Are you a beat maker or producer who makes
instrumentals on computer, either through music production programs
such as FL Studio, Reason, or Orion Pro? Or perhaps you're more of a
Cubase user? Have you come upon hip hop samples
as Soundfonts without really knowing what they are or what they can
do? Well, the next time you come upon them, you may want to reconsider
using them before passing them up.
To briefly summarize what a
Soundfont is, a Soundfont is an audio file created through the
composition of several WAV Samples that are added into one file known
with an extension of .sf2 which are called soundfont files. If you are
a Reason user, and are familiar with Reason Refills, they are somewhat
similar, except that Reason Refills are more complex and only used in
Reason.
Soundfonts however, can be used in any beat maker
program or music production program that either has a built in
Soundfont player, such as FL Studio, or that utilizes the file
extension, or a Virtual Instrument plugin that allows you to load
soundfonts within the plugin. If you use Reason, you can load up
Soundfonts within Reason via the NN-XT tool. This is a great benefit
that Soundfonts have over other sound formats or Virtual Instrument
plugins.
Soundfonts have other great benefits. While some
Virtual Instrument plugins are of great quality, some of them can be
rather large, take forever to load, and sometimes slow down the
processing speed of your PC. This can have adverse problems to your
instrumentals during creation, and sometimes during rendering, even on
the fastest computer. However, with Soundfonts, you can have high
quality musical instrument sounds on one file that will be easier to
load, and generally use less PC power even with several soundfonts
loaded.
Another benefit of Soundfonts is that you can have high
quality sounds in a smaller compact size. Depending on the creation of
soundfonts (as with any sound, whether Virtual Instrument plugin or
otherwise), you may find high quality sounds with smaller file sizes,
which can help you store a large amount of Soundfonts onto a DVD for
transport to use in another studio set up. You can't easily take your
Virtual Instrument plugins, but you can take soundfonts more easily.
Soundfonts come in a large variety of different musical instrument samples,
from bass sounds and guitar soundfonts, to string samples, brass
section sounds and horn samples, world instrument sounds, piano sounds,
synth sounds, and other unique creations. Some soundfonts may even be
a compilation of drum samples.
Soundfonts are definitely worth
their weight in gold, and are sometimes overlooked for other more
"glamorous" programs or formats. However, whether you make hip hop
beats, rap beats, r&b beats, or even movie scores or video game
music, the next time you come upon soundfonts and think of passing them
by... you might just want to give them a try... they may work wonders
in your next instrumental creation.
Written by German Lopez aka Genycis
www.genycis.com
www.SoundsForBeats.com
