User experiences when using Soundfonts?

[Fent]

Happy New Year to all you very fortunate Spectralis owners!
I admit...I haven't been showing the Speckie much love in the last year and I really want to change that
but I have been having problems with importing Soundfonts (Sf2 format). Sometimes I get an error saying the soundfont is too complex and other times even though it imports okay when playing a note the ENV sustain and release times do not work, even though they are fully open at 127...

Also some questions...

1. When would I use a 'Collection (.SLC) Are they just files to store groups of files as one file on your computer for backup?

Does anybody know of a program in whereas Soundfonts can be edited and tested before converting with SpecImp.exe?

Jorg mentioned Vienna Soundfont Editor before? Is anyone using that?

Wave files import without any problem at all...but Soundfonts are another story...

[rbhall7ice]

Polyphone is free and works fine - it also has reliably edited stereo sf2s for me which i sometimes had problems with.
Also have used chicken systems translator and soundforge.
SLCs are good as banks of smaller samples.

[Fent]

Polyphone is free and works fine - it also has reliably edited stereo sf2s for me which i sometimes had problems with.
Also have used chicken systems translator and soundforge.
SLCs are good as banks of smaller samples.

Thanks for the info. Tried Polyphone but it kept crashing at launch. Anyway, I don't really want to edit soundfonts. To me, that is a waste of time. I just wish the SpecImp converter worked with all of my soundfonts. Does the converter have a wave layer limitation? I don't get it.

rbhall7ice, when you import .sf2 presets, do they play back properly on your Spectralis? Can I send you a soundfont to test out? I audition my soundfonts in sforzando then convert them in SpecImp utility and then transfer to Spectralis. From there, they do not play back correctly at all. I have a MIDI controller connected to audition as well.

It seems like sustain and release do not work in the VCA. I am assuming an imported soundfont should play back exactly how it was intended...it should play back like it does in sforzando when triggered by MIDI or Spectralis buttons right?

Are soundfont layers lost during the conversion to .SLI files?

[rbhall7ice]

Well- polyphone used to crash at first for me but after contacting the creator(contact@polyphone.fr ) ,he sent me a version that works.
I am not an expert on soundfonts but you might ask Joerg for advice - he has always been helpful when i needed it.
There seems to be a potential problem with sforzando and sf2 as opposed to sfz files - i did a quick look online about it http://ariaengine.com/forums/discussion ... orzando/p1
that's probably neither here nor there ..
What i was doing a couple years ago was using autosampler on all the old and newer synths then translator to sf2.
If for whatever reason the sf2 didn't play the same when it finally got in the speck - i new that running it through polyphone and tweaking what was needed ended up working - i tried samplerobot and others and this is what worked when targeting the speck as the final place for the sounds - i ended up with a huge library of stuff.
Again - i don't know anything about sforzando and sfz's but the way i mentioned worked for loops,sustains,releases,stereo etc.
You might try an sf2 to wav converter - i was almost entirely making sample "instruments" with zones and loops etc. so i needed the sf2.

[Fent]

Thanks rbhall7ice. I'll mess around with Spectralis parameters to see if I can get more expressiveness from my imported soundfonts before I try something else.

[Jörg Schaaf]

Happy New Year Fenton! I am sorry for not replying yet to your email but I am very busy right now with betatesting, eurorack stuff and the NAMM preparation. That makes it almost impossible to do some studies on corrupted SF2 files.

The sample import application will not work with compressed soundfonts. I created all the soundfonts of the sample library and I did that with Vienna when I prepared the factory content for the Spectralis 1 and with viena for the sample library 1 and 2. Viena is a windows app that works without soundblaster cards. I never had a single problem with that tools. So maybe you try to load your soundfonts into one of these apps and save them again with them. Maybe that is a better starting point for the import program. BTW. - do you made sure to use the latest version of the sample import program? I remember an old version that had problems with some soundfont files.

The sample import program reads sample start and endpoints, the loop points, the keyboard and velocity zones, the sample tuning and the wave data of a soundfont. All other data will be ignored. It's nornal, that a soundfont sounds different in the Spectralis, if filters, envelopes and modulation settings were used inside the soundfont. The soundfont will be loaded as a raw sample set for the DSP oscillator. All synth parameters must be tweaked inside the Spectralis.

Off Topic - wave files. Unfortunately there are many "tools" available for wave manipulation, who fill the data chunks of wav-files not correctly. I usually repair those files by loading them into sound forge. Sound Forge reports and edits the error and after saving the file from sound forge (sony) the wave files in all cases worked fine with our sample import app.

[Fent]

Happy New Year Fenton! I am sorry for not replying yet to your email but I am very busy right now with betatesting, eurorack stuff and the NAMM preparation. That makes it almost impossible to do some studies on corrupted SF2 files.

The sample import application will not work with compressed soundfonts. I created all the soundfonts of the sample library and I did that with Vienna when I prepared the factory content for the Spectralis 1 and with viena for the sample library 1 and 2. Viena is a windows app that works without soundblaster cards. I never had a single problem with that tools. So maybe you try to load your soundfonts into one of these apps and save them again with them. Maybe that is a better starting point for the import program. BTW. - do you made sure to use the latest version of the sample import program? I remember an old version that had problems with some soundfont files.

The sample import program reads sample start and endpoints, the loop points, the keyboard and velocity zones, the sample tuning and the wave data of a soundfont. All other data will be ignored. It's nornal, that a soundfont sounds different in the Spectralis, if filters, envelopes and modulation settings were used inside the soundfont. The soundfont will be loaded as a raw sample set for the DSP oscillator. All synth parameters must be tweaked inside the Spectralis.

Off Topic - wave files. Unfortunately there are many "tools" available for wave manipulation, who fill the data chunks of wav-files not correctly. I usually repair those files by loading them into sound forge. Sound Forge reports and edits the error and after saving the file from sound forge (sony) the wave files in all cases worked fine with our sample import app.

Thanks for the info Jorg. I'll look into this. All the best at NAMM!