SoundFont

Play realistic General-MIDI instruments — pianos, strings, organs and more — loaded on demand.

The SoundFont instrument plays General-MIDI sounds recorded from real instruments. Where the Synth builds a sound from waveforms, SoundFont simply plays a good recording of an acoustic grand piano, a string section or a church organ. It is the fastest way to get a musically convincing part into a track.

Choosing an instrument

Pick from the General-MIDI instrument list — the standard set of 128 sounds covering keyboards, guitars, basses, strings, brass, reeds, pipes, synth pads and percussion. The default is acoustic_grand_piano.

Sound banks

Two sample banks are available, and they sound noticeably different from each other:

  • MusyngKite — larger, generally richer and more detailed.
  • FluidR3_GM — lighter and quicker to load.

If an instrument sounds disappointing in one bank, it is worth auditioning in the other before giving up on it.

Loading and formats

SoundFont samples are fetched over the network the first time you select an instrument, in either mp3 or ogg format. This means there is a short pause before a newly chosen instrument makes sound, and that this instrument — unlike the rest of Jam Club — needs a working internet connection to change sounds.

Note: Because the samples are recordings of real instruments, SoundFont has no oscillator, envelope or filter parameters of its own. Shape it with the effects chain and its mixer level instead.

When to use it

Reach for SoundFont when you want an instrument to sound like the thing it is named after — a piano part, a string pad, an organ bassline. Reach for the Synth when you want to design a sound that does not exist yet.