PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic SFZ Font Player

Anyone ever seen a manual for this?

Been using it for 4+ years and never needed a manual, actually.

rgc audio - the parent company of sfz was bought out by Cakewalk a couple years ago. Here's the latest version at Cakewalk's site - I don't know if it will include a manual or not. I don't think that it does.

-Scott

How much memory does sfz take?
sfz features four loading modes, and the amount of memory a SoundFont file can take depends on the loading mode selected, as follows:

SF32
In this mode, sfz will attempt to load the whole SoundFont file to memory at once, and will convert all samples to 32-bit during the loading operation.
This scenario results in optimum performance and flexibility: Bank/Program change can be sent to sfz while voices are playing, without interruptions, clicks or any kind of artifacts.

However, this requires a memory amount of around 2.5 times the size of the SoundFont file. In other words, in order to load a 100Mb SoundFont file, for example, you will need about 250Mb of free RAM. For computers with a lot of RAM, or for small SoundFont files, this is the suggested setting.

If the required amount of memory for the 32-bit storage isn't available, sfz will switch to SF16 automatically, and will load all samples as 16-bit, performing the conversion to 32-bit 'on-the-fly' during playback.
Using this method, memory usage is cut by half, but performance will suffer as the conversion process takes some extra CPU cycles.

Only processors featuring SSE accelleration can use SF32 mode.

SF16
sfz will load the whole SoundFont file, but all samples will be loaded and played as 16-bit. This mode has the advantage of taking half of memory space than SF32, but the processor utilization will be higher due the realtime conversion process.

PR32
When in this mode, only the samples required by current preset will be loaded from disk, and converted to 32-bit during the loading operation. As a result, only the memory required for those samples will be used, which can drastically the RAM required to play certain SoundFont files.

In this mode, when a Bank/Program change message is received (or when changing programs with the interface selector), all voices will be inmediately stopped before loading the next set of samples. Consequently, changing programs during playback could result in a undesirable click.

Only processors featuring SSE accelleration can use PR32 mode.

PR16
This mode is similar to PR32, but the samples are loaded as 16-bit. This is the setting that takes the less RAM amount, suitable for old computers.

D Tuna
That's what I needed . Thanks

Thanks for pointing that out, Scott. I wondered by SFZ worked in my previous version of Sonar Homestudio and not the later one. That's pretty devious of Cakewalk.

How do you use a SFZ player in Real Band or other PG products? I've never used it before do to ignorance.

Load it as a VSTi,just like the VSC DXi

Only difference is you have to load the SFZ itself with a soundfont of choice

I downloaded and installed the SFZ Free, it shows up in the vsti list, but i get no sound. So I loaded a piano font, which shows up, but still no sound. I only have the integrated realtek sound set on my computer, no seperate sound card, which is why I use VSC or Forte a lot. That may be the problem.

if so, does anyone know anything about a free ware program called Fluidsynth, which supposedly allows the use of soundfonts even if your soundcard in not capable of using traditional soundfonts.

It also has a seperate gui interface which I believe is Qsynth.

I've never used soundfonts before, but I do have a few vst and vsti goodies which seem to work ok.

any ideas?

toucher,

Make sure you are sending the right midi channel number to sfz and also make sure you have a patch selected from the font that you've loaded. Your description of fluidsynth's purpose is the same as sfz.

The nice thing about sfz over older hardware synths on some Creative cards is that it only dynamically loads the fonts when you need them; not every time you boot - which was true for the SBLive cards from Creative.

Resurrecting this thread as on my new Lenovo I keep getting " not enough memory to load soundfont"
I guess this was sort of a common issue but I never have it on the Toshiba. I have a patched SFZ that opens in PR32 instead of SF32 which is OK for me as I only use a kick drum font that I immediately convert to audio.
Anyone else have this issue?

John,

I've been using various versions of sfz since 2005 on an Athlon desktop with 1GB of memory, and since about 2007 on a Lenovo ThinkPad that has 2 GB of memory. I never had that issue, but then again, my soundfont files were at most perhaps 32 MB (a big piano soundfont that I use now and then).

What does 'patched' sfz mean?

BTW, there are other alternatives to using sfz as a VSTi - I'll have to look at my collection of soundfont players on my home machine. I have used this one as well: http://www.kotkasuniverse.com/paax.php

-Scott

The font I use is only 8 meg. I even DL a new copy and same thing. This issue was a common complaint. Affected some and not others. The author put out a "patched" version that defaults to PR32 instead of SF32 which is fine for me as I use it just for the one thing.

I can't seem to load the sfx engine into BIAB windows 2011 313. I used it all the time in BIAB 2010 on this machine, so I have probably just forgotten something.

Here is what I am trying:

Audio menu --> Dxi Synth Setting --> Coyote wave table is loaded, I go to number 2, scroll down to the bottom --> Add VST plugin ... --> tried selecting VStSynthFont.dll or SFX.dll --> it goes and does something, but comes back with nothing loaded.

Any ideas? I have Vista, so I tried turning off the UAC -- no avail.

Thanks,

Kevin