Baroque & Basslines: Why Soundfonts Are My Secret Weapon (and Should Be Yours Too)
I’ve been producing music long enough to know that you don’t need the latest £400 plugin bundle to create something powerful. In fact, some of the best tracks I’ve made—both emotionally and sonically—started with something totally underrated:
Soundfonts.
If you’re not familiar, a soundfont is a file format that stores sampled sounds—like strings, flutes, synths, even full orchestras—and lets you play them like instruments. Think VSTs, but smaller, faster, and often free.
Here’s how I use them in my music workflow, and why they might just be the tool you’ve been overlooking.
🎛 I Use Sforzando & Ableton: Simple, Stable, Slick
My DAW of choice is Ableton Live, and I pair it with Sforzando—a brilliant free soundfont player by Plogue. Sforzando loads .sf2 and .sfz files effortlessly, doesn’t hog your CPU, and gives you everything you need to manipulate sound creatively.
Need a solo cello that doesn’t sound like garbage? There’s a soundfont for that. Want to mess around with analogue pads from a 90s synth? Also a soundfont. I’ve even found harps, duduks, lutes, glass harmonicas, and full baroque chamber ensembles—all in this format.
🎹 Live Piano Meets Harpsichord Suites
Lately, I’ve been working on a harpsichord suite in F minor, which is full of fast arpeggios and tricky articulations. Soundfonts have been vital in helping me draft and test ideas quickly, without having to mic up the real instrument every time.
On the flip side, I also compose and improvise live piano pieces, which I then record and flip into something completely different. Often, that “different” is house music—and yes, I sometimes blend the harpsichord right into it.
It’s weird. It works.
🌀 Baroque Instruments in House Remixes?
You bet. One of my favourite recent projects involved taking a live piano recording, layering in a baroque recorder soundfont, and running the harpsichord through a bitcrusher. I sidechained it to a four-on-the-floor kick, and the whole thing transformed into this hauntingly beautiful club track.
These kinds of genre collisions are only possible when your tools are fast, flexible, and fun. Soundfonts give you that freedom to try wild combinations without waiting for Kontakt to boot or your bank account to recover from a plugin binge.
🔥 Why Soundfonts Work—Especially If You're New
Here’s what makes soundfonts ideal for new musicians and indie producers:
Lightweight: They won’t crash your system mid-session.
Accessible: Most are free or donation-based.
Versatile: From classical to glitchcore, they slot in anywhere.
Experimental: Layer them, distort them, automate the weirdness.
Non-Precious: You’re not afraid to break them. That leads to gold.
The best part? Soundfonts don’t limit your creativity—they unlock it.
💡 Final Thoughts: Tools Don’t Define You. Curiosity Does.
If you’re out there wondering what tools to invest in, don’t stress. Yes, fancy plugins are nice—but they won’t make your work more you. Start with what’s available. Try new things. Break genres. Rewrite the rules.
Use the harpsichord in your rave track. Layer a medieval lute under a trap beat. Mash up the sacred and the profane.
Whatever you do—stop waiting for the perfect gear, and start creating with what you have.
And if what you have is a folder full of dusty old .sf2 files… good. You’re already halfway there.
