I am making my first soundfont, it is for a bagpipe, not usually an equal-tempered instrument. Could someone advise me on the best way of constructing a non-equal tempered soundfont.
I can see two main approaches (a) I can sample every note individually, with the required pitches (e.g. copy an existing physical bagpipe) and then each note has a tuning adjustment of zero (or a small correction if there is a tuning problem with the sampled bagpipe), or (b) I can use a number of samples (maybe less than one per note) tuned on import to a pitch which matches the corresponding notes on an equal-tempered scale, use divisions containing just one note and adjust the tuning relative to the equal tempered value on a note by note basis using the Tuning (cents) parameter.
A third alternative would perhaps be to use a soundfont player VST which can modify the pitches provided by the soundfont, I am not sure if this is possible and it feels more appropriate to built it into the instrument definition .
I would welcome any advice on how this is best approached.
I would say: don't take the temperament into account when you are designing a soundfont. Tune all samples with the equal temperament and create instrument in the classic way.
The pitch modification should be done in the sound engine using the soundfont. This way, the soundfont can be used in different context and this is the context that tells the soundfont to be played with specific pitches.
In the next version of Polyphone to come, it will be possible to change the tuning fork and also the temperament in the configurations. This will not be saved in the soundfonts and will have no interaction with them: this is just a configuration of the sound engine.
Everything will be included, except the equal temperaments "perfect pitch" and "perfect third" that change the octaves. For those uncommon temperaments you can use the "tuning scale" at the instrument level so that an octave is slightly stretched.
