Hmn, I’m wondering whether this is something that’s more to do with my PC than rgcaudio’s sfz.
Anyway, I use it for playing SoundFonts in Renoise. But it tends to crash Renoise (even 1 instance of it loaded with low (4) polyphony). I only used it in Renoise, so I assumed it was maybe something to do with the Alpha etc. etc.
However, I tried using it in FL Studio and Orion Platinum (both demos) and I get big crashes using it there as well. Usually after a few bars the sound just stutters and the VST host just locks up. The CPU meter on never seems to go higher than 30, but I’m wondering whether it’s a resource thing.
Often the rendered-output screws up as well, with notes not being played. (in both Renoise and FL Studio - the demo lets you render WAV but not save).
It’s a shame, because the sound quality is amazing and I was going to buy sfz+, but I can’t easily compose songs if it’s going to crash out on me all the time.
Has anyone else had problems with this SoundFont player? I would ask this on KVR-VST, but just wanted general user views as I know some of you use it in Renoise.
[edit - should probably give you the specs for my PC]
Athlon XP1800 (1.53Ghz)
768 Mb RAM
SBLive 5.1 Digital
I’ve been using sfz free for a long time in Renoise (at least since 1.281) and haven’t experienced a single crash that I could clearly relate to it. In my opinion it’s very stable. There must be some other problem with your setup that causes those crashes, as sfz runs without any problems on my desktop (Athlon XP 1.7+, 768 MB DDR RAM, SBLive!) and notebook (Athlon 64 3.4+, 512 MB RAM, MAudio Firewire Audiophile).
Are you using Windows XP?
Try to download the latest stable version of sfz - perhaps you’re stuck with some beta?
Paulie Phonick: Yeah, I figured it couldn’t be something to do with sfz, as vast numbers of people talk about it’s efficient CPU usage. The problem I have is complete CPU lock-ups after a few bars with just 1 instance of sfz.
Are you able to use multiple instances of sfz quite happily? I’m curious to see how far people who have no problems with sfz are capable of pushing it.
I’m using Windows XP Professional.
To be honest, there’s nothing stopping me from testing it on my PC at work out-of-hours, so I’ll test it here. It’s annoying though, it plays Doom III etc. at good speeds, Photoshop at high resolution (e.g., 3200x2400) etc. etc. so I can’t imagine the CPU’s faulty.
I can run multiple instances of sfz without problems (I think I’ve had a track with 4, among other VSTis). I have to assign each of them to separate MIDI channels, because when the channels overlap some notes are not played, but I don’t get any stability problems or sudden CPU overload.
Have you tried the 1.93 version? I think I remember there were some buggy versions when the sfz format support was being implemented so make sure to grab the latest one.
Also, check RGC Audio forum @ KvR - perhaps someone has reported similar problems.
I just discovered what it was! I have a SBLive at work and somehow I thought I had one on my home machine, but I don’t, I bought a cheap replacement after the old SB card died and this one didn’t come with an ASIO driver! I found an up-to-date freeware ASIO driver, installed it, and now it works great! (still need to replace the card though)
Anyway, I just tested 4 instances of sfz with “GM Orchestral” sound-font, each channel playing a complex MIDI track and the CPU barely hits 20%.
