The SFzip Home Page
SFzip is a
Windows program that performs lossless compression/decompression and manages
archives of SoundFont files. Welcome to the SFzip home page.
SFzip is a
release of Future Algorithms.
SoundFont
files, created by E-mu Systems/Creative Labs, carry instrument definitions
(sound samples and articulation data) for MIDI synthesizers like MidiSyn and
the ones included in several of Creative Labs sound cards like the AWE, Live!
or Audigy. To discover more about SoundFont technology read the article Basics of SoundFont or go to http://www.soundfont.com/.
Here is a
list of the program’s main features:
·
High
compression ratios. Values over 70% are not uncommon. This means that a 100 Mb
SoundFont would take just 30Mb when compressed.
·
Creation
of archives containing any number of SoundFonts. There is no practical limit to
the size of an archive (except the size of your hard-disk).
·
Works
in batch mode. After defining the files to be processed, SFzip can be left
unattended, working in the background.
·
Can
split an archive into several files, a useful feature for Usenet posting and
for e-mail interchange of SoundFont files. It can also split an archive into
several volumes of removable media like floppy disks.
·
Can
control the access to an archive by using an Encryption Key.
·
Can
create self-extracting archives. This feature can even be used with split or
encrypted archives.
·
Can
add an entire directory tree to an archive. The tree structure is faithfully
reconstructed when the archive is decompressed.
·
32-bit
CRC control, to detect and prevent file corruption.
·
Can
automatically launch the default SoundFont editor to edit a file.
·
Drag-and-drop
operation.
If you want
to have a better idea of how SFzip works, please take a look at the Operation Manual.
The most
popular compression program around is probably WinZip. However, if you are
familiar with this program, you will know that WinZip gives very poor results
when dealing with sound data. SFzip works very much like WinZip but is
especially adapted to obtain high compression ratios on SoundFont files.
When
dealing with SoundFonts it is important to use lossless compression. That means
that using SFzip, after decompression, the resulting SoundFont is bit-by-bit
identical to the original. There are programs that obtain higher compression
ratios on audio data but they use lossy algorithms and that is not acceptable
for SoundFonts.
It is
particularly important to have high compression ratios when distributing
SoundFonts over the Internet. Because SoundFont files are usually very big
(some are over 100 Mb), even a small increase in compression ratio will reduce
drastically the download time, reducing at the same time the risk of server
overload.
On the
other hand, the SFzip split feature comes very handy when distributing
SoundFonts via Usenet newsgroups. Or if you want to send a SoundFont by e-mail,
as usually a mailbox will not have enough space for an entire SoundFont. In
these cases you split a SoundFont into several small files (you control the
size of each chunk), and then send them over to their recipients. The small
files are then later joined together to rebuild the original SoundFont.
Another
useful feature of SFzip is the encryption of archives. By using this feature
you can sell SoundFonts over the Internet without you having to send a copy to
each individual customer. Instead, you let the customer download his copy of
the SoundFont and then, after registration, you send him the Decryption Key by
e-mail.
The
possibility of creating self-extracting archives may also prove very useful.
With this feature, you can send SoundFont archives to someone that doesn’t have
SFzip installed. You can even use the self-extracting feature with split or encrypted
archives.
Download SFzip
SFzip is shareware; the registration fee costs US$ 25.00 (including
p&p).
The trial
version has the same functionality as the registered version, apart from one
nag screen each time it finishes processing a file.
To register, please go to the SFzip order page.
Upon registration, you will receive by e-mail a registration key that will give
you full access to the program.
To get the
current version of SFzip including the executable, auxiliary files and
documentation, go to:
At the
download page you will also find instructions for installing and uninstalling
the program on your system.
If you
already know the program and you just want to know what is new in this version
you can take a look at the SFzip history.
Where to find free
SoundFonts
There
are several Internet sites that provide SoundFont files. The most popular are:
Feedback
Comments, suggestions and bug reports are welcome and should be sent to fadevelop@clix.pt
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This page last modified 2002-09-20 - Copyright
© 2002 ACE