SoundFonts, Audigy & Sonar

M

MrSong

New member
Gurus:

I have been working with SB Live!, Soundfonts & Sonar for about 3 months now. Aside from a few stuipid, stupid quirks existing inside Sonar and the way it handles (or mishandles) SoundFonts between uses I actually love the combination of program & sound card. My only beef- up until now- was the SB Live! only having SPDIF out at 48K. I use a Roland VS1880 and my needs for 41K i/o SPDIF is a must. So I bought an Audigy Card this weekend. I can now control my SPDIF i/0. But my soundfonts do not work at all.

I know my SFs still work because I can open them in Vienna and they work fine.

No matter what combination of parameters I try I still hear only the GM sounds. Look here for screen shots: http://www.triplogy.com/mygosh.htm


And, I'm having trouble with the whole SF concept while I'm on my soap box. Where am I going wrong:

1. Gather your samples within your SF Creator, like Vienna
2. Assign these samples to keys on the keyboard. These are the banks, right?
3. So what are patches?
4. Obviously, Sonar treats SF different than Vienna. How do I make the connection?

I love the posts here- you guys rock. I've learned so much while coming here.

Chad
 
What I did to learn soundfonts is to read the entire Vienna manual. It taught me alot.
Each soundfont can have 128 banks of 128 patches.
Each patch is made from how many ever samples it needs.
For example:
A piano patch can be made of 88 different samples, one for each piano key.
This is just one patch.
Lets say you add reverb to each sample and save it as 'piano reverb'
You now have 2 patches.
You can place these into the same bank, or each one into a different bank.
Then all of the banks are inside of the soundfont.
As you can see if you wanted to you could have alot of samples inside alot of patches (128) inside of alot of banks (128) all inside ONE soundfont. I think its something like 65,000 patches total.
Whatever 128x128 is.
Most soundfonts don't use that many for obvious reasons.
It would take LOTS of memory to load it.

Hope this helps,
A1MixMan
 
Thanks Mixman.
That actually helped me to visualize what was going on. I gues you're right: I should take my lazy @ss and read the entire manual- instead of when I just get stuck.

I read another post from a gentleman who said there were problems with Sonar when you use SFs and an Audigy Sound card- much to my dismay. But there were fixes. But because of my lack of understanding how the SF works (sample -> bank -> patch) I wasn't able to get it. However, looking back over everything, I should still be able to get this to work within Sonar- even with my lack of understanding SFs. I wonder if anyone has had this problem- surely this wasn't an isolated issue.
http://www.triplogy.com/mygosh.htm


Regards.
Chad Austin
www.thelogicmusic.com
 
Mr. Song,

"I gues you're right: I should take my lazy @ss and read the entire manual- instead of when I just get stuck."

No, that's not what I meant at all...

It's just that when I was in the same boat as you (having a hard time grasping the concept of soundfonts), I finally decided to learn what they were, by learning about Vienna and how it worked.

I figured it was the best thing to do, seeing how much I was to be using them. And I'm glad I did because it has helped me understand the whole process even more.
I've even made some very cool soundfonts, now that I know what I'm doing.
Most people who just what to use soundfonts without alot of fuss really don't need to read the entire manual, but if you want to understand them, this is a good place to start.

Just a thought, and i'm glad I could help you out.

Keep on making music, even if its just with a stick and a rock...

A1MixMan
 
WOW, I just went to your website, I remember listening to "My Own Agenda" about 10 times a couple of months ago. Was that on a different website? I don't remember the current one.
Good song.

A1MixMan
 
moskus,

> I'm having problem understanding this ... If somebody can tell me what it says in plain english. <

I'm right here. :) Tell me what you have trouble understanding and I'll do my best to explain it.

--Ethan
 
Hi, Ethan!

The Audigy obiously has troubles with loading SoundFonts in Sonar. I have several drumkits that I can't use, allthough I could with the SB Live. I don't know what it could be, but you looks like someone that has a solution.

1. You can see the names of instruments that are in Bank 0 only. If a SoundFont has instruments in other banks their names are not shown, and you can't even tell which banks have additional instruments.
Click to expand...
Ok, then. That's a job for Vienna. Isn't it?

2. When Sonar starts, and every time you load a song, all SoundFonts that are currently loaded in the higher (non-zero) banks are intentionally purged from memory. Yikes. Ouch!
Click to expand...
I really didn't get that. Does the "Sonar SF" kind of overwrite the Soundfonts you have loaded in Audio HQ?

3. If you have the new Audigy sound card, SoundFonts you attach to a project can be used by the "A" Synth only. The Audigy lets you load SoundFonts separately for the A and B synths, and in fact you must load both synths if you want to access every sound from all 32 available channels.
Click to expand...
Could the "SB Audigy Synth B" be used for anything in Sonar? Or should I just deselect it in Options->MIDI-Devices?

4. Even though Sonar recognizes a SoundBlaster card as a SoundFont device, it stupidly uses the wrong bank select method. So you must change that before you can access sounds in other banks.
Click to expand...
What exactly is the right bank select method?

I have troubble reading english with lot's of new information, it's just too much...

Thanks a bunch!

-Magnus
 
Magnus,

> The Audigy obiously has troubles with loading SoundFonts in Sonar. I have several drumkits that I can't use <

I have had great success with my Audigy and Sonar, discounting the known Audigy bugs. The drum set you're having trouble with, is that the Bluejay set? If so, the bug is inside the SoundFont! It's a fabulous drum set, but some idiot assigned it to the Melodic Pool rather than the Percussive pool, so it plays on any channel EXCEPT channel 10! If this is not your problem, let me know.

>> (EW wrote): If a SoundFont has instruments in other banks their names are not shown <<

> Ok, then. That's a job for Vienna. Isn't it? <

No, it's a bug in Sonar. The names are present in the SoundFont file of course, but Sonar is too stupid to look for them!

> I really didn't get that. Does the "Sonar SF" kind of overwrite the Soundfonts you have loaded in Audio HQ? <

Yes, exactly. Sonar purposely clears all SoundFonts from memory, except those loaded into the "Synth" Bank 0. I don't think this is a bug per se, because Sonar's developers probably think they're doing you a favor by "managing" SoundFonts that way.

> Could the "SB Audigy Synth B" be used for anything in Sonar? Or should I just deselect it in Options->MIDI-Devices? <

No, don't deselect it! The B synth is still available, it's just that Sonar won't load your SoundFonts there. But at the minimum you can use the B synth for your main GM sounds in Bank 0. Also, if you follow the steps in my article you can load to both A and B, and have Sonar show you the names of all presets in both synths. Just assign all channels of the B synth as a SoundFont Device in Options .. Instruments.

> What exactly is the right bank select method? <

Controller 0.

--Ethan
 
Ok, thank you so much, Ethan!

I'll give it one more shot... I'll let you know how it goes...
 
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