The SFZ Format is widely accepted as the new open standard to define musical performance behaviors for a set of sound samples. It was created by René Ceballos (founder of RGC Audio™) and is now maintained by Cakewalk™. Being a royalty-free format, any developer can create, use and distribute SFZ files for either free or commercial purposes.

To provide a maximum of flexibility and portability, SFZ was chosen as the basis for ARIA’s default instrument file format. Although, we went one step further from the standard SFZ format and have implemented new Opcodes and CCs to offer more flexibility and control for product designers.

Learn more about the SFZ format here:

• Official SFZ 1.0 specification on Cakewalk™ website.
• Official SFZ 2.0 specification in the book “Cakewalk Synthesizers: From Presets to Power User”

ARIA is in active development since 2005. The compliance with the SFZ standard is constantly improving and we keep adding new features. Contact us for more details on the ARIA specification.