SF2SFont - rips a .sf2 file into a set of .pset and .wav files
in the SFont directory
Ok. Here's the background.
I like the idea of a synth on a card. The Creative Live and Audigy cards ROCK!
I mean, what's not to like about losing midi cables (except for midiins) and
putting the synth on a computer card with zero latency that'll load new
presets and samples straight from hard disk to memory to the card to speakers
What I don't like is the exact .SF2 file format.
(A set of presets and assoc'd samples glommed into one file for the card)
Don't get me wrong - I'm glad there's a ton of SF2 files out there on the web
many of which are EXTREMELY high quality and FREE.
That part rocks!
But the exact format is a little clunky.
I want to be able to load in ANY preset from ANY SF2 at ANY time.
And I -don't- want ALL of the crappy presets taking up space on my disk
or taking up memory when I only need ONE preset out of the whole SF2.
Soooo
- The crappy presets (and assoc'd WAVs) have got to go.
- ALL the good presets from ALL SF2s need to be accessible ALL the time.
So I built a ripper that will store
- each preset individually as a text file with the extension .pset
holding preset and instrument level information that reference
- individual .WAV files stored in a dir per SF2 file
Ditty can
- knit together these presets and wav files into a single SF2 per song
Ok, well, technically, an SF2 per sound used by the song and one for drums.
- feed em to your card on the fly before each song starts
and whenever you want to change sounds for a track
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right click a .sf2 file and pick Convert_to_SFont or
Convert_to_SFont(GM) or
Convert_to_SFont(GMDefault)
Make SURE you run SFontBank after ripping (and file renaming, etc)
or else Ditty won't know about any of the new .pset files you have.
I could make sf2SFont kick off SFontBank automatically,
EXCEPT that SFontBank can take a whiiiile.
and sometimes you want to rip several SF2s at a time.
Each sf2SFont option names the presets a little differently when ripping.
Samples are ALWAYS put into the SFont\_WAV directory with filenames of
{MidiPath}\SFont\_WAV\{SF2bank}\{SF2sample}.WAV
- Convert_to_SFont(GMDefault)
Use this option when you want a GM format SF2 to be used for
the general midi default sounds.
Only 1 (or a few overlapping) SF2s can be used as the default.
(existing .pset files of the same names will be overwritten)
non-drum (melodic) presets will be stored as
SFont\{gmgroup}\{gminst}.pset files.
drum presets will be stored as
SFont\Drum\{drumgroup}\{drumnote}.pset
- Convert_to_SFont(GM)
Use this option when you have a SF2 with presets in GM numbering system
(where #0 is Piano\AcousticGrand, for example)
but that you'll use as non standard sounds.
(Which are just as good as standard ones, if not better :)
You'll be storing the sound in a dir similar to the standard ones
so it'll be pretty easy to map back to standard later. If needed :)
Presets will be put in the SFont\_\ dir so you don't MESS UP the
nice neat categorized sounds that you've already got.
Ditty will let you easily delete or move/rename/rate the sound back
into the standard dirs in SFont
non-drum (melodic) presets will be stored as
SFont\_\{gmgroup}\{gminst}.pset files.
drum presets will be stored as
SFont\Drum\_\{drumgroup}\{drumnote}\{drumnote}_{SF2bank}.pset
- Convert_to_SFont
Use this option when you have a SF2 that's just a bunch of presets
(not numbered per GM.)
Like Convert_to_SFont(GM), presets will be put in the SFont\_\ dir
so your NICE NEAT SFont presets STAY that way. (read above)
non-drum (melodic) presets will be stored as
SFont\_\{SF2bank}\{SF2presetname}.pset files.
drum presets will be stored as
SFont\Drum\_\{drumgroup}\{drumnote}\{drumnote}_{SF2bank}.pset
...same as Convert_to_SFont(GM)
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Note that .pset files are just text files.
See PSetEdit docs for some flimsy docs about the .pset file format.
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