I know there are brushes available in some drum kits, but is there an expansion pack that focuses on Jazz drumming with brushes?
I just watched the Jazz Noir Vintage Jazz Drum Kit video, but it doesn’t showcase brushes, but seems to be more of a big band style Jazz Kit with sticks.
Thank you!
Jazz Noir has brushes as well as stick, and Horsepower is worth a look too.
Thank you for the info! I will check out Horsepower, too.
You know the BFD3 core library has brushes too?
Steve
Indeed, the Mapleworks Custom kit might be the best-sounding in the core library. I’ve never tried the brushes myself though.
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Yes, they sound good, but they seem “harsh” or “heavy” for what I need the brushes for. I’m looking for a light/soft Jazz club / restaurant ambient style brush kit.
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I used them a lot for “country” and “cajun” style music. I’m looking for something lighter.
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Brushes (for jazz work) are, alas, not what BFD excels at. Even in the dedicated jazz-oriented expansions like Noir and the Erskine, the brush patches are quite incapable of convincing performances. The chief reason, to my mind, is that BFD’s brushed snares are seriously undersampled. Only one ‘drag’ articulation just isn’t enough to simulate all the swishing and stirring that are an essential part of jazz brushes work. Sampled ‘drags’ also inevitably suggest a certain speed and, unfortunately, all of BFD’s dragged brush samples distinctly suggest slow and very slow speeds. Meaning that they don’t work if you need your brushes to swing at medium and/or higher tempi. I’ve attempted gently undulating bossa brush work with BFD as well, and that doesn’t work either. Not even close.
It’s surprising, I always felt, that with all the care and attention given to snares-played-with-sticks — resulting in sensationally good expansions like Modern Drummer Snare Selects, Wooden Snares, Signature Snares, Metal Snares, … — the brushed snare has so far been all but neglected. It really requires a dedicated expansion all of its own.
If I had a say in the matter, a comprehensive Jazz Brushes expansion — of comparable amazing sonic and musical quality as the expansions mentioned in the previous paragraph — would be very high on the list of things to record for BFD 3/4. Very, very high. Say, three or four different snares (preferably not harsh- or sandpapery-sounding, but with nice, warm yet light, velvety textured timbre and dynamically expressive, suited for jazz), each with an extensive set of brush articulations: swirls, swishes, drags, short tremolos at different tempi, hits and ghost hits (the more variations, the better), stylistically idiomatic gestures, etc. …
An expansion like that is, in fact, the one remaining thing that, in my opinion, is missing most from the quality content available for BFD.
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I wholeheartedly agree! Maybe this gives some food for thought to one of the expansion pack developers. It is indeed the one thing that is missing in this great product!
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