Soundfonts vs. wave files

Depends on what software you use...

Wave files are just sounds (you know). They can be played by any editor or soundplayer available. But if you want to use them in a sampler, you need to map them to specific notes.

Soundfonts is one step further. It's basically one or more wave files allready maped and adjusted to be played back via a soundfont (sample) player, such as the Livesynth Pro DXi or with a Soundblaster soundcard.
 
One advantage that I can think of when working with soundfonts is the ease to quantize and transpose them, as opposed to wav files.

Carlos
 
Wave files contain raw audio data, whereas Sound Fonts or any other sampler format also contain performance data -- loop points (for when the tone is to be sustained for a long time), attack-decay-sustain-release envelopes, and that sort of stuff.
 
All these advantages as mentioned plus
-it is already neatly packed into a singe file
-you can velocity layer wavs in soundfonts (i.e. different wavs depending on velocity)
-it is key mapped and transpose automatically to the next key (if set up that way)
 
...hmmm thanks guys. :)

I'm going to look into getting a soundfont player. Maybe the Fruity Loops one. Do you know if that player will work as a plugin in cakewalk too?
 
If you get Sonar you get Live Synth, but it's limited to 1MB fonts. It's worth it however to upgrade LPS to enable unlimited size fonts. The real good fonts are 30MB minimum at a time.
 
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