I'm looking for some help with Sforzando.
I've been trying it out in BIAB and in Cakewalk. I'd like to try and download some new SFZ files to try some new sounds, but I'm not sure to which directory on my HD to download the files.
I noticed that the Band in a Box sounds for Sforzando are located at C:\Program Files\PG Music\Band in a Box Sounds\Programs >> then there are several folders for Bass, Piano, etc.

Where should I download any new sounds I find on the internet? Could it be any Folder I create?
I notice that there is an option in Sforzando to import files. Could I just navigate to any folder where I have downloaded new SFZ files and try the sounds out that way?
And when you import a file through that menu, I assume you open the SFZ file, and not the WAV files to try a new instrument.

Thanks for any help or advice on trying new sounds in Sforzando.

John

Hi Jphillips, all you need to do is drag and drop the .sfz file into the Sforzando window, or use the Import menu. They can be in any folder as long as the wav files are with it.

Simon:

I appreciate your reply.

I will try your suggestions about Sforzando.

Thanks,
John

You're very welcome John, best of luck!

Plogue has a pretty good User Guide for their Sforzando software. You can download it here:

Storfanzo User Guide

On the Settings tab of the Sforzando GUI, you can define the data paths on your system for both the location of a folder containing your sfz files, and another data path for the location of any data files that the ARIA Engine converts to sfz format (the folder auto-created by the program is named "ARIAconverted"). The User Guide explains this setup.

What I did was create a new folder named "Plogue" under my Documents folder, and then created a sub-folder named "SFZ Files", where I would store any files I manually put there. I made the Sforzando setting for the converted files data path to also dump into the "Plogue" folder, and the program auto-created "ARIAconverted" as a sub-folder under "Plogue" folder the first time it converted a file to the sfz format.

I haven't found too many good ready-to-use sfz files on the web yet. There are some commercially developed sfz file libraries that are available for purchase, but those libraries are usually offered for Kontact as well. The sfz format consists of wav sample files and associated text files to tell the sfz player how to run them. You can do a lot of tweaking of the sound samples, but looking at the text files, it looks like a lot of involved coding.

The Storfanzo player is one of the few freeware programs that will convert sf2 soundfont (and some other file formats) to sfz by importing them or simply dragging the sf2 file into the Sforzando GUI. I have found that this conversion process doesn't always do a good job of converting sf2 files into equally good sounding sfz files! I have had more success by using a VST Soundfont Player.

I'm using DSK's SF2-v2 VST plugin on the BIAB track that I want to use a particular instrument that comes from an sf2 soundfont. After installing the plugin, I then use the VST's GUI to set the plugin for the particular instrument from the sf2 file that I want to use for the BIAB track. Since I use BIAB 2018, the BIAB program is running 32 bit. The DSK VST is also 32 bit plugin, so I'm good to go. If you are using 64-bit BIAB, you will need Jbridge or similar to get this to work. In many cases, the un-converted sf2 sound on the BIAB track sounds better to me than using an sfz converted file on the Sforzando plugin. YMMV!

Dave R

Thanks for all the information. I will take a look at it.

John

John,

I'm doing some more testing using a VSTi plugin for a soundfont player on a BIAB track, I have found that the previously mentioned DSK-SFv2 player does not work well as a BIAB plugin. This plugin will not allow MIDI control messages from the keyboard (such as pitch bend or modulation) to modify the sound output. Also, I tried the DSK plugin as a standalone app using VSTHost and it didn't work at all (bad audio distortion).

I am testing an alternative VSTi Soundfont Player, BassMidi VST 1.4 by Falcosoft. It is much better than the DSK plugin, and it seems to work well as a BIAB plugin. It also comes in both 32 bit and 64 bit versions, so for BIAB 2019 or later, the 64 bit version is available. It can be downloaded from the developer's website at the following location:

BassMidi VSTi 1.4

The developer does not recommend the use of 32/64 bit bridges with this app, and there isn't a lot of good documentation as to how to use the plugin. Since I'm using BIAB 2018, which is still 32 bit, and most of my plugins are 32 bit, I copied the files from the 32 bit version to my plugin folder.

I still have some favorite instruments from some soundfonts that I can now use with BIAB using this setup. Some of those soundfont samples were not converted properly by Sforzando from the st2 format to the sfz format, so this is a good alternative solution.

Hope this additional info is helpful (and not confusing).