BFD3

[HOFX]

http://www.fxpansion.com/index.php?page=205

Not sure why they'd record new kits...though I'm very interested in any new workflow and humanisation features.

Having said that, BFD2 was mostly bloat and I'm pretty sure most people used the DAW for MIDI and FX anyway. That's one thing I like about SSD4 host, it loads up the samples and then gets out of the way.

 

[drew_drummer]

Without going on the defensive, please explain to me how BFD2 was mostly bloat?

All drum sample playback engines have the following:

- A way to load drums
- A way to tweak the sound of those drums
- A way to route the audio signals of those drums
- A way to add some effects to the drums
- A way to map those drums across a midi device of your choice
- A way to preview some premade drum patterns and use them in a compositional way

Other bonus features that *most* of them have:

- Layering of multiple drums
- Tweaking the direct microphones for those drums
- Tweaking the dynamic playback of those drums
- A way to tweak which drums use the bulk of the RAM, versus other drums which you (as a user) decide not to dedicate as much RAM to.

If you're going to call BFD2 mostly bloat, then it seems to me this would apply to pretty much every product on the market. *shrug*

 

[~BURNY~]

I don't know if BFD2 was bloat but the engine was awful. It's a shame since it has a lot of nice libraries but it sounded incredibly fake (despite the so called anti-machine gun option) compared to most of its competitors.

 

[Ihsahn1981]

What is the "best" library available today then?
Im still using the ye olde SSD 3.5 and I am a bit bored by it now.
Worth upgrading to v4 platinum? Or something else perhaps?

 

[nezvers]

... it sounded incredibly fake (despite the so called anti-machine gun option) compared to most of its competitors.

Haven't tried it. But even Addictive Drums (with 1 voice per velocity layer + 2nd = same with pitch offset... at least that's what I think it have) can sound pretty natural when programmed right.

 

[HOFX]

@drew_drummer

The bloat I'm referring to is the MIDI editor and the Mixer with the FX, and by Mixer I don't mean layering drums, tuning kits or any of that standard sample playback, I'm referring to the routing and fx pane as if the design intent was for the drumkit was to be mixed in the VSTi, and then routed out as a stereo mix to the DAW. As far as I'm aware, most people used their DAW for all the MIDI composition and individual track mixing.

If you list out the functions that BFD2 can perform in dot points, then MIDI and Mixing probably doesn't count for much. But as a user when you navigate your way through the GUI, then the impression is different - and because there is so much real estate given to functionality not used, the laziest word I can attribute to that is "bloat".

Whether other drum samplers have that functionality is not relevant to this discussion.

I'm a big fan of BFD2, and will most likely be a BFD3 customer, but I think if BFD3 is going to continue in the same fashion as BFD2 as a one stop drum VSTi shop, then it's one thing to implement all these functions, it's another to make them useable. Anyway, looking forward to it.

Can I ask a question, what's one thing BFD3 is seeking to bring to the market to differentiate itself from the plethora of options available today? Or is it too early to discuss yet?

 

[drew_drummer]

I can't talk about BFD3 I'm afraid. I wish I could, but NDA's and all that jaath.

 

[drew_drummer]

I don't know if BFD2 was bloat but the engine was awful. It's a shame since it has a lot of nice libraries but it sounded incredibly fake (despite the so called anti-machine gun option) compared to most of its competitors.

User error

 

[~BURNY~]

User error

Something that even affects the audio examples on FXpansion website? Maybe...

 

[drew_drummer]

Something that even affects the audio examples on FXpansion website? Maybe...

ehehe.

Well, different strokes different folks at the end of the day. I find the Slate stuff to be pretty undynamic and robotic, but people jizz the shit out of it on a daily basis. I also don't really like the "You can sound just like The Black Album!!!" approach that he takes. But again... different strokes for different folks. (that's just my personal opinion btw, not reflective of FXP's thoughts)

I'd be interested to hear what you think of my production here actually though, which uses BFD2 and some Platinum Samples expansions:

http://thelandswithmetalbeasts.bandcamp.com/

All I can really say about BFD3 is keep an open mind, I think you'll be keen to check it out once more details are out there.

In my personal world, I own most of the big players in drum land. But I still go back to BFD2; mainly because it really does allow me full control of the drum sound, unlike anything else out there.

 

[Machinated]

ehehe.

Well, different strokes different folks at the end of the day. I find the Slate stuff to be pretty undynamic and robotic, but people jizz the shit out of it on a daily basis. I also don't really like the "You can sound just like The Black Album!!!" approach that he takes. But again... different strokes for different folks. (that's just my personal opinion btw, not reflective of FXP's thoughts)

I'd be interested to hear what you think of my production here actually though, which uses BFD2 and some Platinum Samples expansions:

http://thelandswithmetalbeasts.bandcamp.com/

All I can really say about BFD3 is keep an open mind, I think you'll be keen to check it out once more details are out there.

In my personal world, I own most of the big players in drum land. But I still go back to BFD2; mainly because it really does allow me full control of the drum sound, unlike anything else out there.

I agree with BURNY. tbh every BFD clip I've heard has sounded fake to me (including yours). theres some great expansions and sounds but as far as the sampler goes its not the best.

In my experience the best sampler is superior 2's, and the best libraries for realism are custom & vintage and evil drums. I've been really close to picking up some of the NI abbey road packs as they do something a bit different (and for the midi grooves) but they just dont have the level of realism I'm after.

theres so much that comes into drum sampling and I think the most important thing is getting the drummer to hit as if he's playing a song. I think its why cymbals are always the giveaway.

these are recent thing's ive done quickly with custom and vintage

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/303799/Dr%20Locksmith/Mary%20Bailey%20Rough.m4a

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/303799/Dr%20Locksmith/The%20Big%20Book%20Of%20British%20Smiles.m4a

and something more proggy using evil drums for superior:

https://soundcloud.com/drlocksmith/venus-de-milo

https://soundcloud.com/drlocksmith/laramie

excuse the playing/mixing, theyre just songwriting ideas at the moment.

 

[drew_drummer]

Hmm. I'm not convinced. Rail did a comparison of his Evil Drums package in Superior and BFD2, and there just wasn't any difference in the dynamics or the layer selection playback. All any of these playback engines do is take a midi velocity input, and do some math to decide whether to play layer X or layer Y. Superior (AFAIK) uses classic Round Robin, like the old Akai samplers. Basically taking a velocity input, and if it receives the same one twice in a row, it just rotates around a group of layers. If you do this often enough, patterns begin to form and you're back to it sounding repetitive.

BFD2 doesn't do that. It takes a percentage either side of the original velocity, and randomly triggers those layers. So you don't have a "group" per-se but rather a wider bandwidth of layers to play with.

Those clips sound great. Doesn't sound that realistic to me, particularly the hi-hat and floor tom in the Mary Bailey track, but the kicks and snares sound great!

 

[drew_drummer]

I think its why cymbals are always the giveaway.

Also on this point, I think the problem with cymbals is that in a room and on a real kit, they interact with the space they're in, causing filtering and resonance build up that constantly evolves as you repeatedly hit the cymbal. With software you're just playing back layers without any of that interaction.

 

[Machinated]

yeah, cymbals are always the give away for me. having tried tons of different companies, toontrack really smash it and the MIDI packs are far and away the best. I've been curious about BFD but only to use the other platinum sample packs.

I have a few of the platinum samples MIDI packs which are pretty good but just don't compare to toontrack ones (must be down to the kit the drummers play on, think toontrack go V-drums whearas platinum is yamaha)

 

[Machinated]

Also on this point, I think the problem with cymbals is that in a room and on a real kit, they interact with the space they're in, causing filtering and resonance build up that constantly evolves as you repeatedly hit the cymbal. With software you're just playing back layers without any of that interaction.

yep, and I think the way the drummer hits them in the context of the song/beat is always going to vary slightly rather than just a generic cymbal hit.

 

[~BURNY~]

ehehe.

Well, different strokes different folks at the end of the day. I find the Slate stuff to be pretty undynamic and robotic, but people jizz the shit out of it on a daily basis. I also don't really like the "You can sound just like The Black Album!!!" approach that he takes. But again... different strokes for different folks. (that's just my personal opinion btw, not reflective of FXP's thoughts)

I'd be interested to hear what you think of my production here actually though, which uses BFD2 and some Platinum Samples expansions:

http://thelandswithmetalbeasts.bandcamp.com/

All I can really say about BFD3 is keep an open mind, I think you'll be keen to check it out once more details are out there.

In my personal world, I own most of the big players in drum land. But I still go back to BFD2; mainly because it really does allow me full control of the drum sound, unlike anything else out there.

^Well, cool music but again I kind of hear the programming. There's a certain stiffness to it that I can't really get past, as if there were only a couple of samples per layers.
Not too keen on the production either but that's beside the point.

You're right about SSD although I feel their "round robin" or whatever this is called randomizing engine does slightly better than BFD with less layers.

Superior drummer is the best one as far as realism goes in my opinion and that's not to say it's perfect.
And if you suck at programming, you could probably make it sound like shit.
AD drums isn't performing too bad but I don't like their libraries at all.

I'll check BFD3, I'm certainly not bashing it. I just hope the randomization engine has been improved.

 

[~BURNY~]

Nice stuff Machinated!

 

[drew_drummer]

FWIW, those drums were played live on an e-kit, not programmed.

 

[~BURNY~]

FWIW, those drums were played live on an e-kit, not programmed.

Programming wasn't the right word then... haha! But isn't that even worse?

To make it more clear I'm strictly talking about dynamics and how velocity layers translate into supposedly random samples of similar strength.

 

[drew_drummer]

No, it wasn't

Look, no beef here. Everyone has their own opinion. I felt the initial characterisation of "mostly bloat" was a bit unfair. I think you'd have to use BFD2 with a full set of data in order to evaluate the dynamics and the AMG.

I accept that the stock BFD2 content isn't the best though. I personally don't use any of it, and it was recorded before my time at the company

My favourite packs are the Evil Drums pack, the Heavy downloadable pack, and some of the Jim Scott stuff is great too.