Soundfonts

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Soundfonts

2008-09-21 06:57 pm

Is there any kind of instruction on Soundfonts, how to load them, what are the best, or easiest to load etc...
Finally got a soundcard that is compatible but have no idea how to go about obtaining soundfonts or how to load them. I read the text files on the Creative site, but it is geared more toward making your own soundfonts from your own samples, which is definately out of my comfort zone. Other sites such as Hammersound don't give any instruction at all that I am aware of. It seems that there are very few who are knowledgable in this area. Appreciate any guidance. TIA Duncan

Re: Soundfonts

Reply #1 – 2008-09-21 10:24 pm

G'day Duncan,
owyagoinmate, orrite?

Soundfonts... Loading thereof... Hmm... Depends on the sound card. It should have shipped with a utility to load soundfonts along with its drivers etc.. F'instance, my Audigy II ZS has an application called "Soundfont Bank Manager". Dunno if yours is the same but if not it will be similar.

In my case there is a button labelled "MIDI Devices" - click this to choose which "SoundFont Device" you are manipulating - you probably have 2: synth A and synth B. There is also another option to set aside RAM for the SoundFont Cache - I usually leave mine set to "Dynamic". You have a slider that allows you to adjust the amount of memory configured for SundFont use. Have enough to load the desired soundfonts in both banks, and perhaps a little to spare.

OK, back to the previous screen, there is a keyboard and above it a Bank and Preset display. The words are links, click "Bank" and you can select a soundfont to either replace what you already have loaded or to complement it... A little experimentation may be in order here.

OK, back to the previous screen again, but this time click "Preset". Here you can select a particular patch and change the instrument for one in another SoundFont.

The piano works, and the "C" with a dot is middle "C"...

Re: Soundfonts

Reply #2 – 2008-09-22 01:57 am

Duncan - What's your soundcard?

Re: Soundfonts

Reply #3 – 2008-09-22 02:57 am

Hey Guys,
Thanks for your replies. The Card is Creative SB X-Fi Xteme Gamer. I don't believe that there was any software other than the instalallation cd but I will have to make sure of that. I know there was a demo cd which seemed like a lot of nonsense to me. Yes Lawrie, there are A and B banks.

Checked the installation CD and Demo disc and don't see any soundfont manager software or anything of the like. The help file has nothing on soundfont management. Hmmm...

Re: Soundfonts

Reply #4 – 2008-09-22 03:22 am

G'day Duncan,
that image doesn't apply to your soundcard anyway, the X-Fi software looks different, however a soundfont manager is still there - we just installed one (X-Fi Xtereme Gamer) for my son on a new PC we're building for him to take take to uni and it has the same card as you.

Start
All Programs
Creative
Sound Blaster X-Fi
Sound Font Bank Manager

If you can see the .png images below:

Image 1 is the initial screen
Image 2 is where you select the Soundfont device after clicking "MIDI Devices"
Image 3 is where you can select the Soundfont after clicking "Bank"

As you can see (I hope) on the right of image 3, you have a "Bank Stack:" where you can select the current bank and replace it...

It's pretty much "follow your nose"...

Re: Soundfonts

Reply #5 – 2008-09-22 03:38 am

Hi Lawrie,
I went to Start | All Programs |Creative|SoundBlaster X-Fi and under that is : Creative Audio console, Creative Diagnostics, Creative Volume Panel and documentation. No sound font manager!
After installing the software from the CD, I went to the Creative website and downloaded the latest driver. Perhaps I shouldn't have done that? I did explore the installation CD and did not see anything that was called soundfont manager.

Re: Soundfonts

Reply #6 – 2008-09-22 03:46 am

Hmm, those images are from the sons' PC - it's definitely on his... 'ang on a tick and I'll check the CD...

Re: Soundfonts

Reply #7 – 2008-09-22 03:57 am

Roight, bahck again...

On our CD there is a folder called "Audio" under the root, in this folder is another called "SFBMgr" - there is a "setup.exe" in here. When I tried to run it, I got an error, but I'm also running about a zillion apps at the moment and it's possible it didn't like 'm - I'm also NOT running an X-Fi on my machine...

Umm, a very important question... You're certain you have the "Xtremem Gamer" and NOT the "Xtreme Music"? The "Music" one apparently doesn't support soundfonts.

Please get back if you don't find the folder...

Re: Soundfonts

Reply #8 – 2008-09-22 03:58 am

I am running vista. There are seperate CD's for vista and XP. I don't see any download on their website for soundfont manager although there is a WavStudio7. I downloaded that but is seems similar to Vienna which is too complex for me. I don't want to make my own synths, Just want a decent set of sounds to work with.

Re: Soundfonts

Reply #9 – 2008-09-22 04:00 am

Yes. I had the xteme audio card and switched it out for the gamer just for this purpose. Let me check the cd again for the folder you mentioned.

Re: Soundfonts

Reply #10 – 2008-09-22 04:07 am

Found the folder and double clicked the setup.exe but also got an error code-6003. Not running any apps and have plenty of space.

Re: Soundfonts

Reply #11 – 2008-09-22 04:14 am

Hmm, that's the same error I got... (I think, or close to it anyway) - perhaps if you reinstall everything from the CD... - reckon I'd take a system restore image first though...

Re: Soundfonts

Reply #12 – 2008-09-22 04:18 am

I suppose that's going to have to wait. 12:15 am here. Less than 6 hours of dreaming doesn't do a boy good. Don't want to be a grouch tomorrow. Thanks for the help as always. I will reinstall the CD tomorrow and see what happens. -D

Re: Soundfonts

Reply #13 – 2008-09-22 04:20 am

It is possible you might need to completely uninstall everything creative too... There may be stuff left over in the registry from the "music" card...

Re: Soundfonts

Reply #14 – 2008-09-22 05:06 pm

It would perhaps be helpful if you could get an Email to Creative and ask them for assistance. This is not easy to do but I eventually got to a Creative support site which offered the opprtunity of E-mailing if listed solutions were not appropriate.

Try
http://support.creative.com/contact/emailform.aspx

Tony

Re: Soundfonts

Reply #15 – 2008-09-23 01:34 am

Thanks Lawrie and Tony. I uninstalled the drivers for the Audio card before installing the new one so that should not be a problem. I did send off my quandry to the Creative e-mail support as Tony suggested. Who knows how long that will take, but I have time. I have a B- study to finish preparing for tomorrow night so it'll be first things first anyway. I'm sure there will be a solution so I don't want to get too crazy. Will let you know how it goes. -D

Re: Soundfonts

Reply #16 – 2008-09-23 04:10 pm

Hopefully Creative will reply in clear English, better than having long conversations with Asians having strange accents!

Tony

Re: Soundfonts

Reply #17 – 2008-09-24 01:32 pm

Any time I have had to deal with foreign assistants, they have been quite helpful and super polite which is refreshing.
Anyway, the e-mail tech said just what Lawrie suggested. Uninstall and reinstall software. He said DO NOT click on setup.exe in any of the folders for some reason. At any rate, we have success. I now have the soundfont manager.
Now back to the original question of what to load. Where do I find the best sounds? I know that is subjective, but I am sure that some can be ruled out altogether. Where do I download the soundfonts to so that I can add them to the card? I am wondering if it is possible to load soundfonts from the Yam keyboard. That would be ideal although there are over 1500 instrument definitions, I'm sure I could hone it down.

Re: Soundfonts

Reply #18 – 2008-09-24 02:20 pm

G'day Duncan,
Soundfonts come in a .sf2 file. The format is specific. Soundfonts are available from lots of places and finding one that suits you can be a challenge.

www.hammersound.com is a good resource, but not the only one. John Ford recently put me on to a 30 MB soundfont called Reality in my VST post in Tips & Tricks - it's worth checking out. There is also the Airfont 340 - the distributed version has a few problems including a "percussive" flute, but overall it is a pretty good one. Then there is the S. Christian Collins GS soundfont - also good. of course, one must not forget the "Merlin" series - you'll just have to have a look around... <insert favourite search engine here> is your friend.

I'm not aware of anyone having extracted the samples from a Yamaha system to create a soundfont, but if anyone has I'd be really interested.

Let us know how you get along.

Re: Soundfonts

Reply #19 – 2008-09-24 02:30 pm

I do not wish to insult the Asian helpers who come up so often on support lines. They are invariably polite and helpful to the best of their ability. But language usage differences and often the exchanging of lengthy Emails, can sometrimes be a very tiresome process. Often questions and answers have to be formatted in a precise way because of the way the support system works and I have found on occasion that this can be frustrating.

Tony

Re: Soundfonts

Reply #20 – 2008-10-02 04:17 pm

Well, I thought this was going to be easy but...
A few questions...
I have downloaded airfont 340 which was in a winrar format. Downloaded winrar, opened folder. Airfont is in sfArk format. Downloaded sfark_sfpack, also in winrar - extracted files to desktop. When I try to open Airfont a message comes up about searching the internet for a program to open it with or browse pc for program. When I browse, the sfark program does not appear in the list. What next?
I have also downloaded a single yamaha dx7 piano soundfont just to try out. Haven't figured out how to load it into the soundfont manager yet. I have created a folder on the desktop for soundfonts and my intention was to download a bunch of sounds to try. The winrar is only a trial software good for 40 days, so once downloaded and extracted, I can go through at my leisure (if there is such a thing).
I am assuming that once installed, airfont will automatically have its own itree in nwc under soundbank B?
Not sure I understand Soundfont cache, (dymanic/Static). Have oodles of memory on my pc. Does Static Cache automatically appropriate memory required to use soundfonts?
I'll stop here, but there will inevitably be more questions. Many thanks. Duncan

Re: Soundfonts

Reply #21 – 2008-10-02 05:01 pm

Duncan.,

I have a file for sfark, when I open this I get sfark.exe and click on this.
I then get a window labelled sfArk Soundfont Compression. At the top of that window is a heading 'FILE'
I click on this and then on 'OPEN'
In the window which then appears I can search for a soundfont file and locate, say, a340sfArk
Click on this and then on Open and it appears in the sfArk Soundfont Compression window under "selected files"
Click on "Start" and it will decompress the file.

Tony

Re: Soundfonts

Reply #22 – 2008-10-02 05:31 pm

Quote from: fitzclan – 2008-10-02 04:17 pm

Well, I thought this was going to be easy but...
I am assuming that once installed, airfont will automatically have its own itree in nwc under soundbank B?

Dream on. That is why I wrote sf.vbs:

Quote from: Rick G. – 2008-08-04 11:28 am

The program will sort all the presets (instruments) in the SoundFont to a 'txt' file which it launches in whatever you use to view 'txt' files (usually NotePad). This makes it easy to cut and paste into your NWC patch file.

Re: Soundfonts

Reply #23 – 2008-10-02 06:09 pm

Hi Tony,
Got to the point of clicking start, but then get a message "Unrecognized Compression Method! You may need a newer version of sfArk". I am going to look into that, but I only downloaded the program 2 days ago. Would expect it to be the latest version. The file is 38,750 KB. It is a collection, so I guess that is all of the soundfonts bundled together. There was a readme text file with the program. Unfortunately, it is written in Spanish. Not much use to me as my sp. vocab. is limited. Then I tried the Help file within the program. Unfortunately again, I am running Vista and the help file was created for Windows help that is not supported in vista. Very frustrating. So I'm back to square one.

Re: Soundfonts

Reply #24 – 2008-10-02 09:33 pm

Depending on where you got it from, perhaps its an old version of sfArk? Or possibly the archive is corrupted.

Re: Soundfonts

Reply #25 – 2008-10-02 10:29 pm

Duncan,
Did you download from

www.melodymachine.com

Tony?

Re: Soundfonts

Reply #26 – 2008-10-03 02:36 am

Thanks Tony,
I know I was on that site at some point, but I don't remember where I got the download from. I was off today and spent hours on the pc reading and trying to understand how to work this soundfont thing but I have gotten nowhere. I am at a real loss when I read pages of explanations that are full of abreviations.
I was able to download airfont 340 from another site but it doesn't seem to have instructions or a help file. I am wondering how you get the fonts once installed into the sound card, to be accessed in NWC. There is a text file containing what looks like instrument definitions. Can this be used to create a .nwcitree, and if so, how? Not that I'm there yet. I will give Melodymachine a try tomorrow. Thanks for the tip.

Re: Soundfonts

Reply #27 – 2008-10-03 03:21 am

G'day Duncan,
I wonder if you aren't making this harder than it really is..?

I assume you have successfully downloaded the Airfont 340 soundfont and have it in .sf2 format?

If that's the case, then using the tools for your soundcard, all you need to do is load it into the soundcard. I know we've already discussed this so again I assume that you have this part working.

As far as an itree is concerned, for basic sounds you don't really need to do anything as the default itree will give you access to all the GM sounds available in the ~~card~~ soundfont. What a specific itree will do is make it easier to access the additional sounds that are specific to the soundfont.

I think that's an exercise that can wait until you have the basics working. When the time comes, RickG's VBScript tool will make it easier to identify the available instruments and create a basis for defining a specific itree.

I guess what I'm really saying is, one step at a time... BTW, check ya PM's

<edit in italics>

Re: Soundfonts

Reply #28 – 2008-10-08 03:22 am

Just want to say thanks to you guys for all of the help. Finally have a decent souind coming from this PC. Almost gave up again but Tony & Lawrie really came through. Hope I can reciprocate in some way. Will probably have a few more questions on this topic soon, but have enough to chew on for now. Thanks again. Duncan

Re: Soundfonts

Reply #29 – 2008-10-14 03:46 am

Is it possible to exchange individual soundfonts from within a collection. Not a fan of the piano in Airfont. I see there are lots of single soundfonts available. Be nice if you could modify or customize. Seems like it must be possible.

Re: Soundfonts

Reply #30 – 2008-10-14 04:42 am

G'day Duncan,
yup, I've loaded individual patches before.

Assuming you're still using the Creative card and manager; this is still a function of your Soundfont Bank Manager, but instead of changing the bank you now change the preset. The dialogue is similar to the bank manager, but gives you access to the preset stack instead.

Just make sure you read the dialogue boxes to make sure you don't miss a step