Thinking about an article about free & affordable orchestral libraries

[Mattias Westlund]

/moderator hat on

Slightly OT, but:

SFZ != soundfont

The soundfont (sf2) format and SFZ are two completely different things and the terms can't and shouldn't be used interchangeably. I know many people make this mistake, but could we please try and get our facts straight, at least on this forum? Sf2 is the archaic sample format of Creative's Sound Blaster range of sound cards. SFZ is a vastly different non-monolithic format created by rgc:audio in the early 00's, and the only  connection between the two is that SFZ was conceived because the lead rgc:audio developer was unhappy with the soundfont format and wanted to create something better.

It might seem like a nitpick, but it leads to confusion when people wonder why their soundfont VSTi's won't load SFZ files, or the other way around. A soundfont is a file with .sf2 extention. An SFZ file is a file with a .sfz extention. They are no more related or compatible than a Kontakt and a Halion file.

/moderator hat off

[Terry93D]

(12-22-2018, 01:52 AM)Mattias Westlund Wrote: /moderator hat on

Slightly OT, but:

SFZ != soundfont

The soundfont (sf2) format and SFZ are two completely different things and the terms can't and shouldn't be used interchangeably. I know many people make this mistake, but could we please try and get our facts straight, at least on this forum? Sf2 is the archaic sample format of Creative's Sound Blaster range of sound cards. SFZ is a vastly different non-monolithic format created by rgc:audio in the early 00's, and the only  connection between the two is that SFZ was conceived because the lead rgc:audio developer was unhappy with the soundfont format and wanted to create something better.

It might seem like a nitpick, but it leads to confusion when people wonder why their soundfont VSTi's won't load SFZ files, or the other way around. A soundfont is a file with .sf2 extention. An SFZ file is a file with a .sfz extention. They are no more related or compatible than a Kontakt and a Halion file.

/moderator hat off

Thank you, Mattias. ^^ You are, of course, completely correct and spreading disinformation is something I would hate myself for doing. I will correct my previous posts.

And, actually, this is very good to know - I'll stick it in the article, so as to avoid confusion.

[Mattias Westlund]

(12-22-2018, 01:55 AM)Terry93D Wrote: Thank you, Mattias. ^^ I wasn't 100% sure of the relationship between them. I will correct my previous posts.

Great, thanks! It just looks bad when you confuse the two, so I just wanted to bring it up, silly as it might seem.

Actual soundfonts are hardly ever used anymore so there's really no reason to even mention the term. It might give people the wrong idea as 'soundfont' is strongly associated with 90's computing.

[Terry93D]

(12-22-2018, 01:59 AM)Mattias Westlund Wrote:

(12-22-2018, 01:55 AM)Terry93D Wrote: Thank you, Mattias. ^^ I wasn't 100% sure of the relationship between them. I will correct my previous posts.

Great, thanks! It just looks bad when you confuse the two, so I just wanted to bring it up, silly as it might seem.

Actual soundfonts are hardly ever used anymore so there's really no reason to even mention the term. It might give people the wrong idea as 'soundfont' is strongly associated with 90's computing.

No worries. I knew that .sf2 and .sfz were different but I mistakenly assumed they were both referred to as soundfonts. In this case pedantry becomes an act of nobility. Again, thank you.

[bigcat1969]

Hey Mattias. You want I should take that link down? Totally cool if you don't want SSO linked at this point well kind of too late to retract the VSTs, sorry...

[Mattias Westlund]

No, that's perfectly fine! I'm not trying to remove SSO from the internet -- I just don't want it on my site because it eats up too much bandwidth

[bigcat1969]

Yeah you and Sam on VST basically have to be hosted by the wonderful guy from VST4Free who I think has his own server and unlimited. Gone through almost 3 PB in 5 years on the mediafire account, don't mention that to them! ;P Ralph has nuttin on you guys for breaking the internet. Dunno how Paul handles it. SampleScience started charging $10 for his rompler to offset the cost. I think Ivy offloaded his stuff to VSTBuzz.

[Mattias Westlund]

I wasn't actually aware how much b/w downloads were munching up until fairly recently, when some intermittent timeouts when trying to connect to the forum caused me to go peeking around the settings and logs of my web host. And I found that I was exceeding my monthly 500TB cap with around 200TB every single month, and the culprit appears to be the SSO 1.0 archive. People have been downloading it like crazy to this day. After having removed the file the b/w usage went down to a trickle comparitively speaking and I haven't encountered the timeouts since.

So while I wouldn't mind keeping the file around, my own site and the forum takes priority. Especially since I'm not getting any more site visits from having it there; it's probably just direct linked from various places over the web.

[bigcat1969]

Holy cow 700TB a month. That is crazy man what 10PB a year and I was surprised by 3PB in 5! ;P I think I always linked to the front page, but I've seen sites that direct linked if I remember right.

[Mattias Westlund]

I agree, it sounds like an insane amount but that's what the log says.



Provided of course that the terminology is correct and that they don't mean GB and not TB. But in that case, a 500GB limit sounds on the meager side instead, especially considering that when I got this subscription they promised "unlimited bandwidth". So I don't know what's going on, but mw.net appears more responsive after I got the b/w usage down. Has no one else experienced the timeouts issue?