track is getting easier using software anyway (bounce to track!).

I started out with PA9 Pro-suite that came with Gigasampler LE.After hearing that I knew that software was the way to go.The problem was getting something that played nice with Sonar.Once Kompakt came around I no longer had to jump through hoops to take advantage of those s-w-e-e-t sounds.

From what I found, -if you use soundfonts with software/sampler- you better check soundfonts property first. Most soundfont's samples saved in 16/44.1 format. If you set your sequencer to record (say) 24 bit 48KHz, then you'll notice minor sound differences. I can't say how it sounds, it just a bit different than it's original sound. To avoid this, record the soundfont track (or "bounce to track") in 16/44.1 first, then edit the result to 24 bit 48 KHz using external editor (Soundforge, Wavelab, etc.). In most of my case, it sounds better (closer to original) than purning sampler to record 24/48 out of 16/44.1 samples. What do you think?