Thanks to Fender_Bender for mentioning the Sonic Reality sale.
I have most of whats available out there from other vendors, SR and Chocolate Audio are the only two I don’t have covered. I like the old sound Ken’s kits portray, but with that sale I’m susceptible to the fear of missing out. Is buying the EpiK bundle going to be covering too much of the same ground?
I like the idea of roto’s and single headed toms for a change, but…
I bought Cobham and Peart last night and they seem fine, but the bundle is a fair chunk of change for kits that may not play as well as Dark Farm or Jim Scott., etc.
I bought Cobham, Morgenstein and Appice and regret it.
Just not the same level of detail and quality as the official BFD expansions.
The hi-hat in the Appice kit even has a sample where they mistakenly recorded a double stroke instead of a single.
Even at the current sale prices, I don’t think they’re worth it.
Thank you for your honesty. It’s exactly what I was looking for.
Last night listening to the demos again I had whittled it down to just the EpiK 70s for the gutted one head Tom sound, but I think I can dead mute something I have and get close enough.
Also I’m liking the Modern Retro and Sphere demos. Seems like a good place to put my money.
They are pretty old expansions, but I think they sound pretty good. Definitely a little quirky and need some user tweaking, but I’ve encountered minor issues with the official expansions too. I have Appice, but haven’t had time to dive into it really, so I can’t comment on the hihat issue.
In hindsight, I think it would’ve been better to try one of the SR kits first and see if it was your jam, instead of buying 3, blind like that. Maybe give it some time, tweak them a bit and save a preset that works for you. You might change your mind and find a use for them. If not, you could try selling them here, or KVR marketplace without too much of a loss. There are no transfer fees.
Yeah I got carried away buying three. I bought the Cobham one first and was initially excited about the sound so I picked up some more, but once I got them on my electric kit I discovered how limited they were.
That’s why I’m maybe a little more fussy than others, because I use BFD almost exclusively for e-kit playing and it really has to be good for it to feel right.
In general though I think sampling a drum kit is such a tedious and time-consuming process that if you’re going to do it, you might as well go all the way.
It bugs the hell out of me when developers market their kits as “meticulously sampled” or “a stunningly realistic emulation of an actual live drum session” only to discover that they did the bare minimum of velocity layers and round robins, just enough to make the demo sound good and get the sale.
I understand. Like I said, these are like over a decade old and back then, they were probably considered top notch for the time. I know some of the SR kits actually have some articulations not found in official BFD expansions. There’s some alternate tom, ride and crash hits that add some variety.
Might take a little work, but if you can go through and map these extra hits to any free zones you have on the eKit, along with the standard array of artics, it may add to the feel. I only use grooves, but I had to go in and remap everything to my liking and get things lined up more with the BFD3 keymap. I posted a few reviews of the SR kits here and was critical of some stuff like the mapping, but also gave credit where it was due and my overall feeling was that with some tweaking and for the money (on sale), these were a good value.
I saw that Hugh Padgham demo video and have to admit it does sound good, so I’ll revise my position; worth it for production/songwriting purposes, not worth it for e-drums.
Sale price only though - the original $99 dollars is crazy for a 2-5 GB kit vs something like Dark Farm which is 90 GB for the same price.
Yeah the HP Big Fill kit is good. Has like 7 toms iirc?
With the exception of Dark Farm which is fairly new, I also think the normal prices of the the official BFD expansions are a bit overpriced, considering their age. I only buy them when they’re on sale.
Same with the dated Platinum Samples expansions. Too expensive for such old expansions imo. There are a few I’d like to get, but not at those prices. They would sell way more if they reduced them a bit and had regular sales. I just don’t see how they can stay in business. They’re selling stuff from over a decade ago and nothing new afaik.
I agree. I bought a few BFD expansions full price just because I want to support the company, but sales are usually the way to go.
I was seriously considering dropping £140 for a sealed copy of Deluxe though haha. I know that’s way overpriced but it’s impossible to find anywhere. Same with Zildjian Digital Vault Vol 1, I want it so bad. Paying more for an expansion than the core software is too crazy though, even for me.
I went ahead and spent the money on Modern Retro and Black Album don’t Audio Deluxe. It would’ve been nice to get them on sale, but right away I feel like I’m playing the quality level of Dark Farm or Platinum Jim Scott. It’sa big difference when actually playing it with vdrums. I’ve grown so accustomed to tweaking the Loudness velocity curve adjustments and how much dampening goes to the ambient mics, that I can get it to play like I expect in no time. Such a fantastic tool BFD is. We live in great times technologically.
I ended up buying Modern Retro too along with London Sessions, really happy with both of them.
Unfortunately I’m now having the infamous license manager issues so I can’t use either of them lol.