NitroFont is my high-quality hobbyist soundfont, which I've been working on for a few weeks that spanned testing, making adjustments, trial-and-error, and of course adding more instruments.
As of April 13, 2026, there exists NitroFont Lite. It's basically a more lightweight version of NitroFont, the bank variations and SFX having been removed. The dedicated Polyphone page can be viewed here.
The first beta for NitroFont was released on August 14, 2025, the same day my personal website (which you're currently viewing!) came to exist.
The second beta was released on August 24, before NitroFont went out of beta on August 26.
Version 1.1 came out on September 1, 2025, bringing some quality-of-life changes and internal optimizations.
The same version was re-uploaded as 1.1_1 on September 3, 2025, making changes to the metadata (there were no changes to how the soundfont sounds).
Version 1.2 came out on September 16, 2025, improving on the modulators and adding new samples. Some instruments now use velocity mapping much like the celesta does.
Version 1.3 was released on September 21, 2025, making some quality-of-life changes. In particular, the instrument "Breathpipe" was improved, and the "Mellow grand piano" and the standard kit's snare drums no longer have velocity mapping (it sounded a bit off). 2 new drumsets were added, one of which replicates the old velocity mapping behavior for the snare drums from 1.2.
Version 1.4 came out on September 23, 2025, replacing the solo vox/space choir sample with a more clean-sounding one. The samples for "Choir" and "Halo pad" were also replaced, as well. "Atmosphere" was improved once again, as was "Reverse cymbal". Acoustic guitars now have a cut noise on note release (this is an experimental feature, as most MIDI synths don't support this feature). These changes have significantly increased the file size, however.
Version 1.41 came out on September 25, 2025, fixing a long-standing minor oversight where the strings would only play in the left channel below MIDI key 36. The samples were tidied up a little bit as well, plus the samples for the aforementioned strings were trimmed, removing unused parts. The click noise for guitars has been removed, although I might want to bring it back in a future update.
Version 1.5, which saw light on October 6, 2025, made major improvements upon how the soundfont sounds with MIDI music pieces. Many instruments were improved or had their samples replaced. For instance, strings now sound just like they do in the ColomboGMGS2 soundfont, the Krypton synthesizer (fka "ice rain") now has stereo samples, the tack piano has its samples replaced, making it sound more natural, and the sounds for bongos and congas are now taken from FluidR3 rather than EmperorGrieferus' Roland SC-55 soundfont series. Velocity mapping was entirely removed, since there's no way to make an instrument play different samples at different levels of the Channel Volume MIDI controller (the third standard drumset still has velocity mapping for its snare drums). Many instruments, particularly synths, were renamed for the sake of originality. These changes have significantly increased the file size, however.
Version 1.51 was released on October 22, 2025. It re-added the clicking sounds for acoustic guitars, now the same ones used in ColomboGMGS2. The crash and clash cymbals were improved such that they had their intended behavior in At Doom's Gate (the music for the first level of Doom). Additionally, a minor oversight, where the surdo samples didn't loop, was fixed.
Version 1.52 was released on October 24, 2025, and it brought some minor, quality-of-life changes. Namely, the chorused electric piano and Fender Stratocaster electric guitar were made slightly quieter, and the polyphonic pad has a different stereo effect. Some instruments were renamed for the sake of originality.
Version 1.53 from October 30, 2025, brought some minor quality-of-life changes.
Version 1.54, which was released on October 31, 2025, improved the brass section and gunshot, as well as fixed a minor oversight where the applause in the orchestral kit didn't match the separate melodic instrument.
A beta release for NitroFont 2.0 was released on November 6, 2025, it added support for instruments defined by the Roland GS standard, except for the sound effect melodic instruments. Some samples were replaced as well: this includes the oboe and some percussive sounds.
The second beta release for 2.0 was released on November 10, 2025. It fixed a few oversights and replaced a few samples.
2.0 went out of beta on November 14, 2025, to celebrate NitroFont's 3-month-old age. Finally, the sound effect melodic instruments were added.
For the changelog for versions 2.1 and beyond, see the GitHub repository (linked below).
Being a high-quality soundfont, it takes up more disk space than the soundfonts I made before it, at ~40 MB—and it's unsurprising. The soundfont takes advantage of some of my favorite samples, taken from a wide variety of sources such as FluidR3 and GeneralUser GS.
Making a realistic-sounding soundfont wasn't what I wanted to achieve—what I actually wanted to achieve was making a high-quality soundfont that actually sounds good. Nevertheless, NitroFont still sounds quite realistic on most MIDI files I have access to.
I was trying to make a high-quality soundfont as far back as 2022 (unless I'm wrong). Back then, I didn't have as many soundfont creation skills as I have today, so the soundfont I made sounded not so good. I deleted it—for good. In fact, I made multiple attempts at creating a high-quality soundfont. Many of the end results were scrapped because I couldn't achieve what I wanted to. But eventually, I made another attempt, and got satisfied with the final result in the end.
Did you know that Yingchun Soul actually made a shortcut on the Musical Artifacts website that directly links to NitroFont's GitHub repository? It can be viewed here.