E-mu Systems SoundFont Designer
BETA 2.02b "as-is" Release
Information File
2/27/96

Hello!

Well, since we have been getting an OVERWHELMING demand for release of
E-mu Systems SoundFont Designer (codenamed "Preditor"), here it is.
As you all may know, E-mu Systems SoundFont Designer is a tool you can use
to develop SoundFont 2.0 Compatible banks.

Please keep in mind that E-mu Systems SoundFont Designer was designed to be 
the prototype platform for the development of the SF2 file format, development 
of SF2 compatible content, test of SF2 compatible synthesis engines, and 
preliminary editing tool for use by developers (including our own sound design 
team). It was NOT designed to be an professional end user sound content 
editing utility.

Requirements:

To use E-mu Systems SoundFont Designer as a Librarian, you need an IBM PC 
compatible computer (486  or better) running Microsoft Windows 3.1 or Windows 
95 with at least 8MB of RAM.

To use E-mu Systems SoundFont Designer as an Editor, you will also need a 
Creative Labs Sound Blaster AWE32 or SB32 with SoundFont expansion, and the 
standard AWE32/SB32 driver software including Version 1.41 of AWEMAN.DLL (or 
greater), Version 4.25.2 of SBAWE32.DRV or better. As of the date of this 
document, the ONLY way to get that software is to download the Beta drivers 
from the Creative FTP site.

To Install:

If you are using E-mu Systems SoundFont Designer with the AWE32, you should 
install the AWE32 software BEFORE installing and running E-mu Systems 
SoundFont Designer.

Copy all contents in this package to your local hard drive into some 
directory. IE 

c:\preditor

Then under Windows, create a new program item (or group and item) to point
to PREDITOR.EXE. You should see the E-mu logo appear. Now create a new
program item to point to EMUHELP.HLP. You should see a big question mark
appear.

Now, you're all set to go!

Features:

Here is what E-mu Systems SoundFont Designer gives you which Vienna does not:

1. True SoundFont 2.0 preset level editing.

2. Importing of WAV files, including STEREO into TRUE SF2 stereo sounds.

3. Velocity split definitions.

4. Global split/layer editing.

5. Relative split editing. (Select global split, select Change Globals 
   Relatively, then move a slider. Values in all splits increase/decrease
   RELATIVE to where their original position were.)

6. Auto-loop finding mechanism.

7. Ability to keep instances of more than one SoundFont compatible bank in a 
   librarian session.

8. Advanced sample management knows when samples for a given bank are already
   downloaded and does not re-download them.

9. Ability to "undo" all edits in a given edit session.

10. Allows you to use the MIDI input device of your choice for auditioning
    sounds.

11. Preset variation (a-la GS) bank assignment of preset, including support
    for drum presets (use bank 128).

Now that's the good news. Here is the bad news.

Here is a list of some of the artifacts which makes E-mu Systems SoundFont 
Designer less than desirable as a professional SoundFont editing utility. (And 
made us reluctant to release the tool publicly).

1. E-mu Systems SoundFont Designer cannot edit SoundFont compatible banks 
   which use ROM samples.
   We wrote this to be a RAM SoundFont development tool, and assumed people
   would not use it to edit the less than desirable sounds on the 1MGM ROM. So 
   we didn't write some of the special code necessary to make provisions for 
   ROM or "mixed" banks (with both ROM and RAM samples).

2. E-mu Systems SoundFont Designer must be treated "gently".
   The GUI was written on top of a platform which was supposed to 
   make the GUI software portable (like to the Macintosh). Turns out that 
   platform is rather unstable, and the task of rewriting the entire GUI
   under the Microsoft SDK was far to great to undertake. So take it easy when 
   moving sliders around, and please avoid moving sliders and auditioning
   notes (with MIDI controller) at the same time.

3. E-mu Systems SoundFont Designer is not user friendly.
   The tool assumes you know the paradigm upon which the SoundFont file
   format is based. Tip:
      Develop instruments (key-split button)
      Develop presets using those instruments (horn button)
      DON'T decide to change instruments to work with a given preset!
       You'll break other presets which use that instrument!

4. When copying presets from one bank to the next...
   If any sample names in the source bank match any samples in the bank, 
     those samples will NOT be copied.
   If any instrument names in the source bank match any instrument in the bank, 
     those INSTRUMENTS will NOT be copied (and neither will the samples in
     those instruments!)

5. E-mu Systems SoundFont Designer does not have information editing. 
   You cannot use this tool to put your name, copyright, or comments into 
     SoundFont compatible banks.
   Not only that, this tool erases name, copyright, and comments which were
     PREVIOUSLY in the bank.

6. E-mu Systems SoundFont Designer is very rigid and methodical.
   To edit, you must do certain things at certain times. 
   This tool will demand that you save your banks at times which may seem 
     inconvenient. 
   To create a new instrument, you cannot just rename an older one. You must
     CREATE a new instrument!
   There are other examples.

7. E-mu Systems SoundFont Designer cannot edit local loop points.
   Feature which never made it into the tool.

8. E-mu Systems SoundFont Designer still tends to crash unpredictably when 
   editing extremely large banks (over 100 kBytes of articulation data).

9. E-mu Systems SoundFont Designer does not restore your editing session.
   If you go real far out of your way to put windows where you like them,
   as soon as you leave the editing session the position of the windows 
   will not be saved and you'll have to do it all over again. 

10. E-mu Systems SoundFont Designer has no way to "map out" the structure of a 
    SoundFont compatible bank. The layout of a SoundFont compatible bank is 
    purely up to the user to understand.

    Since the SoundFont format demands unique namespace, it should be quite
    simple, provided the user knows all of the names of all of the resources
    (presets/instruments/samples) they have.

11. E-mu Systems SoundFont Designer does not make it easy to use a resource 
    (sample or instrument) which is in one bank in a second bank. You must 
    first copy a preset containing the desired resource (instrument or sample) 
    from the first bank to the second bank, and then save the bank.

12. E-mu Systems SoundFont Designer is not "system resource friendly." 
    It allocates all unused Sound Memory from the AWE32 before it is
    being used. So you cannot download ADDITIONAL SoundFont compatible banks 
    through AWECP while this tool is running. Banks downloaded BEFORE this tool 
    is run stay in tact unless you tell the tool to blast them. Also, this tool 
    hogs the MIDI driver and the AWEMAN.DLL while it is in operation. Finally,
    if this tool crashes, the AWE32 remains with all of its Sound RAM allocated.

13. E-mu Systems SoundFont Designer does NOT share high level EMU8000 
    programming with AWE32 drivers!
    So don't be clicking on the AWECP audition panel while playing MIDI 
    through E-mu Systems SoundFont Designer simultaneously.

14. E-mu Systems SoundFont Designer takes a long time to download samples to  
    RAM.

15. At the last minute we realized the PAN slider is backwards.

16. When using the 'Audition Bank' option, you MUST use an external MIDI
    controller. If you click on the GUI to change preset, those preset 
    changes take effect on MIDI channel 1 (or 0 for you software folks...)
    
These issues are not unresolvable, but they are not easily resolved and we
decided to devote our resources onto other aspects and let Creative and other
folks develop a SoundFont editor with more features.

Please do not expect any additional support for this tool. Also, please
do NOT report bugs to E-mu Technical Support or Creative Technical Support.
They WILL be ignored.

You may ONLY send me (SoundFont@emu.com) e-mail with bugs. I will then add 
them to the known issues list and continue to make that list of issues public.
Flames will likely be ignored, and they will only make you look silly since
this document has given you a great deal of fair warning.

On a final note, we at E-mu Systems have been assisting the software development
team at Creative Technology to insure that Vienna 2.0 will be a robust and 
flexible tool for developing SoundFont 2.0 compatible content. Unlike
with the Vienna 1.0 development, Creative has been working with our sound 
design team throughout Vienna 2.0 development, and has been taking our feedback 
very seriously. We have great confidence in Creative's ability to develop a 
decent editing utility.

HUGE DISCLAIMER!

E-mu Systems SoundFont Designer IS COPYRIGHT (C) 1995-1996, E-MU SYSTEMS, INC.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. LICENSE IS HEREBY GRANTED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER TO
COPY AND USE THIS SOFTWARE FOR THE PURPOSES OF DEVELOPING SOUNDFONT 2.0 
COMPATIBLE CONTENT. THIS SOFTWARE MAY NOT BE DISTRIBUTED OR USED FOR OTHER
PURPOSES WITHOUT WRITTEN CONSENT FROM E-MU SYSTEMS, INC. 

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITH NO WARRANTIES WHATSOEVER INCLUDING
BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR 
PURPOSE. E-MU SYSTEMS, INC. ASSUMES NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY DAMAGE WHICH
MAY BE CAUSED DUE TO THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE.

E-mu(R), E-mu Systems(R), and SoundFont(R) are registered trademarks of E-mu 
Systems, Inc. The SoundFont logo is a trademark of E-mu Systems, Inc.
E-my Systems licenses a "SoundFont Compatibility" logo for a nominal fee; 
please contact E-mu's SoundFont administrator by FAX at (408) 439-0392 for 
more information. Users of E-mu Systems SoundFont Designer should refer to
files developed as "SoundFont Compatible Banks" (NOT "SoundFont Banks") with 
appropriate acknowledgement of trademark ownership.

"Preditor" is NOT a trademark of E-mu Systems, Inc. The Help file and some of 
the software use the term "Preditor" without considering the true trademark 
owner. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Sound Blaster(R) is a registered trademark of Creative Technology, Ltd. 
Advanced WavEffects, AWE32, and the Advanced WavEffects logo are
trademarks of Creative Technology, Ltd.
All other brand and product names listed are trademarks and
registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Good luck!

SoundFont Technical Support
Joint E-mu/Creative Technology Center
E-mail  : SoundFont@emu.com
Homepage: http://www.creaf.com/emu
FTP Site: ftp://ftp.creaf.com/pub/emu
