Thank You

[sound8]

I have a couple ideas if you are interested but I just wanted to make this separate post to thank you for creating this plugin. I have been on the search for the perfect soundfont player for a very long time (lot longer than I would like to admit / think about) and could never really find a solution that covered all my needs. Seems very similar to your journey, as I read which is the reason why you created this plugin in the first place.
Your plugin is by far the closest I have ever come across that meets my needs, which is why I had to write this to thank you.

I saw that your plugin is based on Fluidsynth, I am thankful to the creators of that software as well.
However, main issue I have with Fluidsynth is one of the main things I look for in a soundfont player is an ADSR envelope and when I see that a program supports soundfonts and I go to test it I get excited when I see a bunch of parameter knobs and everytime I am fooled by four knobs for the built in reverb and four knobs for the built in chorus! :)
As many know it is a solid soundfont player, but I always wish they would add more parameters to alter soundfonts themselves, instead of two effects. You are the first person I have ever seen to not make the two effects a part of your plugin and on top of that the first person I have ever seen to add a ADSR envelope to Fluidsynth!

When I test SF2 players I always look for two main parameters, ADSR and one other one that unfortunately is the only thing not included in your plugin (which is not the point of this post so I won't mention it here). Another thing I look for which is very important is the ability to drag and drop a soundfont into the GUI, which your player has :)
I will admit when I first came across your plugin and didn't see this feature, I kind of dismissed it.
However, I did eventually give it a try and will say that I am so glad that I did.
If you had told me that someone on an entirely different OS was going to create a plugin that is better than all those available on my OS, I would not have believed you :)

When i read your description it slightly sounded like a "ahhh I just threw this little simple thing together".
Let me tell you and anyone else who reads this, this is no simple little thrown together creation.
It looks deceivingly simple, but you know what you are doing.

There is an incredible attention to detail from everything from the layout of GUI, features, hotkeys assigned, ease of use, right down to the color choices. I literally have a list of all the things I have noticed that I would like to share but this post is already getting pretty long as it is so I won't :)
Seriously though, many details that make programs easier to use, things you expect to work a certain way, that most programmers for some reason seem to leave out.
Just to give an example I tried out a free sampler (that used to be a product for sale) the other days it had a file browser that you could not use arrow keys to navigate up and down! Your patch browser has arrows up & down, a vertical scrollbar and you can use mouse scroll wheel (which is another thing many leave out).
On top of that you can sort preset columns by number or alphabetically! Okay, I have to stop.

One more thing though, I have been looking through these posts to verify that I am not putting in a double request, I have also noticed some really in depth level of offering help from you to those using your plugin, there are companies that sell products that don't offer the level of care and help that you are providing. Has no direct connection to me but just wanted to point out how extremely kind this is, just shouldn't go unnoticed, thank you.

Sorry for the long post but thought it was important to share.
Thank you again

[Birch-san]

thanks so much for your kind words 🙂

I always wish they would add more parameters to alter soundfonts themselves

and I hope that if ever there's anything that's not exposed via the GUI: sometimes things can be accomplished instead by sending the right MIDI CC message (I forward everything to fluidsynth) — such messages can even be automated via one's DAW.

yes, the keyboard experience was really important to me after getting lost in dropdown menus in sforzando. soundfonts have hundreds of banks, so I wanted a good way to navigate those.
I did wonder whether I was going too far with the support for sorting; glad you noticed!

anyway, feedback is nice in open-source; much appreciated and keep it up!