KABUKI & NOH PERCUSSION <List price?
JAPANESE TAIKO PERCUSSION <where?
If only the Japanese Taiko was on sale, itās been Ā£149 for everā¦
I purhcased the decatoms, endless issues, shows 0 kits in bfd, canāt import the presets cos they are bfd2, app spins on authorising for hours on end, i thought we were over this shit.
These are some of the lowest prices Iāve ever seen. If only I waited until now and I couldāve saved a few hundred bucks.
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I grabbed Imperial and The Sabian Vault for not a lot of money.
WAY cheaper than all the original DVD versions i bought back in the day, they were NOT cheap!
I was a little underwhelmed with the Sabian Vault tbh. There are definitely a few nice and usable samples, but for some, the quality is more on par with the old BFD1 core cymbals, which isnāt very good. I got it for free, so I really shouldnāt complain. Itās just not an expansion I would personally recommend. If someone needed cymbals, I would tell them just to get Crush, or Dark Farm for their cymbals alone, as theyāre newer and have better overall quality.
It all depends on what you do with them, the Crush and Dark farm packs arenāt really that good for Funk/Soul/Reggae etc and are geared more toward rock/metalā¦
Yes of course you can use any in any style, some just suit certain styles better, hence i picked up the Imperial expansion for the tighter rooms tooā¦ it aināt all about HUGE compressed room mic channels for some of us. 
Iām not particularly a fan of Zildjian cymbals, i used a mixed set of A, K and Zās for a decade and a half many years ago when playing in various rock/alternative acts; but, i find the mid-range is just too angry for my ears and the styles i work in these days, i much prefer Istanbul/Bosphorus/Paiste/Sabian etc.
Thatās fairā¦ I just meant that the cymbals in those expansions are simply sampled better, so thereās a lot less midrange buildup and unpleasant resonances. The highs and sustain is much smoother, compared to others. Iāve noticed with older expansions that the hihats in particular can sound very boxy and have a very unrealistic sound and feel.
Again though, and i mean this in the spirit of understanding here, itās about oneās needs stylistically.
Whatās āboxyā to one person is ātightā to another. Some styles use cymbals that swell or āspeakā quicker and decay fasterā¦
There are some things that seem to be ubiquitous in the rock world that some of us would NEVER entertain the idea of, an 1176 on a snare for instance, or crushing room mics as i mentioned before. Personally, iām a fan of VCA compression for drum shells, usually with a limiter after to catch any peaks.
Imagine a really busy and subtle jazz drummer thatās performing some wonderful ghosting on his snare, now imagine giving that the same treatment youād use on say a Nirvana trackā¦ gonna sound pretty shitty isnāt it. The snare would just dominate things as it would be so busy. Huge, crushed room mics would just make things even worse.
Whereas give Nico McBrain or large oilrig the same treatment, say from an Erykah Badu studio album, those drums are going to sound hilarious. You donāt tend to hear snare drums being run through spring reverbs too often in metal as you do in certain types of reggae.
Itās definitely a REALLY good thing to listen to and try techniques outside of oneās own musical preferences regularly, even if itās to understand āwhy things are the way they areā in different types of music.
On the flip side, itās a great way of picking up things that might not have been tried in a certain style beforeā¦ sometimes itās for a good reason and sometimes it can work nicely.
From the current sale - even though I already have - sabian, percussion, orchestra, dark farm, retro, swan perc, metal & wood snares, Dunnett Ti, London, 8bit - would anyone recommend - I tend to not stick to a genre, really depends on mood, some might argue - progressive or alternative - I play guitar bass, keys, though I have programmed drums for years - bfd3 to me is the most realistic, I do have a couple of sonic reality kits on top of these - but whilst I say Iām not progressive - hardest thing to find is odd meter grooves that donāt sound like they only come from a Yes or Rush or Genesis composition, yes I can change them, but I donāt want to be doing a rehash based on a gorilla suitā¦ lolā¦
So like, using an 1176 on a snare in a Jazz context? An 1176 will have a faster attack time than a VCA and sometimes more coloration, but it doesnāt mean that you have to always crush it and get that color. I tend to use a combination of both on the direct mics and then a VCA on the summing buss to even it out further. I donāt like using limiters on drum shells because it kills the transients. Clippers work much better at controlling the peaks without loosing the attack.
But yeah, what I said had nothing to do with drum shells or rooms, just the cymbals and how some of the older BFD ones just arenāt recorded very well. Not just the frequencies, but the attack being weird. But hey, we can disagree with our preferences and thatās ok.
Two of the most revered and legendary compressors, particularly for snare drum, are VCA compressors, the DBX 160 (particularly the earlier āVUā model) and the DBX 165a. Great on toms too, but i like Distressors with their odd harmonics distortion. The slower attack is sort of the whole point with them. Theyāre millisecond rather than microsecond compressors. Remember the 1176 goes from 50-500 micro (millionths) of a second, whereas the DBX 160, which is prog dependant, is around 20-30 mili (thousands) of a second, thatās a MASSIVE difference.
The idea isnāt to catch every transient, rather to let them ābreatheā and to just catch the higher ones, so thereāsā dynamic range between them, if you follow?
The limiter on the 165a is particularly revered for its ability to distort in a pleasing way too.
A slower, VCA compressor actually lets MORE of the transient through by its very nature, so you use the makeup gain to bring the decay of the drum up.
You should try them out, if you want a snare that SMACKS like a wet fish being slapped against a wet plank, these things can hit HARD!
Use a 4:1 ratio with a DBX160, get about 10dB reduction and then back off the threshold to let more of the decay through. Use a limiter to just catch the louder peaks.
Thatās a REALLY common way of compressing a snare outside of rock circles.
Itās the same with cymbals though dude, again iām not being confrontational here, just that there are different styles that have different requirements, i personally liked the Sabian vault better than the Zildjian vault (which i might sell at some point as i rarely use it) as they sound ābetterā for the genres i work in. They may not be recorded in such a way thatās suitable for your own needs, but for others theyāre bang on.
Itās worth broadening oneās musical horizons outside oneās own preferred genres, itās one of the ways more original music is created.
Peace! 
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Unsure if the conversation bypassed the request, but hereās hoping it didnāt ā¦
Sorry dude, yeah this post got derailed (Iāll assume the blame).
Since I donāt see Horsepower listed, I highly recommend that one. Itās just a great sounding expansion and one of their best. Organic, fat with nice cymbals and ambient mics.
Oblivion is also excellent. Very lively and detailed kit. One of the snares is beautiful with nice overtones. It has one pure and two processed versions of each kit piece, including cymbals. Hereās a track I uploaded more recently, using Oblivion.
Vintage Recording Techniques I would say is another must-have. Big and punchy kick and detailed snare and nice cymbals. It has tons of ambient mics, allowing you to get really different mixes of the kit. I think Drew said it was their largest expansion.
Crush also became one of my favorite expansions. Super detailed and tight. The Meinl cymbals are some of BFDās best sounding imo and this is another kit like Dark Farm that has extra HiHat artics. The toms are very unique, maybe not everyoneās cup of tea, as they could come across as maybe hollow, but they are very snappy, articulate and donāt have a lot of that low end mud.
For odd-time grooves, thereās really only the Dan Foord one. I have it, but havenāt really used it because I donāt do a lot of that type of stuff. You could maybe check out OddGrooves.
Cheers, I keep looking at the kits mentioned - did have Oblivion under the previous beta testing licence, and have considered the Vintage Recording, I donāt think I have enough hard drive space for Horsepower, but yeah wasnāt aware of the Dan Grooves, oddgrooves I have a few, but certain ones are a bit too odd, and whose gonna do a track in 27/11 ā¦
You can always install expansions with a smaller footprint, albeit, with less detail. If it were me, I would find a way to make room for Horsepower on my driveā¦ itās that good.
Part of the size is because it has 3 versions like Oblivion. If you had enough room to just install it in full detail temporarily, you could keep say, the Pure version and just manually delete the processed version audio folders to save space.
Yeah, their grooves can be a bit too busy. Oddly enough, their latest freebie is a 4/4 jam based on a Rival Sons song. Iāve messaged them before about adding BFD3 mapping to their products, but he didnāt seem too motivated to do it. Their General MIDI mapping doesnāt really line up in BFD3. I suppose I could modify the map, but I just manually edit the data in my DAW to match the BFD 3.0 map, as thatās what I like to stick with most of the time.