Instrument and sample file formats

Formats that hold sampled instruments: recordings of single notes, plus the rules that map them across the keyboard and shape how they sound when played.

Formats

.DLS

Downloadable Sounds

The MIDI standard’s instrument bank: RIFF chunks of instruments and a wave pool.

.EXS

EXS24 sampler instrument

A Logic Pro sampler instrument: zones and groups pointing to sample files.

.NKI

Kontakt instrument

A Native Instruments Kontakt instrument: proprietary and often encrypted.

.SF2

SoundFont 2

A bank of sampled instruments and presets for MIDI playback, in RIFF chunks.

.SF3

SoundFont 3

A SoundFont 2 bank with its samples compressed as Ogg Vorbis.

.SFZ

SFZ sampler instrument

A plain-text sampler instrument: regions mapping WAV or FLAC files to keys.