If you are interested in reproducing this tutorial in either print or electronic media, please contact us with details.

Using Soundfonts with SBLive!, Audigy, and E-mu Soundcards:

There are a few stand-alone hardware samplers can load Soundfonts directly. Loading them is as simple as transferring the patches contained in the Soundfont library file from your computer RAM to the hardware RAM. Unfortunately though, most require either .wav files, or a special format, such as AKAI.

(Jayzen Soundfont products are also available as a folder of .wav files by special request... just drop us a line on our contact form.)

By far, the most common "hardware samplers" in use today are the ubiquitous SBLive! and Audigy soundcards made by Creative. They have made a few other products over the years that also import and run Soundfonts directly in hardware (sharing system RAM). There is also the Emulator X series made by E-mu that allows Soundfonts to run natively.

In each case, you load the Soundfont using the associated application program that is installed with the hardware. In this tutorial, we will look how this is done with the Creative SBLive! soundcard...

The Soundfont Bank Manager:

Access to Soundfonts is done from within the Creative Control Panel, which appears when you open up Creative's Soundfont Bank Manager (usually found in your program files: Start/All Programs/Creative/Sound Blaster Live!/Soundfont Bank Manager.) It will open up the interface panel shown below:

Soundfonts are usually made up of a library of individual patches, organized into an X/Y grid described by "Bank" and "Preset" numbers. All Jayzen Soundfonts are set up in Bank 0, with the individual patches located starting at Preset 0, 1, 2... and so on. This makes them easy to find and load.

In the Soundfont Bank Manager, it will show you all the different patches that you have available, as well as how much RAM memory is being used, and how much is still left.

The next section shows you how to set the amount of RAM memory...

Setting the Soundfont's RAM Memory Requirement:

If you click on the button labelled "Soundfont cache" is will display a slider which allows you to set the amount of system RAM that the Creative soundcard uses to hold Soundfonts. Most Jayzen Soundfonts are quite small and setting this to about 60 Megs should be fine. If you use one of our larger Soundfonts, make sure to set this to a larger setting than the Soundfont size. (Check the User Guide for the Soundfont size.)

Use "Static Caching" if your computer has 1 GB of RAM or more, otherwise use "Dynamic Caching" - which will only load in the Soundfonts if they are actually being used by your project. 

Loading the Soundfonts:

The Soundfont Bank Manager shows you all the Soundfonts that are available to your application. It is like a big bus full of musicians sitting around waiting for someone to tell them when the gig is about to start. Instead of a name like "Sachmo" they prefer to be called "Bank 0, Preset 57."

To load in a Soundfont, click on the "Librarian" button, then open a Soundfont library that you have stored on your computer. A new window will open up displaying a list of all the patches that are available in the library you selected - simply drag and drop the Soundfonts you want to use into the main library window.

You can change the bank/patch number by double-clicking and entering the number of the bank/patch where you want them to be located (ie. give them a new name).

You can also click on the little keyboard icon in the top corner to audition any of the patches. When selected, any currently selected patch will be automatically loaded into memory and you will hear it when you play the software keyboard (or your external MIDI keyboard/device).

* * *

To access the Soundfonts from you application, you simply set the bank/patch of your sequencer's MIDI track to this same bank/patch number. Any MIDI notes on that track will then trigger the sounds of that patch.

Conclusions/Summary:

The Creative Soundbank Manager provides three basic functions:

• It allows you to adjust the system RAM used by the Creative Soundcard for storing Soundfonts.
• It gives you the ability to quickly audition the individual patches contained within Soundfont libraries.
• It provides a simple interface to load Soundfonts located on your hard drive onto the soundcard, and then set up their bank/patch location so they can be accessed and played within your sequencer.

______________________________________________________

We hope you enjoyed this tutorial and found it helpful.

If you have further questions and/or comments, please contact us.

Regards,

Jayzen Sound

______________________________________________________

General overview of Virtual Instruments

Links to other websites with information on Soundfonts