sforzando

SampleStack supported

Plogue

Plogue's free, highly SFZ-compliant player, and the closest thing to a reference for how an SFZ instrument should sound.

sforzando is a free SFZ player from Plogue, built on their ARIA engine. It does one thing thoroughly: load and play SFZ instruments, with some of the most complete support for the SFZ 2.0 standard of any player. If you want to hear exactly how a SampleStack instrument sounds as written, sforzando is the closest thing to a reference.

It runs as a plugin (VST, AU, AAX) and standalone on macOS and Windows, and it is free, which makes it the easiest way to open a SampleStack SFZ export without buying anything.

File format and compatibility

SampleStack exports multisample instruments as SFZ: a plain-text mapping file alongside your WAV samples. Export an instrument, point sforzando at the .sfz file, and your key ranges, velocity layers, round-robins, and loop points come across intact. Because sforzando tracks the SFZ spec closely, the opcodes SampleStack writes are read the way they are meant to be. The SFZ export page covers what the format carries.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is sforzando free?

Yes. sforzando is free from Plogue, as a plugin (VST, AU, AAX) and standalone, on macOS and Windows.

How do I open a SampleStack instrument in sforzando?

Export the instrument from SampleStack as SFZ, then load the .sfz file in sforzando. The samples it references load automatically as long as they stay in the same folder.

Does sforzando support velocity layers and round-robins from SampleStack?

Yes. sforzando has among the most complete SFZ 2.0 support of any player, so velocity layers, round-robins, loop points, and tuning exported by SampleStack all play back as written.

Related guides

SFZ instruments in SampleStack: what SFZ is and how to build one

What the SFZ format is, why it's a good default for multisample instruments, and how to create and export an SFZ from a folder of samples in SampleStack.

Related instruments

All Instruments