Because that is not why Cakewalk exists. Saying Cakewalk is difficult on those terms is like criticising Soundforge for its poor MIDI support. Cakewalk is there to play MIDI files and layer audio files. It''s not there to help you create your own instruments. And no, 99% of people will not need to customise their own soundfont. Either they''ll just be multitracking audio, they''ll be playing external MIDI instruments from it, or they''ll play the MIDI chip on their sound card.

And it isn''t Cakewalk that imposes those restrictions on SoundFonts: that''s just the way that soundfonts work. They are part of the standard used by a type of sound card. Cakewalk supports that ''instrument'' just as it supports many others, but it''s still your responsibility to set up that instrument.

[ MSVC Fixes | STL | SDL | Game AI | Sockets | C++ Faq Lite | Boost ]

However, you can create your own soundfonts,
and thus, you get your own instruments.

Search for "Vienna Soundfont Studio"
at www.creative.com, it''s FREE!

(at least the version I downloaded, I think it''s V2.3).

It supports *.SF1 and SF2.

At first a bit confusing, but when you got behind it,
it''s a pretty convenient and powerful tool to create
your own soundfonts (which can contain several instruments).


Well, if you''re looking for a good SF2-capable sound card,
since the SB-Audigy is out, the SoundBlaster Live!
should have gotten damn cheap!
(if you don''t want to use digital interfaces
(well, if you don''t have digital sound hardware,
like a DAT recorder or something, you won''t need them),
you won''t have to buy the SB-Live! PLatinum,
the Live! Player will do the job, hardware is the same.

.... looked for the price,
"Soundblaster Live Player 5.1 bulk" is about $40,00 here.

I don''t know if the SB-128 can play sound font-2
(anyone could tell?), however it''s even cheaper.

It''s another kind of soundcard by Creative.

[ MSVC Fixes | STL | SDL | Game AI | Sockets | C++ Faq Lite | Boost ]

Your PC wont give out a single sound without a soundcard except for those beeps that internal speaker makes.

Your motherboard can have soundcard allready in it.. then you dont need another card.. but the features we talk about here... soundbanks and so on might be over the features of that soundsystem.

If youre new to making music and just want to experiment, try other programs, trackers, fruity loops and so on to find a program you find better at first... when you have made more music, you can try to find software with more features. This if you are new to making music.

There is no idea in buying expensive hardware, synths, software for a few trys. Rather try with free stuff...

Xewren

This is of course my opinion


Edited by - xewren on February 22, 2002 9:24:32 PM

If you''re wanting to "create your own sounds" and you have no hardware to do so, you don''t really want Cakewalk Pro Audio 9.

If you look into software such as Cubase VST5, Cakewalk SONAR (my favorite), or Reason (I like this one too, www.propellerheads.se) - they support software synthesizers. With the soft synths you can create new sounds based on different synthesis algorithms (there are virtual analog soft synths, FM soft synths, sample-playback soft synths, etc.) and then sequence them in the software to create your own songs.

There is also Buzz (it is free) that many people like - I never could get into it though.