As described above, a soundfont player is a kind of synthesizer that uses the wavetable synthesis method by playing back recordings of real instruments. Different instruments can be used by loading different soundfonts into the player, and the quality of the sound is mainly determined by the quality of the used soundfont.
This section describes one possible configuration of a software soundfont player that can be freely downloaded from the web and works with Overtone Analyzer.
Note: The steps described here are only necessary if your soundcard has no support for soundfont playback and you don't have external MIDI hardware. If your soundcard is already capable of native soundfont playback (such as the Soundblaster Live! and Audigy family of cards), you should use these existing facilities for playing back the high quality soundfont described here, as they will be easier to use and give faster playback.
Software Requirements
- Maple Virtual MIDI Cable: http://www.hurchalla.com/Maple_driver.html
- SaviHost: http://www.hermannseib.com/english/savihost.htm
- sfz Sample Player from rgc:audio: http://www.rgcaudio.com/sfz.htm
- Soundfonts, for example WST25FStein_00Sep22.zip from: http://www.pianosounds.com/freesoundfont.htm
Installation
- Download the four files above. The given links were working as of April 2007, but since we have no influence over these external sites, they may stop working at any time. Please let us know if these links are no longer valid.
- Install the Maple Virtual MIDI Cable by downloading and installing MapleVMCv356.exe.
- Run sfz197.exe
to install the sfz Sample Player. When asked for the installation
folder, change the destination into something like "C:\Program
Files\SoundFontPlayer":
- Delete sfx.exe in the folder where you just installed the sfz player.
- Open SaviHost.zip and extract savihost.exe into the folder you just created in step 3.
- Rename savihost.exe into sfx.exe.
- Open WST25FStein_00Sep22.zip
and run the contained WST25FStein_00Sep22.exe to extract the piano
soundfont. When asked where to save the resulting file, click on the
browse button and select the folder from step 3:
Check the folder of the sfz player. It should now contain the file WST25FStein_00Sep22.SF2. - Start
sfz.exe. Remember, this should be the renamed savihost.exe, not the
original sfx.exe that was installed by the sfz player. You should now
see something like this:
- Double-click on the "FILE" selection area (see cursor in the image above) and select the piano soundfont installed in step 7. If you click on the piano keyboard of the sfz player, you should now hear piano sounds.
- In the "Device" menu of the sfz player, click on "MIDI" and select "Maple Midi In: Port 1" as Input Port:
- Click on the "Save" icon of the sfz player and save your configuration, for example as "settings.fxb". This will cause the player to remember the selected soundfont for later.
- Now open Overtone Analyzer, press F3 to open the device options dialog, and select "Maple Midi Out: Port 1" as Midi Output Device.
This concludes the installation of the soundfont player. If you press the piano keys in Overtone Analyzer now, you should hear a piano sound that is much better that of the internal software synthesizer.
Other Instruments / Soundfonts
If you are interested in other instruments, search the web for soundfonts to download. There are many free and commercial soundfonts available. Once you have downloaded a soundfont, extract it into the folder of the player and load the file through the file selection box of the player.
Limitations
While the method presented here will allow you to greatly improve the sound quality of your midi instruments even with a cheap standard sound card, there are a few drawbacks:
- You will have to run the sfz player and keep it running while in use.
- A high quality soundfont such as the one described here will use a lot more system resources than the default software synthesizer. If you don't have a very fast computer with sufficient memory, you may experience a noticeable delay after pressing a button and before hearing the sound.
- You will no longer be able to select the
output instrument through the Overtone Analyzer Audio Settings Dialog.
Instead, you have to load the soundfont through the user interface of
the sfz player.
- If you are using cheap computer speakers, the method here won't help you much. You need to use headphones or a decent speaker system to get good sound.
