Soundfonts?

[FiVeL]

What are they? What are they use with?

 

[AlChuck]

They are a file format for sample-based sound sets, established by Creative Labs. If you load a Sound Font into a compatible soundcard, you can use those sounds, much like if you had an Akai sampler that can load up Akai-format sound sets. It's a way of greatly expanding the sound-playing flexibility of the MIDI instrument on soundcards that are compatible with it. (Such cards are the SB AWE cards, the Live cards, and the Audigy cards. There were a few others, but I suspect Creative Labs charges too much to license the technology so it has not caught on in a huge way. There is a similar technology called DLS that some Turtle Beach soundcards use, and I believe Microsoft supports as a possible standard, or did at one time...)

Many software sampler/synths (GigaSTudio, VSampler, LiveSynth) can also open Sound Fonts.