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Turn any sound into a playable instrument

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Enjoy a soundfont editor with powerful tools

Polyphone is a free and open-source software for creating and editing musical instruments based on audio samples, using the SoundFont format. It is compatible with the file extensions .sf2, .sf3, .sfz, .sfArk and .grandOrgue. Thanks to the framework Qt with which it is developped, different platforms are supported and several translations have been provided. More than a simple editor, Polyphone has been designed to efficiently deal with big sets of instruments involving a large amount of data.

Import and prepare sound samples

The first step is to import audio samples, which can be provided by different sources over the Internet. You can also create your own samples by recording them or generating them using an external synthesizer.

Once imported into Polyphone, you will be able to prepare them as a prior step to the design of the instruments. For example:

  • filtering out some frequencies or noise,
  • defining a loop to extend the duration of the sample,
  • tuning.

Many algorithms in the field of signal processing are used for pitch detection, resampling, real-time filtering or even evaluating the quality of a loop.

The sample preparation is detailled in this tutorial.

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Take advantage of a large technical support

Browse the documentation

All features of Polyphone are described in the documentation. Tutorials are also written so that you can easily start creating your first instrument.

Visit the forum

If you get stuck, a forum is available to help you. It′s also a place to share musical experiments, suggest improvements for Polyphone or report any bugs you may have found.

Share instruments with the online library

Discover the soundfont library

Many soundfonts are listed and downloadable in the online library and you are free to share your own instruments there. The library is also accessible directly from Polyphone with a lifetime Premium account which it is possible to have for a small financial contribution.

Get involved in the project

Make a donation

Polyphone is free but there are costs associated with its website and development. A small donation will help a lot.

Help with translations

To be more accessible, Polyphone and its documentation can be translated into several languages. You can start a new translation or complete an existing one.

Explore the code

The sources of Polyphone are hosted on GitHub. Developpers can help in fixing bugs, implementing or improving features.

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