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Lets talk SOUNDFONTs .. a trip back in time inc link to lots of them


aidan o driscoll

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http://ftp.se.freebsd.org/pub/awe32/soundfonts/

I have a renewed interest in soundfonts because I am rebuilding very old tracks from 90s which used soundfonts predominantly.

Outside of the SFZ plug in cakewalk that I cannot get to work, I have been using SFORZANDO and DSK SF2 and TX16WX plugs to load the soundfonts - .sf2 and .sfz

Awave Studio DEMO for 30 days is also useful if you have any old .SBK / Emu Soundfont ver 1 files still hanging around. This program allows you to convert them to .sf2, .wav or .sfz

https://www.nch.com.au/wavepad/index.html

Not worth buying to be honest, to expensive for what it is.

Anyone else with interesting soundfont goodies post here :D

 

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I started my pc music journey from hardware with soundfonts.  Cakewalk Express and a SBLive card.  Still use Soundfonts to this day.

Here is a free SF2 editor

https://www.polyphone-soundfonts.com/

2-sample.png

Viena is another free editor.

http://www.synthfont.com/index.html

Play_chord_full.png

Here is one of the few 64bit SF2 player vst's.

https://blog.rosseaux.net/page/e5ca75d98990e33b31dadc78a8df1333/Sobanth

 

screenshot2.1476595496.png

SFZ+ is great and still works (if you can find a copy)

I recently found  out that NI Battery can load SF2 files (does a good job too)

Many Wusik synths and samplers also support SF2 (currently 80% off)

 

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I hope you have fun playing with these. I noticed some nice SF can be had for orchestral sounds through Musescore.

 I sort of compare playing with SF to working on old car engines that still have capacitors and points when we have electronic ignition  I mean, even some keyboards have built in hard drives now and the samples are so much better. JMO.  I don't claim to know all about SF. I "guess" they can also call up huge sample libraries? Mostly they don't though and use lots of stretched samples. For synth work I think they still have a place. If going for realism though sample libraries are tough to beat.

One place I can still see them really shining is in portable devices. Even though they are way more powerful now, they could still take advantage of less weight on their cpu. But what do I know? We all have opinions. I can't have one if I borrow someone else's.

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E-mu seems to be "almost" defunct. I found a site that sure looks like E-mu selling headphones with wooden cups. LINK

It's sad really. If they  or someone would take soundfont technology up for redesign it has lots of future possibilities.  I'm thinking of  where midi would be without any attention for the last 20 years.

It's still really cool for what it is capable of. They made some great keyboards and that tech went over to SF creation.

 

Edited by Starise
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  • 1 year later...
On 4/15/2020 at 10:14 AM, Starise said:

E-mu seems to be "almost" defunct. I found a site that sure looks like E-mu selling headphones with wooden cups. LINK

It's sad really. If they  or someone would take soundfont technology up for redesign it has lots of future possibilities.  I'm thinking of  where midi would be without any attention for the last 20 years.

It's still really cool for what it is capable of. They made some great keyboards and that tech went over to SF creation.

 

My first real interface was an Emu. Amazing tech for time

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Interestingly latest FL STUDIO update ( ver 20.9.0.2748 ) replaces the old Fruity SoundFont Player with the new 64 bit and macOS compatible SoundFont Player plugin .. simply called SoundFont Player

https://www.image-line.com/fl-studio-learning/fl-studio-online-manual/html/plugins/SoundFont Player.htm

Keep in mind FL Studio plugin allows FL to be used inside other DAWS like CW

Edited by aidan o driscoll
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There are tons of E-Mu website captures at archive.org.  If you know of any direct links to pages that actually lead to files that were captured and are downloadable, you can save someone tons of time looking through dead-end links by being more specific. 

Oh.  I see.  It looks like someone uploaded a "cracked" version as an iso file. 

Quote

"Note: The 32/64-bit pre-activated version supersedes all previous versions and should be used in almost every case. There is no longer any need to mess with serial numbers or the need to authorize it online."

 

Edited by User 905133
(2) to report a fairly new iso version as compared with the older website captures; (1) to fix a minor typo
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26 minutes ago, bdickens said:

I would rather not encourage the theft of intellectual property.

Digital Sound Factory owns the rights to all that old E-mu and Ensoniq stuff. And the prices are quite reasonable.

and if you buy something from them and get on the mail list they have sales quite a few times a year. 

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1 hour ago, bdickens said:

I would rather not encourage the theft of intellectual property.

Digital Sound Factory owns the rights to all that old E-mu and Ensoniq stuff. And the prices are quite reasonable.

For the record, I was not encouraging theft of intellectual property.  And so far as I know, he (TS/DSF) owns the rights to absolutely and authoritatively sell the sounds/samples/presets and to convert them for sale to formats that didn't previously exist.  However, I never heard that he had the rights to either sell or revise the Proteus X/Emulator X software (though I have thought of asking).

In fact, as the owner of many bought and paid for legitimate E-Mu sample disks [originals], the presence of bootleg *.iso CDs of the E-Mu sample disks on archive.org greatly reduces (or eliminates) my ability legally to sell original [production run] copies.  

Any lawyers amongst the user base here that want to do some pro bono work on my behalf against archive.org?

I am aware that over the years profiteers have attempted to sell bootleg copies of the CDs, but those very quickly were taken down.

Again, just to be clear, in my post above to Bruno de Souza Lino, I was not encouraging the theft of intellectual property. Apologies if it seemed that way.

Edited by User 905133
to clarify that my bought and paid for sample CDs are legitimate [production runs] not bootleg copies.
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