The GUI is quite nice and functional, just the readability could be better if the background wouldn't be such a dark colour though.
The sound is really good. To my ears BS-1 sounded best from all SF2-players I came across so far. Just the volume is a bit low sometimes with certain soundfonts.
For the features, it's all there that one may need to tweak when using soundfonts. However, I never got program change via MIDI working here and by the lack of a documentation and any customer support (see further down) I have to substract some points here.
Documentation... what documentation?! There ARE NO docs at all! I couldn't believe it, but it's true: Also after I payed for BS-1 I did not get any, nor a link to it. The only "docs" you will find are the short infos on the home page, that's all...
Sorry to say, but the support is just worse. All contact options you have is an email-address and I tried to contact the developer for three time but didn't ever get any response.
BS-1 is stable as long as you don't touch certain settings while the sound is running.
Conclusion: If you're in need of a cheap and good sounding SF2-player, go ahead but be aware that you won't get any help if you run into trouble with it. If you have some extra money, better go for VSampler or any other soft-sampler that loads soundfonts.Read Review
Not a bad plugin, my only complaint is the difficulty in identifing which instance is which. It would be preferable if the thing as multimbral and you could load different .sf2 ontt each midi channel.
Pro- allows you to use .sf2 easily without resorting to Creative products.
Cons - poor identifiation of which instance you are using.Read Review
This really is pretty good. Ths sound is realistic compared to my SBLive so full marks on that level. While the CPU load is moderately heavy (which should really be improved) for the price I suppose you can't expect much more.
In fact the VFM is the only real issue I have with this VSTi. When you consider the price compared with the Virtual Sampler etc, it would be a lot better if it were multi-timbral. As it is so easy to use (and you don't need Sampling capabilities when using Soundfonts, that is what Vienna is for) for the money, if the thing was multitimbral, it would be a much better investment.Read Review
At first I thought Bismark was a really great way to play all my free soundfonts.
But I soon discovered I couldn't load more than 8 of them (VST limit), and that 8 Bismarks, or even 4, on the screen quickly became very cluttered and confusing. All these little blue boxes everywhere, and, the Sample Name Area difficult to spot, being in a tiny font in the bottom right corner.
However, if you only want to play one or two soundfonts simultaneously then Bismark works fine, and the sound quality is fine.
When I needed support I got it 3 days later and in hard-to-understand english.
The filters and envelopes are more like on-off buttons, and don't compare with a synth.
Yes, Bismark plays soundfonts, but in a way you'll quickly grow out of.
If you have ambitious plans, ie, 4 soundfont tracks or more, then pay a little more and get VSampler, with 16 tracks and a properly organised layout.
