I’m trying to come up with a sensible way to work with the Perc Expansion. Is there someone I could speak with to pick their brain?
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Post your questions, you never know what you might find out on here 
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I too, have some questions about the Percussion Expansion. Several. I just purchased it.
How many presets is it supposed to come with? I’ve only been able to find 4. And finding those 4 presets was impossible using the BFD Tools>Set Content Locations. I had to manually search my system to find these 4 presets. They were in Library>App Support>BFD Drums>BFD3>System>Presets. I had to navigate there to open them using File>Open Preset From File … then re-save them as user presets. Then and only then would they show up in the BFD browser. Any help on that would be appreciated.
On top of that, I haven’t been able to find a single kit for the Percussion expansion. Literally none.
For an expansion that’s got 26GB of content to only have 4 (very small) presets and zero kits seems highly improbable, but I don’t know. Can anyone please let me know? I can’t find any information on how many kits, presets, or instruments the Percussion expansion is supposed to come with. Thank You!
For what it’s worth I’ve sort of figured out that I should make up my own kits that include what I typically need. That way you don’t have a lot of presets in kits that you don’t use.
I purchased the BFD Percussion Expansion a long time ago, I just checked again using the LM and clicking on download of BFD Percussion Content Installed, it says it’s size is 3.6GB? But as you stated, over here it says 26GB = * 26 GB of vibrant, detailed percussion? When I look at the size of the BFD percussion audio folder installed on my drive it says 8.5GB wtf?
What am I missing lol?
I am on my laptop at the moment, If I remember correctly I did see presets on my main pc for the percussion expansion but I need to check it again…
Hopefully nothing.
26GB were old wav files. 8.5 GB are the BFD (Can’t think of the exact file name of the top of my head at this time of night. Long day, and all that) compressed files.
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Were there more than 4 presets, or any kits? If this expansion does not come with any kits, or if the 4 presets I’ve found are all it comes with, let me know. I don’t know either way. I’m showing a total of 85 instruments for it when I go to the Drums tab in the browser, then select Library. This and Grooves are the only two browser tabs were I can see an entry for BFD Percussion.
Which must mean if there isn’t an entry, there aren’t any files for it. Which still seems very odd to me. Not even a template for mapping sounds to the grooves? How are we supposed to map stuff for the grooves without knowing which samples were intended for the notes in the groove? It seems to me the grooves don’t bring much to the expansion without kits to go with them - or better still, presets.
I mean am I talking crazy here, or are my questions reasonable? Aside from the fine sounds this expansion comes with, it feels like something huge is still missing to me.
Regarding the size of the expansion you are right, Murt. Mine is also showing 8.5GB in BFD3 format. 26GB likely sounds so much better in the realm of marketing I suppose. Which is irrelevant,
I’m just curious about how the expansions deal with content. Some will have grooves, some won’t. That I get, but having grooves without kits or presets? That’s weird.
You’re talking sense, when I go to the Drums tab and click Library I am showing 144 entries for BFD Percussion. Seems like this expansion does what it feels like. I have checked that none of them are doubles either. As for the grooves, I am seeing BFD2 Percussion showing 78 grooves.
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Hello. (didn’t mean to interrupt a conversation).
Everyone is different. As for me. If I use a preset kit, drums etc. And that kit has percussion pieces in I usually just swap the perc piece.
I’ve never really used the pack to its full. Sometimes I’ve just set up another instance of bfb in DAW and program (midi) from that. I don’t use grooves. I try always to use my own. Sometimes I use them as a starting point for ideas. But never use the actual groove. (personal choice).
I’ve never really set up a percussion kit as per say. What I do remember about the pack (that I have installed) I couldn’t find any prestes for the percussion pack. (thats my job now for tomorrow sorted).
But at the time I last used it. It was just as BFD had moved from fxpansion and the first install did not go well for me.
I’m seeing now in this conversation that dangersmith (hello) is showing bfd2 groove entries.
I have nothing left on my pc now for bfd2.
Hope you find answers.
Sorry I really couldn’t help much, or at all.
Having said that. Answers can be found from someone on this forum from far more educated folk than myself.
Interesting - thanks for that! I was trying to figure out why we were showing different numbers for instruments for the PercExp. It was because I had filtered it to just the percussion content (which was 85 total). Most of the expansions we have in common do show identical numbers of instruments for each library.
But it is curious that things are different on BFD Crush. I don’t know what’s up with that.
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Hey Murt, no interruption at all, the more the merrier. I am much the same, only use grooves sometimes as a starting point then change them so much they become my own, mainly just to get some velocities going that’s all.
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Ah I see you showing 144 kit pieces too, so I am not alone, yes I see nothing in my presets for percussion, but will check on my other machine tomorrow, I seem to remember seeing them in the past, I might be mistaken.
Not sure what’s up with the count on crush, I see my modern retro also has one less than yours…
Cool - much appreciated !! Yeah, like I said, I have no idea if there’s supposed to be any preset content or not. When I found the 4 I found I was thinking, that’s it?
I know what both of you are saying about doing your own grooves. Part of the appeal of the groove component of these expansions is they’re played by actual drummers in many cases. I’ve done plenty of drum programming, but I’m a guitar player. Drummers have what I call “drummer instinct,” which I’ve come to deeply appreciate. For me presets often make great starting points to edit from as well. They can also be fairly instructive in many cases too.
Now I’m going to find that BFD tutorial video on building kits & presets.
Speaking of which, are there any sources for sharing BFD presets, keymaps, or other such stuff? A library preset exchange type thing?
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Correct me if I’m wrong. But I’m sure there are some rudiments somewhere in bfd. Really helpful to those, like me, who can’t physically play drums that well.
There’s a topic posted previously about sharing presets, maybe yo can find something there - Share your BFD3 presets
I’ve looked on my main machine now and I see 4 presets for percussion:
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Thanks for checking! Yes, those are the same four I found. My presets are a work in progress, or so I hope.
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