What exactly is a soundfont? How are they used/made?
I’m pretty sure there just sample sounds, with correct levels and all. I’m not too hip with that jazz myself. I know I used to use a program called Fruity loops that had a lot of these “sound fonts” inside it.
But you can create them as well. I also used a program called Reason, that had a bunch of really good ones (like real sounding snares and such) it came with an M-audio /Audiophile soundcard I bought. Window’s has alot of them built in to it as well, every time you have and error, (beep) (horn) stuff like that.
That’s about all I know about it.
jerm
like he said,
basically they sample an instrument with multiple velocities (how hard it’s played) as well as different pitches (the notes) and you then use midi to play the appropriate note/velocity on that instrument.
for example, with a piano soundfont, you could play the note A lightly then hard, and the soundfont will play samples that correspond to the note A with first a low velocity then a high velocity.
voila, you can play any instrument you want.
soundfont.com will explain all your questions about sf’s, Steve.
The free editor Vienna is available on their download page.
Creating A Sample SoundFont-Compatible Bank With Vienna:
http://www.soundfont.com/tutorials/creating1.html