SoundFont
More info
- Creator
- E-mu Systems and Creative Labs
- Released
- 1994
- Type
- File format
A file format that bundles recorded instrument samples with the rules for playing them, so a MIDI file can sound like real instruments.
Creative had owned sampler pioneer E-mu since 1993, and the result was the Sound Blaster AWE32 in 1994: a sound card with E-mu's sampler chip and memory that users could fill themselves. SoundFont was the format for that memory. An SF2 file — the 1996 version that became the standard — is a RIFF container holding samples plus instrument data: which samples cover which keys, loop points, envelopes and filters.
It meant a General MIDI tune no longer had to sound like the card's built-in FM synthesis. The card disappeared but the format stayed: FluidSynth and countless DAW plugins read SF2, and game music enthusiasts still trade banks as if it were 1997.