Plogue has a holiday present for you: sforzando – a free soundfont player for Mac & Windows.

Here’s what they have to say about it:

sforzando is a free SFZ 2.0 compliant sample player. Advanced sample hobbyists now have a powerful tool to experiment and share instruments without relying on proprietary formats. sforzando only has one instrument slot; no fancy UI, effects or mixers. Every tweak needs to be done at the SFZ file level, no cheating!

sforzando is also a name given for a sudden change in music dynamics which, in musical notation, is represented by the “sfz” symbol.

Free As In Free Me From Proprietary Formats

Example SFZ File

The SFZ Format is widely accepted as the open standard to define the behavior of a musical instrument from a bare set of sound recordings. Being a royalty-free format, any developer can create, use and distribute SFZ files and players for either free or commercial purposes.
So when looking for flexibility and portability, SFZ is the obvious choice. That’s why it’s the default instrument file format for the ARIA Engine.

As a bonus, an integrated format converter should get you started!

You can also drop SF2, DLS and acidized WAV files directly on the interface, and they will automatically get converted to SFZ 2.0, which you can then edit and tweak to your liking!

 sforzando is available now for Mac & WIndows.

If you’ve tried sforzando, let us know what you think of it!