SoundFont

[Cédric Lawde]

Hi,

I need to reinstall an older setup for a specific project. I've purchased nearly every version of Cakewalk since 1998, and I'm trying to find the last version that natively implemented SoundFont technology. Do you happen to remember which one that was?

Thanks for helping me avoid reinstalling every version just to test this out! 😄

[rsinger]

IIRC the original Sonar came with the SFZ Player and that supported soundfont. I setup my PCs by loading Platinum and then CbB and I have SFZ ...

Edited Tuesday at 05:55 PM by rsinger

[Wookiee]

Cakewalk Sonar still supports soundfont players, just install a soundfont player that has the required soundfont. 

[sjoens]

The best way to use sf2's is with an older system using a Creative SondBlaster card which can load them directly.

Cakewalk's rgc: audio sfz player will work.  Their SFZ+ player will also work but not in the default MODE>SF32.  Change it to PR32 or DFD.

I think sfz was included with Sonar 6 thru Platinum.  You can run a custom install and select only the plugins you want without installing the whole program.

[Glenn Stanton]

sforzando (free app) will load SF2 (technically "converts" it) and is very useful. i have hundreds of SF2 now in my sforzando cache. https://www.plogue.com/products/sforzando.html

 

[sjoens]

I might add that not all sfZ players "convert" the sf2 format the same way.  The more unique or complex the soundfont, the more trouble they can have converting it correctly.

[Cédric Lawde]

I've mentioned this is a very specific project. In fact, I need to access the few samples on the EMU chips from a SoundBlaster sound card.

So, I need to use SoundFont directly with SoundBlaster.

I'm familiar with the old sfZ player (I usually use VSTSynthFont myself).

I think that Cakewalk Pro Audio 9 was the last to support it natively... Do you confirm ?

[sjoens]

Not sure about that but I had Home Studio 9 which did.  SoundFont Manager has to be installed tho. 

You don't need to use soundfonts directly with soundblaster if you use one of the sf2 player VSTs.  It's just the best way to use them as it was designed for it and there's no conversion to bugger things up.

You might be able to locate/extract the E-MU soundfont to use externally from the chip.

[Amberwolf]

I recall the function in CPA6 and 8, but I haven't had a machine that could use my SB's in so long that I don't know if newer versions of CW / Sonar support the SoundFont Manager or not--CPA9 probably does, but I think I went from 8 to SONARXL. 

 I don't know if SFM will even run in modern OS's (WinXP was the last one I think I ran it in).   

(When I lost the last of my computers that could host a SBLive (or AWE64!) card, I also missed being able to use the KxProject, I think it was, that let me use the DSP on the cards for effects and whatnot). 

 

 

[Glenn Stanton]

maybe it's my selection of SF2, but a number of old projects (2003?) i decided to listen to, were using my soundblaster and SFZ app, so i replaced with the sforzando and using the same SF2 source files (important - i was able to do this fairly easily because i had lots of notes saved in text and PDF on the instruments and settings, otherwise would have been very hard...) and they worked as expected (drums, percussion, piano, organ, horns, bass, backing vox, and a few oddball sounds). 

[pwallie]

19 hours ago, Cédric Lawde said:

I've mentioned this is a very specific project. In fact, I need to access the few samples on the EMU chips from a SoundBlaster sound card.

So, I need to use SoundFont directly with SoundBlaster.

wasn't it microsoft that stopped such support? (Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth at windows level)

Edited 23 hours ago by pwallie

[Cédric Lawde]

Thanks, everyone! Cakewalk 9 was the right one. Time to make some music now...