SOUNDZONE.INFO

SFZ is a FREE, very simple and effective SF2 and SFZ files player. It has very minimalistic user interface, but full featured high quality sound engine with:

• CPU usage optimisation
• 256 voices of polyphony
• Unlimited layers per voice
• 16 MIDI channels Multi-timbral
• Samplerates supported 22k, 32k, 44.1k, 48k, 88.2k, 96k, 192k
• SoundFont (SF2) compatibility
• Disk streaming support
• Several loading modes: Whole SoundFont, Single Program, Direct-from-Disk streaming
• Stereo Output

This VSTi runs with any VST host and has been tested with Steinberg Cubase, Cakewalk Sonar, Cocos Reaper and others. This is very bais play that able to propely play any Soundfont as VSTi. Hence the Graphic User Interface is pretty limited. For example it has total layers and voices played indicator, sound loading mode, polyphony, etc, but provides no control over sound despite of the fact that build in engine has all features requred. It has sound Generator featuring all tool required for SoundFont compatibity, but there are no controls from user interface:

• A LPF, two LFOs and two Envelope Generators per layer
• Filter Cutoff, Filter Resonance, Keyboard Tracking, Velocity Tracking and Envelope Amount
• Vibrato LFO with Delay, Speed and Depth control
• Modulation LFO with Delay, Depth, Filter Depth, Pitch Depth and Amp Depth controls
• Modulation EG with Attack, Hold, Keyboard-To-Hold, Decay, Keyboard-To-Decay, Sustain, Release and Pitch Depth controls
• Amplifier EG with Delay, Attack, Hold, Keyboard-To-Hold, Decay, Keyboard-To-Decay, Sustain and Release controls

Build in effects are pretty basic:

• Stereo Chorus and Stereo Reverb
• Effects on/off switch

SFZ has extensive MIDI implementation: Velocity, Pitch Bend, Modulation, Sustain and a lot more. If one needs a simple VST playback tool and does not require descent control over sound characteristics SFZ player would be the right choice.
Cakewalk company now owns SFZ player and you may use this link to directly download SFZ player free of charge now.