soundfont editor that's easy to use??

[bvd]

I've just started with soundfonts (well I haven't gotten anywhere
yet.)

I have Vienna 2.3, Live Synth Pro and Cyclone (w/Sonar 2.1 XL), and the demo version of Alive 1.3.8. And maybe 1 or 2 other progs that I can't get to work. Is it just me or does the documentation with these utilities really suck?
I must be stupid because I can't get a single
soundfont created/saved. I was hoping to just drop a .wav sample from my HDD in and save as a soundfont. Yeah, right.
(I know .. Alive won't save without a Reg # .. so how am I supposed to know if it works? @^$%#&*)

Seriously, I'm willing to be too thick about this so far so tell me,
is it easier or harder than I'm making it. And is there one SF Editor
that is simple to use?
Does Live Synth Pro CREATE soundfonts or just PLAY them?

Thanx for the vent.
Bill

[James Argo]

Bill, I'm also SoundFont lover, and was about in the same situation... I just can't make it work. After dayz of confusing, and finnally I got it work, but hey... I'm not really happy with the result. Nah, I'm not gonna make it there. I'm a music programer, and do sometimes make my own sound by programing my hardware synth. But I found programing sound in SoundFont world ain't quite same with real synth. After all is said and done, I lost my focus on creating music. YESS, I'm a musician, not a sound analyst that much. So... why bother creating sound if we can download a better Soundfont files for free...? I'll post a few link resource if you need bunch of them...

[James Argo]

Here's one...
There's also several free utillity for use.

http://www.thesoundsite.net/

[bvd]

Thanx James,
I'll check that out and keep trying.

Bill

[James Argo]

Another good resource...

http://www.hammersound.net/

[James Argo]

Here we go... suite yourself...

http://www.synthzone.com/soundfont.htm

[Ethan Winer]

Bill,

> I was hoping to just drop a .wav sample from my HDD in and save as a soundfont. <

If it were that simple, everyone would be able to do it and you wouldn't be special.

Seriously, you are correct that the Vienna docs are terrible, but it is not difficult at all. I wrote a tutorial that outlines the steps to create a SoundFont from scratch. Go to my Articles page:

www.ethanwiner.com/articles.html

Then look for "Vienna SoundFont Studio" near the top of the list.

In the mean time, here's a brief overview of the process:

1. Record or collect all of the Wave files. If any are for sustaining instrument samples you also need to loop them. You can set loop points in Vienna, but it's nowhere near as convenient as in a real audio editor like SoundForge.

2. Import the Wave files into Vienna.

3. Create a new Instrument in Vienna and tell it which Wave files to use.

4. Create a Preset and tell it to use the Instrument you just defined.

So as you can see, SoundFonts are built in three layers: Presets are built from Instruments that are built from Wave files. This is the key to understanding how to make your own.

--Ethan

[BluesMeister]

Ethan,

One thing I found out about the Vienna Soundfont editor is that it won't fire up UNLESS you have a Creative SB audio card installed in your PC.

My audio card is a Terratec EWX 24/96, which has no on-board sound chip. I have to use a soft-synth to play my MDID files. Ergo, I can't use VSFE.

--
BluesMeister

[Ethan Winer]

BM,

> the Vienna Soundfont editor ... won't fire up UNLESS you have a Creative SB audio card installed in your PC. <

That's true! Can you blame them?

Seriously, this is not because Creative doesn't want you to use Vienna with other brands of sound cards. Rather, Vienna uses the SB card to play the sounds as you edit and audition them.

--Ethan

[James Argo]

...Soundfont is technology created by EMU. It alows sound files (like .wav) to be tranformed and manipulated so can be used as synth to be triggered by MIDI on tyhe fly. They put it on their chip. Most of Creative's and a few card using this EMU chip can adapt this technology as well. Indeed, Creative's are the most famous cards using this tech. But it's not the only one.

[BluesMeister]

Originally posted by Ethan Winer
Vienna uses the SB card to play the sounds as you edit and audition them.

Yes, I'd guessed as much... I had fired up Vienna when I had an AWE64 Gold installed in my PC, but I could never figure out exactly what to do when it came to editing SFs. As you may have alluded to earlier, the documentation is, er, somewhat lacking.

I use soft synths to produce the noises for my MIDI files, I know there are some soundfont editors out there that will work with non-SB audio cards. But to be honest, I think I'd rather D/L someone else's SF2 who (presumably) knows what they are doing.

--
BluesMeister