Awful support from InMusic

[Paul]

What is the best way to re-instal BFD and numerous expansions?

From the terrible InMusic support I have received over the last year (see below) it seems I am still running the Fxpansion version.

I cannot afford to lose any data from current jobs I am working on so I am extremely reluctant to ‘try’ things without guidance.

Could anyone here advise me?

Last February I opened a ticket with InMusic support concerning missing BFD presets. I opened another ticket about a recurring ‘Authorisation…’ message problem.

Communications began but then suddenly stopped on numerous occasions resulting in more tickets explaining the same problems.

So TWELVE MONTHS down the line both problems still have not been sorted.

I have just tried to open another support ticket about the same problems but it seems it’s not working. There is no confirmation of the ticket being opened.

I love BFD and recommend it whenever I can. InMusic support is the worst I have ever experienced and any recommendations will always come with that caveat.

[kafka]

Their support contact page has been problematic. You can email support@bfddrums.com, or direct message @BFD_Drew for some things. Also, post here, and be as specific about your setup as possible. There are a lot of long-time BFD die-hards on this board who are totally dependant on it as a tool, and we’re irrationally overcommitted to it as a product.

Reinstallation is easy. inMusic BFD and FXpansion are ships in the night. They don’t have to refer to each other at all. Put your re-installed BFD content on a new hard drive, and point your inMusic BFD there. It will never cross paths with the FXpansion installation.

Don’t hit the “Migrate” button during installation. It can be problematic. It’s better to get the new installation working with the new content locations first, and then just copy over the files that would be migrated from your user directories. These would be user generated presets, grooves, kits, etc.

Also, BFD2 format files can be a bit wonky. The process for getting them imported is basically to convert them to BFD3 files. That typically means opening them individually and re-saving them. There are a couple of things that can go wrong with that process - typically if there is some duplication in naming. But, in general, that is your last cleanup step. Make sure you have a working BFD3 setup, and then step through the old BFD2 material file by file.

[Paul]

Hello Kafka,

Many thanks.

I feel a bit of a fraud having been accepted as a beta tester but not knowing how to get BFD working properly.

In my defence I have used it for over 15 years and use elements of it on almost every job I do, I’m just not very good with the technical side. Similar to a car, I just want to drive it, not maintain or even clean it if I can help it.

Things BFD seem to be a real mess on my drive.

The only standalone BFD3 icon is in Applications>BFD3. And that is the FXpansion version. I can’t find any other BFD3 icon anywhere with which to open the software.

The Licence Manager is in the same location.

However, BFD content is in two or three other locations -

Users>Paul>Documents>BFD Drums/Content

and

Library>App support>BFD Drums

also another folder in the Library entitled ‘FXpansion’ containing more content.

The Licence Manager keeps ‘Checking status of files already downloaded’. This never seems to complete and I am left in a loop of checking.

All of this makes me think I should clear everything BFD out using an uninstaller of some sort and treat it like a completely new piece of software installed on a separate drive.

I need to ask you about the two contacts you kindly mentioned. Is it worth contacting them with this, or is it more simple?

Which contact would you say would be best for my situation?

I don’t want to end up speaking again to the previous, ‘flakey’ support.

Equally I don’t want to burden someone with unnecessary queries.

Thanks.

[kafka]

Well, my advice is, first, just ignore your old installation for now. We can revisit it later, but for the moment, just don’t think about it. Maybe take the existing BFD application and rename it BFD-FXpansion, just so nothing gets confused.

Next, let’s do a 100% from scratch installation, starting with the LM.

What version of the License Manager do you have? The latest is v3.0.5.3. Have you downloaded that from your inMusic account? If not, do not pass Go, do not collection $200. Stop and download and install that version.

[Paul]

I have version L.M.v3.0.5.3 sitting in the Applications folder of a 2019 Mac Pro running Catalina 10.15.3.

[kafka]

OK. Now, do a download of the BFD3 software itself. Hold off on the content to start.

Sometimes the download manager doesn’t show that it’s complete, even though it is. The file is stored in License Manager->Preferences. Take a look there. If you have a complete .dmg file, then it’s fully downloaded.

If it’s not, then go to that location, delete what’s there, go to the License Manager and X out the previous download, and do it again.

And just an FYI, BFD3 was fine on Big Sur, and I’m doing well on Monterey, on my 2018 Intel Macbook Pro. It was also fine on Catalina.

[Paul]

Hello Kafka,

Found ‘BFD_3-4-3-7_Update.dmg’ but I’m not sure what the ‘Cannot change while downloads are running’ message means.

I have included a screenshot of things (I think). Hope it opens. Doesn’t look hopeful.

[kafka]

OK, that’s actually all good. The .dmg is there and complete, no matter what the LM says. So, now, close the LM, and go to ~/Downloads/BFD Drums in your finder, and install the .dmg like you would any other piece of software.

Do not press the Migrate button when you install it. That’s kind of a headache sometimes. Just do a straight install at first, and don’t worry about any content for the moment.

When you’re done - and here’s the nuisance part - make sure you still have LM 3.0.5.3 installed, and not 3.0.5.2. I believe v3.4.3.7 might downgrade the LM. If it did, just re-install LM 3.0.5.3.

[Appledude]

It kind of depends on your daw. Yes the BFD v3.4.3.7 will instal license manager 3.0.5.2. If your on Monterey 12.x this will work for pro tools. License manager 3.0.5.3 works with standalone, logic and Luna. You can switch between the two license managers and reauthothize as needed.

[Paul]

Hello Kafka,

Ok, so I installed the dmg without migrating. You were right it did downgrade the LM to 3052 so I installed 3053.

[kafka]

Cool. Now, pick a new directory where you want your BFD3 expansions to go. A dedicated samples drive is always the best. For installation purposes, however, it’s not necessary. You can move everything around later.

Open the LM, and make sure you’re logged into your inMusic account using your web browser. It doesn’t hurt to leave it open, although it’s not really necessary. The LM should now show all of the expansion you have registered with inMusic. Go to “BFD3”, highlight it, and down below you should see the BFD3 content. Go ahead and download it.

As with BFD3 itself, the LM might look like it’s hanging at the very end. Check in the download location. If the dmg or dmgparts all look like they’re there and complete, then install as usual into the new location.

After that has completed, launch BFD3, do the Setup Content Locations bit for the BFD3 content. Don’t enable BFD2 paths for now. They’re kind of a nuisance, for a couple of reasons. We can get to it later. Just make sure the BFD3 stuff all works.

[Paul]

Many thanks Kafka. I’ve got covid to shake. Back soon.

[maximumdembo]

@Paul

I’ve got covid to shake. Back soon.

All the best to you.

[kafka]

Take care. I’ve known a few boostered people who were sidelined for a couple of days. Fortunately, none worse than that for this round.

[Paul]

Hello Kafka,

Finally managed to drag my diseased body back into the studio.

I seem to have installed BFD3 and the expansion packs so that the standalone version of BFD3 can see the data paths and kit pieces load and play.

I opened an older project on which the old FXpansion version of BFD3 is being used. When opened it offered me the chance to ‘Migrate data’.

I didn’t go ahead because I think you mentioned BFD2 is yet to be fiddled with?

It feels like progress is being made. I am very grateful.

Cheers,

Paul

[kafka]

It’s pretty straightforward from here on in. From this point, you’ll have two groups of ununsed data:

1.) personal content, typically in your old ~/Documents/FXpansion directory
2.) system content, usually in /Library/Application Support/FXpansion/BFD2 and /Library/Application Support/FXpansion/BFD3

1.) is easy to deal with. Just copy all your old personal presets from the old location into the new. You’re unlikely to run into issues with that.

(note: when I say “preset”, I mean presets, kits, grooves, mixers, processed drums, swing templates (which never worked well), etc.)

2.) is a little more tedious. Some expansion packs installed content in both the BFD2 and the BFD3 directories. So, now that you have reinstalled BFD3, you potentially have four locations where content could be found.

The easiest, most straightforward way to deal with it is to just make sure that you have just the newest version in your default path (i.e. /Library/Application Support/BFD Drums directory somewhere. So anything that wasn’t installed by your content installers into BFD Drums, go ahead and copy it over from the old location.

If you have both a BFD2 and a BFD3 version of a file, delete the BFD2 version. It won’t help you to have both. If you have just the BFD2 version, go ahead and put it in /Library/Application Support/BFD Drums/BFD2. You’ll enable that with the “Add BFD2 Paths” button.

There should be at most a few BFD2 presets that don’t work after that. Those, we can open, save as a BFD3 user preset, move into your main preset directory, and delete the old BFD2 version.

---

Now, my expert tip on keeping the whole thing organized and free of any conflicts. I don’t keep any expansion presets in /Library/Application Support/BFD Drums, even if that’s where the installer put them. I always immediately move them over to the directory where their expansion is.

So, under BFD Horsepower, there’s the Audio directory, and I’ve added Presets and Kits, and moved those presets over there. You’re scanning that path for information anyway, so Content Locations will find them all the same. If the expansion came with Grooves, I also move those over.

[Fender_Bender]

@kafka

@kafka

Now, my expert tip on keeping the whole thing organized and free of any conflicts. I don’t keep any expansion presets in /Library/Application Support/BFD Drums, even if that’s where the installer put them. I always immediately move them over to the directory where their expansion is.

So just presets and kits, not grooves? If you need to re-install an expansion again, there’s no chance it overwrites those folders added?

[Paul]

Many thanks Kafka.

A couple of questions;

1. When I open a project that has an old FXpansion instance of BFD should I migrate when asked? See attachment 1.

2. I copied the BFD2 folder from the old location into the new BFD folder on the external drive. See attachment 2.
   Firstly all the data seems to be in a sub folder called ‘System’ (different to BFD3).
   Secondly, I notice in the BFD2 ‘Kits’ folder there seem to be, as you mentioned, duplicates of 8Bit kits, XFL kits, DLX kits and who knows what else.
   Are these the kits I should be deleting?

Or have I gone horribly wrong at the last fence?

Cheers,

Paul

[kafka]

@Fender_Bender

@kafka

@kafka

Now, my expert tip on keeping the whole thing organized and free of any conflicts. I don’t keep any expansion presets in /Library/Application Support/BFD Drums, even if that’s where the installer put them. I always immediately move them over to the directory where their expansion is.

So just presets and kits, not grooves? If you need to re-install an expansion again, there’s no chance it overwrites those folders added?

Presets, kits, grooves, processed drums, swing templates, whatever - these are all presets of one kind or another. Everything that comes with an expansion stays with the expansion.

There’s almost no need to ever reinstall an expansion, once it’s up and runnning. I don’t think expansion generally overwrite anything in the destination. The annoying part is if it puts the new ones back in /Library. But, as I said, one almost never needs to reinstall a running expansion that’s set up this way.

[kafka]

@Paul

Many thanks Kafka.

A couple of questions;

1. When I open a project that has an old FXpansion instance of BFD should I migrate when asked? See attachment 1.

2. I copied the BFD2 folder from the old location into the new BFD folder on the external drive. See attachment 2.
   Firstly all the data seems to be in a sub folder called ‘System’ (different to BFD3).
   Secondly, I notice in the BFD2 ‘Kits’ folder there seem to be, as you mentioned, duplicates of 8Bit kits, XFL kits, DLX kits and who knows what else.
   Are these the kits I should be deleting?

Or have I gone horribly wrong at the last fence?

Cheers,

Paul

1.) No, don’t do that. You’re migrating manually. Just “Migrate Later”. You don’t need the machine’s help. Some people have found that popup to become persistent. If it does, there’s a way to defeat it, and I don’t know what it is.

2.) It all looks like you’re on the right path. “System” is just an installation convention that doesn’t help or hurt anything. Some expansions put all the presets under System, and others don’t. Content Locations will find the content whether you put presets under System or not. I don’t use System, because I found with experimentation that it wasn’t necessary, and was a little confusing at times. You can use it if you like, and move everything out if you decide you don’t.

As far as the duplicates goes, yeah, in general, if there’s a BFD3 version of the same preset, don’t use the BFD2 version at all. Some expansion came with both, just because of when they came out. But you’ll only ever need one.

And fyi, I don’t actually delete. I made a zip file of my old FXpansion BFD2 and BFD3 directories before I got started, so I could recover any content if I screwed up.