Another tool I use to produce a great sound is the Soundfont (.sf2 files.) Sometimes I use them in my sound card to get a good solo instrument  or sound effect into a sequence. For instance, I have a fantastic Steinway Grand piano Soundfont that is great for recording or live performance. I have also been looking at some of the programs being written to use Soundfonts as virtual instruments, such as pipe organs.

Soundfonts are a good method of getting some great sounds if you are running a sound card that is compatible with them. If you have a good quality sound card, you have a synth that beats most other hardware synths. Soundfonts can also be used in some of the DXi and VST Soft-synths that are available today. There are thousands of these Soundfonts available on the Internet, in most any sound you would ever want. It is fairly easy to plug one in and get a realistic sound. As is the case with most any sound sample, the better the quality, the bigger the file size! If you are going to use your sound card to reproduce Soundfonts, you will need some serious memory capability in it. For instance, the Steinway Grand Soundfont I mentioned earlier is about 25 megabytes.

Soundfonts & Resources for Sound Blaster, VST and DXi Soft-synths:

For some great piano Soundfonts... http://www.wstco.com/pianosounds/

Soundfont library at HammerSound... http://www.ibiblio.org/thammer/HammerSound/hs_sounds.html

The AWE HotSpot ftp site has >170 MB of Soundfonts and songs... ftp://ftp.lysator.liu.se/pub/awe32/

Creative Labs Soundfont site... http://www.soundfont.com/

Lars Ahlzen's AWE32 page... http://home2.swipnet.se/~w-26913/awe/awe.htm

Orchard of Oddities...  http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~lfenn/

Live Center- stuff for Sound Blaster enthusiasts...  http://listen.to/sblive

You'll find quality Soundfonts here, but not quantity... http://www.personalcopy.com/

Sample Arena... http://www.samplearena.com/

Soeren Bovbjergs piano samples and more... http://come.to/bovbjerg

Soundfont Exchange- free samples... http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Balcony/8644/

Soundfonts.it- free Soundfonts and lots more... http://www.soundfonts.it/

Vintage Synth Dreams- Soundfonts by Ian Wilson... http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Campus/8645/sf2.html

Analoguesque Sound Designs- Soundfonts and analog samples for sale... http://www.analoguesque.com

Allanah's Midi & Band in a box files- Soundfonts & more, free... http://members.shaw.ca/glitch/sffiles.html