How to upload AWE32 soundfonts

[_ronin75_]

Hi guys Im fairly new to MIDI in general
but I downloaded som .sf2 files to get some descent drumsounds ..

I got a SB AWE32 (Never installed the drivers coz XP recognised them right away)
I know its a pretty cheap soundcard in comparison to the rest of the peeps round here .. but i got it for years and
Im planning to buy me something like a Delta 1010LT to do some more serious recording but those ones are not capable of using .sf2 files so I wanted to use my good ol' AWE32 for that

Now how can I upload (or download whatever ) them to my SB ?

should I install all the drivers , or are there some standalone tools to download these fonts ?


TIA

[James Argo]

Gee, you still have the AWE32 card That's classic

Okay, to your question...

Although WinXP recognizes the card and install it's necessary driver, you still need Creative's firmware (AudioHQ) to use the card's special features like Soundfonts AudioHQ will let you tweak the card to it's optimum use. Within AudioHQ, you can set the amount of memory being used for loading soundfonts, set the default bank, play with it's "piano like keyboard" interface to test the sound, etc. I don't quitely recall the detail with AWE32 (it was loong time ago when I use it in Win95 ) but it should be similiar Have a look on the installation disk / CD (you will need WinNT/2000/xp version disk instead of Win95/98/ME version)

FYI, particular application like Cakewalk lets you load/unload from within the application, somewhere in the menu. You may like to check this thread :

http://homerecording.com/bbs/showthr...threadid=77416

Hope it helps


Jaymz

[AlChuck]

The AWE 32 will only let you load Sound Fonts into its on-board RAM. This is probably 1MB, which is not enough for most Sound Fonts. The memory can be expanded with chips, but that would be far more expensive than replacing the entire card with a Live card, and even if you max out the add-on RAM, at most you would have maybe 28 MB on the card to hold Sound Fonts.

[_ronin75_]

Damn I feared for that scenario

Ok .. then I also have to buy an Sb card just for those soundfonts ..
The problem is I actually dont know shit about midi except for those cappy songs that come out of your speakers on those crappy websites so i'm kinda reluctant to go crazy here and spend a lot of money on it and take a dive into the unknown

Another question ..
Does it matter wheter its a sb live , audigy , or audigyII ?? etc..
(I mean just for the sake of the quality of those soundfonts ?)
Coz I still wanna buy that delta thingy as i presume it will be a lot better for recording guitars as a sb audigy ....

TIA

[AlChuck]

Ok .. then I also have to buy an Sb card just for those soundfonts

Not necessarily.

There are several software synthesizers that will load and play Sound Fonts. In the DXi world, LiveSynth Pro is one, VSampler is another... I'm sure there as VSTi softsynths that do this, too.

What application are you using to record? What's your computer's specs?

[_ronin75_]

I tried vsampler and downloaded a shitload of samples from the net and they sounded great even on my old SB , allmost like the real thing

perhaps I should try to download that other sampler as well , thanx for that tip

Im thinking about obtaining cakewalk sonar ..
right now I'm fooling around with the demo version


my pc
P III celeron 1000
320 Mb ram
soundblaster AWE32
and i'm prob going to buy te delta 1010LT to record my guitars (and vocals) on it ...
and perhaps try to get a descent midi controller
but untill then I will have to do it with an old casio keyboard