The Ultimate Free Sfz Instruments List!

If you're looking for free Sfz instruments to download, you've come to the right place! In this article, we've compiled a list of all the free Sfz instruments available online.

Signal Experiments Sustain Strings Lite Version

A beautifully sampled string section, the lite version source samples are compressed to ogg format. Hear it for yourself:

Free sustain brass and sustain woodwinds sfz are also available on the same website.

Download: Signal Experiments

ARIA Engine Free Sounds

The ARIA Engine free sounds are available on Plogue's forums. They are high-quality Sfz for Sforzando with a graphical user interface and multiple parameters to tweak.

Download: ARIA Engine Free Sounds

Patch Arena Warm Strings Sfz

A universal Sfz instrument that can be loaded in any Sfz compliant instruments. It sounds good and rather small in size (19MB).

Download: Warm Strings Sfz

Patch Arena also offers other free Sfz instruments:

Download: Solo Cello
Download: Double Bass
Download: Yamaha TX81Z Bass
Download: Sfz Flukelele
Download: 12bit SubBass Sfz
Download: Casio CK-10
Download: Marimba
Download: Various Synths
Download: MiniBrute MultiSaw Sfz
Download: MultiSampled Tubed Bass
Download: Epiphone Acoustic Guitar
Download: Piezo Kalimba
Download: Bowed Vibraphone

VSCO 2 Community Edition

Hands down the best free orchestral samples available on the net today. The library is available in a variety of formats including Sfz. It includes an acoustic piano, marimbas, brass, woodwinds and many more sounds. This is an essential download for newbies who don't want to spend a dime to start making music.

Download: VSCO 2 CE

Virtual Playing Orchestra

Virtual Player Orchestra is a selection of orchestral samples arranged into an orchestra that is sourced from the public domain. We haven't tested this library yet but it's worth mentioning, especially for Linux musicians who can only use Sf2 and Sfz instruments on their computers.

Download: Virtual Playing Orchestra

Noisecrux Brass Ensemble

A brass ensemble made from public domain samples. Sound decent and the hip hop influenced audio demo gives an idea of what can be done with it.


Download: Noisecrux Brass Ensemble

Karoryfer Sfz Instruments for Sforzando

Various high quality sampled instruments for Sforzando. They all come with a graphical user interface (GUI) and detailed multi-sampled samples for various articulations. However, we're not sure it'll load in "vanilla" Sfz players since they are so complex and use scripts only Sforzando can read.

Download: Karoryfer Sfz Instruments

Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra

An oldie but a goodie. Still useful if you want to play with a variation of public domain orchestral samples. According to its author, they have been enhanced and modified to sound better. A fun library, could be used to create SNES style soundtracks.

Download: Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra

D. Smolken's Multi-Sampled Double Bass

D. Smolken provides here a nicely sampled double bass. Other Sfz mappings are also available on the website.

Download: D. Smolken Double Bass

New Horizon Orchestra

Yet, another orchestra made from what seems to be public domain and creative commons samples. Worth a look if you're not satisfied with the previously mentioned orchestral offerings.

Download: New Horizon Orchestra

Bolder Sounds Free Sfz

Available instruments: a toy piano, a harmonica, a thumb piano, a DIY Music Box and more. Available as Sfz, Kontakt and EXS24 instruments.

Download: Toy Piano
Download: DIY Music Box
Download: Thumb Piano
Download: Harmonica
Download: MiniSax

Da Real 110 Sample Library

A sampled BOSS DR-110 drum machine with round robin. A Kontakt version is also available.

Download: Da Real 110 by Synth.in

Orange Tree Samples Jazz Drum Kit

A nice small jazz drum kit with Sfz mapping. Suited for jazz, funk or any groovy music.

Download: Jazz Drum Kit

Salamander Drum Kit

A 369 MB acoustic creative commons 3.0 drum kit. One of the best and most complete free acoustic drum kit out there.

Download: Salamander Drum Kit

SM Drums Sfz version

There are two versions of this stereo acoustic drum kit available: the Sforzando Sfz version with a graphical user interface and the standard Sfz.

Download: SM Drums Sforzando version
Download: SM Drums Sfz version

Rickenbacker 4001 Bass

A multi-sampled electric bass with fingered, muted and slapped patches. Kontakt version is also available.

Download: Rickenbacker 4001 Bass (via KVR)

99Sounds Bass City

Bass City is a free sample library of synth bass sounds. The library is available in Kontakt and Sfz formats. The individual wav samples are also available and they are in glorious 24 bit. Bass City is a side project between Bedroom Producer's Blog creator Tomislav Zlatic and Patch Arena's owner Chad Beckwith. The synthesizers used for this library Korg EX-800, the Korg Poly-800 (pictured) and the Yamaha TX81z.

Download: Bass City

BPB Mini Analogue Collection

From Bedroom Producer's Blog comes this cool little library featuring sounds from budget and obscure synthesizers. The library is available as Kontakt and Sfz instruments.

Download: BPB Mini Analogue Collection

Misc

Download: No Budget Orchestra archive
Download: Estate Grand LE for Sforzando
Download: Salamander Grand Piano Sfz
Download: Piano in 162
Download: BigCat Pianos
Download: Rudi Fiasco K18 Upright
Download: TKD G-1 Basic Drum Kit

The Open Source Drum Kit

Recorded by John Gump, The Open Source Drum Kit is a quality acoustic drum kit.

Get the wav samples here and the Sfz file here.

Soundbytes Tiny Carillon

A light version of their Hahnenklee Carillon multi-sampled instrument. Available in various formats on the Soundbytes website. Soundbytes also has a nice collection of free acoustic instruments on their download page.

Samplephonics The Wizard of Mbira

68 free Mbira loops. Available on Samplephonics website (requires registration). Samplephonics also has a Bowed Cumbus, a japanese Shakuhachi bamboo flute and a distorted drum kit.

Rozzer ATC-1 Analog Bass

Rozzer sampled a Studio Electronics ATC-1 analog synthesizer module. 99 samples and a Sfz program.

Download: Rozzer

BPB Commodore 64 Synthesizer Deluxe

30 multi-sampled instruments sampled straight from various Commodore 64 home computers. Mainly a Kontakt instrument, but the author also added Zampler and Sfz patches

Download: Commodore 64 Synthesizer Deluxe

Ensoniq ESQ-1 Reboot

The 40 original ESQ-1 patches were multi-sampled and are available as a Sfz instruments collection. Download it on the How to program drums website. The Kontakt version is available on the Bedroom Producer Blog website.

SampleScience Synthetic Vortice

An Ensoniq Fizmo synthesizer sample collection available as wav samples and Sfz patches. Download it on the SampleScience website.

Fairlight Sound Library Database

An amazing collection of Fairlight sounds, which is an early 80s sampler widely used by popular musicians at the time (Duran Duran, Peter Gabriel, etc.). If you're looking for typical 80s electronic sounds, this is a goldmine! To download the Sfz, you need to click on the sound you want and click on convert. Download the zip file and you'll get both the wav files and the Sfz mapping patches. Absolutely great! The only drawback is that you have to download the sounds one by one.

Download: Fairlight Database

Synth Magic StrettEVS

A collection of sounds made with a vintage Korg Evolution EVS-1 and samples from a Waldorf Streichfett. A good collection if you're into lo-fi sounds.

Download: KVR Forum

Wave Alchemy MS-20 mini drums

Drums made with a Korg MS-20. 8 Sfz Drum kits are provided.

Download: Wave Alchemy

Fugue State Audio SFZ-format instruments

A nice little collection of synth-based Sfz instruments. There's also wav and loops samples on the same download page.

Download: Fugue State Audio

Sound Dust Mouse Organ

An organ instrument made with mouse samples. Available as a Kontakt instruments as well as other formats which includes Sfz.

Download: Sound Dust

Szcz Audio Adventures

Weird Kontakt and Sfz instruments made with unusual sound sources:

Download: The Wrench
Download: The Wrench, Bare Hammer
Download: Feedback Loop Tone Generator
Download: Terrible Piano

Piano Book's Spring Piano

A beautifully recorded acoustic piano sampled by Spitfire Audio founder, Christian Henson. There's also a sampled Electric Fork, for those interested!

Download: Spring Piano

Download: Koenig Electric Fork

Plogue Sforzatron

Based on the free Taijiguy Free Mellotron samples, Sforzatron is an Sfz instrument for the Sforzando plugin instrument (free).

Download: Plogue

Unreal Instruments

An amazing Japanese website with acoustic and electric real life instruments sampled in details and available as Sfz Sforzando instruments. There's electric guitars, percussion and japanese instruments.

Download: Unreal Instruments

Thanks to PTV, a KVR forum member, for the suggestions.

That's it for the moment! Contact me if you ever find free Sfz instruments that aren't listed here.