Playing soundfonts in 64bit Max, or alternative GM player? Or...? (OSX)

So I thought maybe it was time to rebuild my main work patcher as 64bit in order to get more efficiency out of my Retina MBP (I'm assuming that going 64bit will mean lower CPU usage in Max - yes?).

Of course that means problems with 32bit 3POs, some of which look to be sortable, but the main problem is that it's important that I have a General Midi instrument module as one of my sound sources. And it doesn't look as though there's a 64bit version of fluidsynth~ around. (I suppose I _could use a VSTi, but I'd rather not in this patcher for a number of reasons)

Are there other ways of handling soundfonts in Max? I guess I _could build a multisample player using buffer~ (it looks like ibuffer~ doesn't work in 64bit mode :-( ), but that would mean creating loads of multisampled instruments (although perhaps I could take apart existing sf2 files using an sf2 editor like Polyphone? Which would at least reduce the amount of work involved)

Has anyone using Max in 64bit mode come across this issue & solved it? Know of another way of playing sf2 format files? Any other thoughts or input?

thanks

David