bpb Freeware Studio: The Best Free SoundFont Player VSTi Plugins

bpb Freeware Studio: The Best Free Soundfont Player VSTi Plugins

The good old SoundFont format is definitely becoming a thing of the past. But still, I’m sure that most of us have a couple of favorite SF2s stashed in a safe place somewhere on the Hard Drive. Some of my favorite free piano sample libraries for example are actually SoundFonts.

Now, the chances are you probably already have a favorite SoundFont player VSTi, but here is a list of the best freeware plugins in this category, just in case you want to try something else, or need some new features.

Follow the links for download info, demo videos and screenshots:

bs-0 by Bismark
DSK SF2 v2 by DSK Music
Phenome by Prodyon
Shortcircuit 1 by Vember Audio
SFZ+ Professional by rgc:audio
TX16Wx by CWITEC
XS-1 by Jeskola (Donationware)

My favorite plugin on the list is SFZ+ Professional, it offers all the basic tools I need when working with SoundFonts. Shortcircuit is a great choice too, with the only drawback of not being able to browse through different presets without reloading the SF2 file. Cheers to joe maro and Rumpelfilter for reminding me to add Shortcircuit to the list!

Do you find our list of freeware SoundFont players useful? Help us spread the word by sharing the link on your favorite social network or production forum. Thank you!

18 Comments

Rumpelfilter
on October 12, 2010 10:28 am

I’ve tried them all apart from the Jeskola one (which I will check out soon since I’m still looking for the perfect soundfont player!)
DSK SF2 works fine and has all the basic functions you would expect! So far my favourite!

SFZ Sample Player is a nice and simple one, but I have trouble running more than one instance of it in Reaper, as soon as you have two of them the sound become distorted.

Phenome has some nice features but I have trouble with soundfonts that contain more than one preset. Phenome will not let me change the preset so you’re stuck with the first one, which is kind of crap…

so far my impressions!

- bedroomproducers
  on October 12, 2010 11:40 am
  
  XS-1 is pretty good, i was quite surprised with its features when i first discovered it.
  
joe maro
on October 12, 2010 1:18 pm

For soundfonts i use Phenome to chekk them out but then i use the fabulous ShortCircuit to play with them.
Shortcircuit lets you import sf2 and sfz files :)

- bedroomproducers
  on October 12, 2010 4:05 pm
  
  hi joe, are you using Shortcircuit 1 or 2 for this? i used to load sf2 files into SC1, but i never liked the fact that it is not possible to browse through different presets. never tried it with SC2, though.
  
  - joe maro
    on October 13, 2010 3:44 pm
    
    using SC1 fore that. yep i know what you mean thats why i browse soundfonts with another player like DSKs or Phenome…
    but mostly i know my soundfonts so i dont really have to search a lot…
    
    i just do all of that cause i love the possibilities that come up when i use SC1 :)
    
Rumpelfilter
on October 13, 2010 5:47 pm

I never thought about using Shortcircuit! Great idea, will check that out! Opens up a lot of possibilities indeed!

bedroomproducers
on October 14, 2010 3:41 pm

i guess you’re right guys. not being able to browse through the presets is a drawback, but even so, shorcircuit offers superior functionality when compared to other freeware sf2 hosts. so i’ve decided to add it to the list.

cheers joe and rumpel! ;]

V'ger
on November 26, 2010 8:11 am

Just been going through SF players myself and found ShortCircuit2 is really the business. It has a browser to load by single click like Phenome, but is searchable which is really very useful.

It is also a fully fledged sampler to edit samples and zones etc to fix or adjust those pesky soundfonts. Of course it also loads .gig and .kit and normal .wav and .aiff.

It doesn’t have direct from disk (DFD) like SFZ+ though.

bmovie
on August 7, 2013 8:36 pm

sforzando will convert SF2 files to SFZ and will play them.
And what about the best sfz player category? :)

K8ch on March 30, 2014 9:15 pm

I gotta agree w/Rumpelfilter: DKS SF2 works very well.
At least, in Reaper..
I had the same problem w/SFZ, as well.
“Sfzorando” (sp?) is also a good too, and it play samples and soundfonts.

By the way…thank you for this great page. What a wonderful reference!!

Peace,
K8ch

Carlos
on April 25, 2014 8:04 pm

The best one I have found, after trying them all is tx16wx vst. Brilliant and the best if you ask me.

Josão Caldereiro
on January 25, 2015 2:55 am

The free Sfz Player is a sf2 player too!! Unlike SFZ+, SFZ Player can load both sf2 and sfz files and there’s a great advantage in using it: It has multicore CPU support, and SFZ+ has not.

Hmm
on December 30, 2015 3:09 am

“The good old SoundFont format is definitely becoming a thing of the past. ”

Really? Then what replaces it?

- Tomislav Zlatic
  on January 4, 2016 2:52 pm
  
  SFZ and NKI.
  
Dmitry
on December 25, 2020 11:13 pm

Guys! Can someone upload SFZ + Professional 64? I can not find it anywhere….

Beytu
on February 12, 2021 11:42 pm

Sf2 Tale is Over …

Denny7794
on May 16, 2021 7:12 am

Gotcha – SF2 player by Beatassist has many tweaks and FX onboard

Goo
on November 26, 2023 10:52 am

bs-0, Phenome and SFZ+ Professional are dead now …