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[I give up] Seems nobody else is interested or knows about what could be a MOST useful feature of PPhone, if only it was not documented so badly and disjointedly.
I am sure this has been asked, but the questions seemed to involve certain riders.
I just want to convert heaps of SFZ files (whose gradual passing I mourn) to sf2, to play in so many players that won't. Ironically my main target is Phenome. It behaves like a SFZ player (I was a Creative freak way back when) and has all that fiddly stuff like ADSR, that I loved.....except ot only plays SF2..
SFZ and Sforzando seem dead and indeed only crippled compared to what I see it described. So back to SF2 players/editors that allow the old art.
So if I can, no modification, just conversion, en masse. Then as in the old times, use PolyPhone to alter what does not suit.
Hope this is not a vapid question.
Any help appreciated
Nick -
OK. To show I am not just begging, here are some things I have tried, as gleaned from forums and the PPhone PFD.
To attempt a single conversion: This does nothing and the cmd window refers me to a dead site.
cd C:\Program Files\Polyphone
.\polyphone.exe -1 -i C:\Program Files (x86)\Cakewalk\Dimension Pro\Multisamples\05 - Guitars\Gibson Les Paul Unison Bends.sfz -o C:\Program Files (x86)\Cakewalk\Dimension Pro\Multisamples\05 - Guitars
Or another approach, to do multiple files:
This again does nothing and again I am referred to the same dead site.
FOR %%i IN ("C:\Program Files (x86)\Cakewalk\Dimension Pro\Multisamples\05 - Guitars\*.sfz") DO "C:/Program files/Polyphone/polyphone.exe" -1 -i %%i >PPhone.txt
pause -
dont know if i understand you right (old Dutch brains) but if you want to convert a SFZfile to a SF2file, just open the .SFZ in Polyphone and Polyphone will save it as a SF2file for you.
as for the bulk, is that bulk 100 SFZfiles containing 1 or 2 presets or is it 10 SFZfiles contaning 100+ presets?
regards bottrop -
HAH! Old Dutch brains to old Ausie brains....
Hundreds of SFZs of various complexity, but as many as I can carry over in most cases. No alterations.
Hence the need for batch activity. I realise that I can open each SFZ then save as SF2, but I have access to hundreds of SFZ ones.
The players that play SFZs these days seem to be thin on the ground and not very expressively controllable. -
the easiest way i can think up is:
associate .SFZ with Polyphone.
doubleclick the .SFZ and Polyphone will open it.
close Polyphone and the app will ask you if you want to save.
hit enter and doubleclick the next .SFZ.
boring, but maybe you can teach your pet kangaroo to do it.
regards bottrop -
SFZ offers a lot more possibilities than soundfonts and the construction can be very complex, so it can happen SFZ-files contain opcodes which are not supported in the soundfont format. In that matter it's impossible for Polyphone to read all SFZ-files correctly. As Polyphone is now I think it does a very good job with reading SFZ-files.
The best you can do is to get a bit familiar with the SFZ-format. Then you can alter the SFZ-files yourself, so it can be readen with Polyphone. To alter SFZ-files you can do a lot with just a simple text-editor and its "search and replace" function.
To learn the basics of the SFZ-format you can do the opposite: use Polyphone to export soundfonts to SFZ. Then open the SFZ-files with a text editor to examine its contents.
More info about the SFZ-format:
https://sfzformat.com/
https://sfzformat.com/legacy/
http://www.drealm.info/sfz/plj-sfz.xhtml -
Thanks for all the replies.
I feel that my original question may have been lost. I have many SFZ fonts that I want to convert to SF2 because it is becoming harder and harder for me to find SFZ players. I have seen several "ways' to batch convert" using the CMD line: none of them worked for me. So it's more about the batch command than it is about the ins and outs of SFZ vs SF2. -
OK. I worked with the SFZ format for many years, many years ago. I know quite a bit about it. That was in the days of EMU and Creative Sound Ballster. I was writing scripts to alter many SFZ parameters and using NRPN and RPN ans SYSEX codes. All the files I worked with were called Soundfonts and had the sfz extension.
So I am puzzled that you discriminate between SFZ and soundfonts. SF2 and soundfonts? SFZ and SF2?
Not trying to be a smartarse. I have "been out of the loop" for for a while and I wonder if I have missed a step....happens to us old F**ts. -
So you're talking about at least 15 years ago? "The days of E-MU and Creative Sound Blaster were as far as I know in the late 90s and early 2000s. If that's correct the SFZ-format has been developed a lot since then.
I am also surprised you say it's hard to find an SFZ-player, because there are several SFZ-players to find including good ones which are for free. Plogue SForZando is free to download both for Windows and MAC-OS and can be used as a stand-alone application but also can function as a VST-plugin which you can integrate into your DAW. In your earlier postst I see you use Windows, so installing SForZando should not be a problem. In general SForZando works very stable on both Windows and MAC-OS. So if that's not the case on your computer-system you
I myself am doing the opposite as you do: I am busy converting soundfonts (SF2 is the extention-name for soundfont-files) into the SFZ-format. It still means I have to alter a lot manually in the text-editor. The modulators of soundfonts for example cannot be converted - then I have to find the right SFZ-opcode which resembles the same functionality. And vice versa for what you want to do.
...
While writing this I begin to suspect what probably might be the case. Is it correct the SFZ-instruments you want to convert belonged to another application such as a DAW?
A few years ago I wanted to convert the SFZ-instruments which were included into an old version of Cakewalk Sonar, though that didn't work for me either. Later I understood the opcodes which normally are imbedded into the SFZ-file were not there and must be integrated into other files of Cakewalk. So there was no other option for me than using the samples to build a new soundfont from scratch. -
Sforzando seems to me to be a half-finished mess. Sorry. I have tried it and tried it. It has pages that have noting on them. I can't even use envelopes because they all have silly names, apart from the most basic ones. I am happy to let others worry about tweaking this and that parameter, while I work on music.
Anyway, not much point arguing about this AFAICS. I still have not seen a way to batch convert one or the other. -
SForZando is a player and not an editor. That is what you were asking about. It actually doesn't do more than loading the soundbank and for that purpose it allows people who build SFZ-soundbanks themselves to test if the instruments sound correctly. When the program allows you for example to easily adjust the volume envelope than mistakes will easily be made as well.
Maybe software like Chicken Systems Translator is more what you are looking for. It is commercial software and the advanced version are definitely not cheap, but this software is used by many professional musicians. Another option is Awave Studio . You can try a demo version for 30 days, though the demo version lacks the batch convertion function which is available in the paid version.
Also it can be a good idea to upload the soundbanks you want to convert to an online storage device like Google Drive. You can share those files with other people if you want to, which gives them more insight about the cause of your problems. -
is it really necessary to convert all that .SFZs? as there are a lot of soundfonts rambling around on the web in both .SFZ and SF2 format.
i myself converted the VSCO2.sfz and dumped it on Drive. it is just a plain conversion, no editing, because it is in stereo and i dont believe in stereo instruments, so i am not going to waste my time on editing stereo samples. i dont know what you need, but see if there is something useful for you here;
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1…KbAyS880?usp=sharing
regards -
Since the latest version of Polyphone (which can read FLAC-files as audio samples) many SFZ-instruments can be read with Polyphone. That's why I personally converted several soundfonts to SFZ, because then I have a format which is readable with Polyphone but also with applications for SFZ-files. (SForZando can import soundfonts, though than the samples are stored within one big consolidated audio file and it can happen frequently it doesn't sound like it's supposed to).
The troubles appear when soundfonts contain modulators. Or vice versa when the SFZ-files contain opcodes about behaviour which is not included in the soundfont specs. (Here are those specs by the way. Good luck by reading it hahaha!) -
Back to the subject. I guess converting sampled instruments to another format is often a time-consuming challenge. 20 years ago when musicians used hardware samplers ... when they needed to use a soundbank built for another sampler instead of their own it often resulted in no other option than using the samples and program it from scratch to make it compatible for their own sampler.
@bottrop I will take a look at your link later. And yes, for mixing it's usually better when the separate tracks are in mono. -
Thanks for all the input.
I guess it's right that there are plenty of SF2s out there and maybe I should just trawl. Just that there are/were so many atrocious ones, that that itself could be time consuming...big time.
EDIT: I will in my "defence" add that the whole point of my question was that if I could do the thing with a batch file, it would be absolutely no trouble at all...start file, go to coffee.
I suppose I should cherry-pick the ones I have then start looking for others.I
I agree that stereo samples are a waste of time and are actually detrimental. I particularly hate pianos that pan right across the stereo image. You don't want to present it as if it's the player that's hearing it!
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