WHY ARE SOUNDFONTS COMPRESSED?
When you download a soundfont from the Midifont page on this website (or from another page on the web), almost always you will find that the soundfont you are downloading is in a “compressed” format. What this means is that whoever posted the font file to the web page has shrunk (compressed) the size of the file so that it takes up less space on the web page and so that it doesnt require as much time to download when someone downloads the font to their hard drive. USABLE SOUNDFONTS HAVE THE ‘SF2’ FILE EXTENSION Almost all (not all, but almost all) midi fonts are in a file format called ‘soundfont’ and you can see if it’s a “soundfont” file by looking at the file extension — ALL true ‘soundfont’ files have the file extension “.sf2”, which is just a file format created by a company that created the name “soundfont”. In order for your computer to play a midi file using a soundfont file — either from your soundcard (if your soundcard is “soundfont-compatible”) or from your computer’s pro
