Open SF2 files in your browser
The banks of sampled instruments MIDI players, trackers and music apps play with. Open one right here, pick a preset and play it on the keys. Nothing leaves your device.
Or drop it anywhere on this page
What you'll see
Your sound bank opens as its presets, and the one you pick plays on the keys with its own sounds.
- Every preset with its bank and number • Drums marked
- Play the keys, or the letters from A to ;
- Filter presets by name
- Its name, maker, notes, instruments and samples
About SF2
E-mu and Creative Labs made SoundFont for the Sound Blaster AWE32, and SoundFont 2.0 of 1996 became the open format for banks of sampled instruments. FluidSynth, MuseScore, LMMS, foobar2000 and countless MIDI players load .sf2 files, and MuseScore made SF3, its samples packed in Ogg Vorbis.
An SF2 is a RIFF file: the bank's name and who made it, the samples themselves, then instruments that map them across the keys and how hard they're played, and presets, each with its bank and program number, that layer instruments the way a MIDI file asks for them.
Filepeek lists every preset with its bank and program, drum kits marked, and plays the one you pick on the keys with the file's own samples, their loops, tuning and envelopes. The card gives the bank's name, its maker, its notes, and every instrument and sample.
SoundFont 2
.sf2 • .sf3
Format
- MIME type
- audio/x-soundfont
- Made by
- E-mu and Creative Labs
- Released
- 1996
Inside the file
- Holds
- Presets, instruments and samples
- Built on
- RIFF
- Samples
- 16 or 24 bit, Ogg Vorbis in SF3
- Used by
- MIDI players and synths
Opens in every browser
Filepeek opens SoundFont files in Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari. On their own, browsers only download them.
- YouChromeOpens through Filepeek
- YouEdgeOpens through Filepeek
- YouFirefoxOpens through Filepeek
- YouSafariOpens through Filepeek
Apps that open SF2
- WindowsPolyphone • FluidSynth and MuseScore play with it
- MacPolyphone • FluidSynth and MuseScore play with it
- iPhone and iPadbs-16i plays it
- AndroidNo app opens it
Questions
How do I hear a SoundFont without installing anything?
Drop it on this page. Pick a preset and play the keys, or the letters from A to ; on your keyboard, with the file's own sounds.
What is the difference between SF2 and SF3?
SF3 is an SF2 with its samples packed in Ogg Vorbis, as MuseScore made it, so it is far smaller. Both open here.
Which presets are the drums?
In a General MIDI bank, drum kits sit in bank 128, and each is marked Drums. Each key of a kit plays a different drum, not one instrument up and down the keys.
How do I turn an SF2 into SFZ?
Polyphone, a free SoundFont editor, opens SF2 and SF3 files and saves them as SFZ, or as SF2 again after changes.