Mildon Studios has released SFZ Designer, a powerful and easy to use freeware visual tool for creating SFZ instrument mappings for your sample libraries.
SFZ is not a hard format to work with, however the sample mappings had to be created in a text editor up until this point. This brand new release from Mildon Studios will make things so much easier, since it features a lovely user interface with intuitive controls and visual guides for creating SFZ mappings with less effort and time wasted on typing.
SFZ Designer supports all SFZ 1.0 opcodes and outputs your work directly to SFZ format. It is also possible to save your SFZ Designer project for later editing. Inside your project, you can literally just import your samples to the editor and adjust all of the parameters with your mouse, much like you would do in a sampler instrument. The program was completely stable on my test machine and didn’t crash or cause any performance hiccups, even though stability issues are to be expected in early beta releases such as this one. Still, it would be wise to save your project regularly, just in case (the current release is v0.21 Beta).
Samples can be added to the same note range and used as velocity layers or round robin variations (multiple round robin variations per velocity layer are supported). It is also possible to use multiple opcodes for the same group, or apply an opcode to all groups. Full SFZ 2.0 support will be included in one of the future updates. The developer recommends using sforzando (a freeware VST plugin by Plogue) for checking your project while working with SFZ Designer.
The program also features global amplitude envelope controls and transpose/pan/volume controls per group or per individual sample. Group cloning is also supported, so that you don’t have to build each group from scratch. Also, the sample paths will be auto-converted to relative paths, making it much easier to export your mappings in a way which will make them compatible for other users.
Although the user interface is really well design, the whole patch creation process might be a bit confusing if you’re completely new to working with the SFZ format. If that’s the case, it’s highly recommended to watch the intro video (embedded below) in order to make your first steps with SFZ Designer less frustrating. Generally speaking, the program is really well designed and it will make the SFZ format available to a much broader audience.
Video Demo
Check out the SFZ Designer intro video:
Download
SFZ Designer is available for free download via Mildon Studios (23.0 MB download size, EXE installer, 32-bit & 64-bit application for Windows).
