Is there an external sound blaster on the market I could use with my laptop that would enable me to hear the sounds from the sound fonts? I travel a lot so it is difficult to write music at home.

Mike

Mike,
Not that I know of. Creative Labs does make the "extigy" but I don't think it's soundfont compatible. Your best bet in using VDrumline with a laptop is to check out a program called Kompakt by Native Instruments. It's a scaled down version of Kontakt, basically geard toward PLAYING samples, rather than editing them. It also comes with a very good library of other orchestral sounds, and goes for around $150 I think.

The advantage of using Kompakt is that it can import our GigaStudio formatted samples which are much more powerful than Soundfonts.

jim

If you're associated with an educational institution, you can purchase Kompakt from Academic Superstore for $99. You may be asked to prove your association through ID or paystub, but it's a great price if you're eligible.

Here's the link:
http://www.academicsuperstore.com/q/PartNo-qk_srch/f/market-marketdisp/v/633916-kompakt/kompakt/Kompakt.html

Lauren

That's a great deal! Thanks for the lead Lauren!

I'm going to post that link in a separate thread for others who might be interested in this deal on Kompakt.

Thanks again!
jim

Speaking of external Sound Blaster cards, the SoundBlaster Audigy 2 NX supports SoundFonts. I just purchased one for my desktop at school (low profile case, had to get external card). Works great.

[url=http://www.soundblaster.com/products/audigy2NX/]Audigy 2 NX Link[/url]

Sound Blaster Audigy2 works great for me and my laptop.

Good luck.

CP

Chris,

Are you referring to the Audigy 2 NX? Since it's USB/external, I'm guessing that's what you have, but I'm sure other people who are interested in using this method on laptops might want to know.

Thanks!
AB