soundfont stutter/freeze

[colinjstewart]

Hi all -- I've got this one GM orchestral soundfont. Usually it works fine, but it has one instrument in it (spiccato strings) that, when played through the FL Soundfont Player, stutters after a couple notes and then freezes the whole program.

I'm not sure if this is a problem with the soundfont or with FL. I can play MIDI files with this instrument through SynthFont, and it works fine. I can use this instrument in FL if I do a massive workaround -- export MIDI data from FL, play it in SynthFont, record to WAV and re-import into FL -- but obviously that's a last resort.

If it is a problem with the soundfont, is it possible to fix it up in Vienna or some such? Or are there audio settings that I can adjust in FL to make it work?

Thanks,

-Colin

[zircon]

That has happened to me on several different computers. It's really annoying - I think it has to do with polyphony. In the "Misc" tab turn the max poly way down. Also, save your project regularly and try not to open up the FL Soundfont PLayer GUI while your project is playing back. I don't know why the plugin is so unstable, but supposedly it has to do more with the soundfonts than the player.

[Zephyr]

I've had numerous problems with soundfonts using SFZ, it couldn't play the same soundfont in more than 2 instances, it would make a deathnoise at full blast, i've switched to soundfonter, I haven't had any problems yet (I think I tested this one up to 8 or so instances of the same sf with no problems) You can find it on KVR if you want.

[colinjstewart]

Thanks, guys. The reduced polyphony (32 down to 2) seems to make it stable -- although only if there's one note being played at a time, and if there are only one or two instances open. Weird.

Soundfonter seems stable. Pity you can't automate its controls, but I can work around that. I also checked out the shortCircuit and SynthFontVST plugins -- they're also stable, but don't have ADSR controls like Soundfonter.

By the way, zirc -- love your stuff.

Cheers,

-Colin

[Zephyr]

You can automate soundfonter just fine, in fact, it's very suited to automation (no pops or clicks, except for some weird effects when you aoutomate delay, but who does that anyways) All you have to do is just not use the "Last tweaked parameter" thingy which for some odd reason refuses to work. Go to the browser and go to Current project>Generators>Soundfonter then link the parameter you want to automation from there, or you can just automate it live by tweaking the knobs as you record.

[colinjstewart]

Cool, I didn't know you could do that. The only weird thing though is the automatable controls listed in browser don't all obviously correspond with the controls on the Soundfonter window. I've figured out which ones control Sustain and Release, but Attack isn't showing itself. I tested all the controls that don't say "MIDI CC", and I don't feel like testing the 128 remaining controls that do (only a few of the MIDI CCs that I tested had any effect, and "Attack Time" had no effect). I'm guessing you've found it though ...?

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

i'm guessing he has. but in the meantime, since he said live automation via tweaking knobs works, couldn't you record some of that, and then look for where that data shows up?

(disclaimer: I don't have nor have I even heard of soundfounter before)

[colinjstewart]

I never would've thought of that. Probably 'cause I never knew you could do it. Anyway, I tried it out, but I didn't get any automation appearing when I tweaked the Attack knob in record mode. It worked for the other knobs like Release and Sustain though. But whatever -- it's not that important. Thanks for all the advice though -- I'm self-taught in FL, so it's great to get some different ideas of what it can do.

[Zephyr]

That's really bizarre, everything works for automation except attack, decay, feedback and delay time (or the little knob for the display thingy). It won't automate it at all, not even through live recording, and if you look at the hint bar as you tweak, FL Studio doesn't know the knob exists! Oh well, what do you need to automate those for? Even if you do, you could just hook up a fruity envelope controller to the volume knob and play them in a layer so it triggers both as you hit the key (although this would run every note through the envelope, which could be a problem for anything polyphonic), or just have seperate instances of soundfonter for each articulation.

Glad I could help!

(disclaimer: I don't have nor have I even heard of soundfounter before)

http://www.sanusart.com/SoundFonter_VSTi.zip

It's a pretty good soundfont player actually.

[zircon]

Thanks, guys. The reduced polyphony (32 down to 2) seems to make it stable -- although only if there's one note being played at a time, and if there are only one or two instances open. Weird.

Soundfonter seems stable. Pity you can't automate its controls, but I can work around that. I also checked out the shortCircuit and SynthFontVST plugins -- they're also stable, but don't have ADSR controls like Soundfonter.

By the way, zirc -- love your stuff.

Cheers,

-Colin

You can actually turn the poly all the way down to "---" if you go less than 1, which means unlimited... that's what I usually do to avoid problem. Also, thanks!