How import soundfont (.sf2) in cubase for work with midi?
Hi and welcome to the forum,
You don’t need SF2. There is HALion Sonic SE, which is GM compatible.
If you need SF2 for some reason, use any virtual instrument, which can read this old sample format.
As Martin suggests, the Sonic 7 player that ships with all versions of Cubase, Nuendo, and Dorico offers a General MIDI I mode. You can load it in the instrument track, put it in GM mode (see the OPTIONS tab), and attach your MIDI tracks to the player.
If you really want to work with sf2 instruments, then you’ll most likely want some sort of VSTi plugin.
There are a number of them out there, some free, some cost a little to register. Do your own websearch dig to learn about more players and sf2 content creation tools.
One player that’s never a bad idea to have installed is Sforzando. It’s a free player for both Windows and Mac, comes in VST3 (While Cubase 12 still supports VST2…Steinberg has stated they will be phasing out VST2 support in their hosts). Sforzando can host sfz instruments, and it can also import sf2.
TX16Wx is a popular player for working with sf2 format instruments. I think it’s free, and comes in VST3 now as well. I believe this one includes tools to build your own sf2 instruments from the ground up?
I don’t think either of the plugins above can just play a general MIDI file without manually setting up each instrument, tho’ I could be wrong. My experiences with these first two players is that you’d need to dedicate a unique plugin instance for each MIDI/Instrument track, and set up the instruments manually. To get articulation changes (I.E. bouncing between arco and pizzicato strings) and such, you’ll need to spread them out over unique tracks (or channels).
If you are in search of a 16 channel GM style player that accepts MIDI program and bank changes, and uses sf2, the only one I’ve personally used over the years is Synthfont. I know this one fairly well because registration for it comes with Band In a Box. It’s working fine in Cubase 13 on Windows as VST2, but I don’t think it is available in VST3 at this time. I’m not sure if a Mac version exists?
Plenty of other sf2 players are out there, so do a little digging on your own if none of the ones I’ve mentioned fit the bill.