I have collected a number of soundfonts of bass guitars, and want to combine them using Polyphone into a single .SF2 font representing multiple instruments. Then whilst playing I can change the type of bass I'm playing by just changing the voice number on my synth software.
The problem I'm finding is that when adding a 2nd or subsequent instrument, Polyphone says 'I have these sample (names) already. Shall I overwite them?' and of course I don't want to overwrite them because then I'm losing the versatility I seek. I know that 'sample G#4' from voice A is different from 'sample G#4' from voice B [because it's a different voice, for heaven's sake!] but I realise that the computer and Polyphone don't properly appreciate that.
I realise that I could bypass this problem by changing the soundfont selection on the synth rather than the voice selection - but there are other reasons (too long to explain here) why I can't do that.
Can you please advise how I can combine several voices into a single .SF2 file, such that the full variety of sounds expected is still available, even though the sample names of several of the voices may be duplicated (in name but not actual sound)? Thank you for your suggestions.
samples in a soundfont must have a unique name.
in the single .sf2's that you want to combine change the sample names by adding for example a three letter code, using bulk rename;
in the Samples folder select the samples, hit F2 and nsert at location 0 that letter code (or maybe a more specific text like Snakebass)max 20 characters in total.
regards bottrop
Bottrop -
Thank you for this. I have now discovered that if I attempt the copy and select 'duplicate all' when it complains of pre-existing names, Polyphone then does the renaming that you're suggesting for me - both for the samples and also where the samples are called up to represent the preset.
Problem solved - on to the next one!
