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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