Re: [fluid-dev] Supported Wave/Flac format other than SF2

[Garth Hjelte]

At 03:35 AM 2/2/2015, you wrote:

>Don't agree that FluidSynth is a player, its an engine.

I'm not familiar with your semantics; what is the difference?

>To clarify, my post is in no way related to Garth or advertising chickensys.

I don't understand this either - you are replying to my response, so of course 
it's related. Again, I guess I don't understand your semantics.

Also, I wasn't advertising, I was simply giving an example, it just happened to 
be mine. The point is that since Fluidsynth is built around the SoundFont spec, 
it's tightly tied to the SoundFont format, and because of that, loading other 
instrument formats is superfluous and unrelated to the core project focus.

If we are talking about loading single sound formats, like 
WAVE/AIFF/FLAC/other, my opinion is that it is again superfluous because then 
you are straying from the core focus by adding some type of SoundFont creation 
code.

I agree, FluidSynth is an engine, so any of these other things seem to me as 
being out of focus. 

What I think IS in focus is adding some extra features like MIDI rules or 
streaming from disk. Or even a scripting language. Things that are 
engine-based. I am seriously thinking of doing that this year just on my own, 
for my own purposes.

However, to respond to Kjetil's point, SoundFont IS antiquated. You have a 
point. I'd agree that maybe it should read something else, I would suggest SFZ, 
which is a text-based format intended for common people to write. This would 
actually address both concerns stated earlier. SFZ would enable simple 
instrument building but that would be on the user to do. SFZ also covers much 
more realtime parameters (DSP) but that doesn't mean FluidSynth would have to 
be expanded, we'd just have to list which parameters (called "opcodes") would 
be supported. And, in fact, the creator of SFZ started out making SoundFont 
players. (And ironically his "SFZ Player" doesn't even load SFZ files, it loads 
SoundFonts.)

So I think it'd be nice to add a SFZ loader code module, I'd even (maybe) 
volunteer to do it, I already have code written, I'd just have to adapt it. 

Garth Hjelte
Sampler User