Cakewalk Sample Definition File

The Cakewalk Sample Definition File is used by the Cakewalk audio software to define how a collection of samples are arragned for performance. The "SFZ" sample file is in plain text format, and is accompanied by the audio files of the samples themselves.

Many links to official pages describing this format don't work any more due to the site being restructured when taken over by new management and many old URLs redirected to an announcement page of the change. They can be found on the Internet Archive, however. An independent sfzformat.com site has lots of information.

Other Cakewalk file formats:
 * Cakewalk Bundle (BUN) (.bun)
 * Cakewalk Bundle (CWB) (.cwb)
 * Cakewalk Dump Request Macro (.drm)
 * Cakewalk Instrument Definition File (.ins)
 * Cakewalk Project (CWP) (.cwp)
 * Cakewalk Project (WRK) (.wrk)

Format Descriptions and Specifications

 * The sfz Format: Basics (archived copy)

Sample files

 * A basic SFZ template is here
 * SFZ regression test suite

Links

 * Official Cakewalk site
 * sfzformat.com: Reference for users of this format
 * Forum discussion
 * Cakewalk Synthesizers: from Presets to Power User