Noah,
how are you starting qsynth ? Specifically, what fonts have you
tried ? I think fluidsynth has some troubles with large soundfonts, at
least I've been unable to use qsynth with the Fluid_R3 font. Works fine
with Creative's 8mbgmsfx.sf2 though.
I don't have this font and apparently it only comes with the card or
something. Where is a good font to try with qsynth that is known to
be pretty stable?