Me too. Its hard to avoid when it happens 
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I’ve been avoiding having to even open the LM because BFD3 has been behaving quite well for me for over a month now. I’m trying to ride it out as long as I can, until it tries to call home.
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Technically, that’s a bug fix. 
Steve
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I’m a broken record at this point (apologies in advance).
The LM time-out/phone-home/social credit score check is a feature, not a bug. Therefore, as a feature request, I request that this feature is not featured in BFD4.
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But BFD4 is a long way off (years) and the phone home scheme is NOW so has nothing to do with this thread.
Someone needs to create another LM thread so everyone can have their say there rather than here.
Steve
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That could be somewhat deflating, i guess 2 “years” would be OK, the more you get in to the “years” , the less appealing it becomes, but what can you do?, you just got to wait.
I have owned them all, the best of the competition would be SD3, but to me it’s all hat and no cattle, it looks nice, has some nice features, but BFD3 clobbers it when it comes to overall sound. I ended up selling mine. So unless there’s some super duper new player on the horizon, I’ll be stayin’ put.
I tried out a new version sometime after inmusic took over, I can’t recall what it was, but I quickly went back to 3.2.3.3 (always make a disc image before major, risky changes 
), and that’s where I will stay for the foreseeable future, works fine for me and doesn’t give me any trouble.
I’m basing that entirely on the length of time it took to go from alpha testing BFD3 in November 2012 to it’s release in September 2013 which was actually less than a year (it felt longer)
Also BFD3 was a complete rewrite of BFD2 so BFD4 might not be such major overhaul and therefore not as long.
Steve
the relaunch to resolving the LM issues is still a concern here. It seems to be running with less issues when I’ve tried the latest release, but the ‘server down’ posts are something I haven’t experienced with any other product.
Hopefully BFD4 is being worked on in parallel and lives up to (high) expectations. I’ve had to revert to an older version for existing projects but that leaves me unable use any of the expansions purchased after the relaunch.
I have an ilok. If BFD moved to ilok authorization I’d be content.
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I’ve been using iLok since 2007 (Pro Tools user). I can’t recall ever having a major problem with it. Maybe the drivers at one point long ago, but I haven’t touched Pace drivers or the iLok Manager app in years. It just works. I’d totally be fine with it, if it meant no more headaches with BFD.
I’m no iLok fan, but I’d rather have that than the phone-home system.
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I cant see InMusic deciding to give up on their own licensing system to buy into someone elses, tbh.
I dont think iLok will ever happen with BFD unless it goes to another company again.
I’m sure you’re correct.
That’s why I don’t spend any time thinking about it. Not a fan of phone home, but going to iLok would require more than just inMusic’s participation. Running dual systems during a transition sounds dreadful. I suppose a bigger product team could pull it off, but BFD seems fairly resource-limited.
have to imagine every business believes they make the best decision based on available resources but would have been nicer to see a priority on their unique value and more than a few vague words on improvements, features, expansions rather than trying to implement a proprietary DRM.
checked on the cost to implement iLok and would be a surprised if it outweighs the projected hit from pirated copies. expect a proprietary scheme could be justified longer term, but iLok would have gotten them back to market faster with less problems despite any backlash from the iLok haters out there 
. Would not have been my preference either but there are many premium products on the market that apparently believe iLok represents sufficient value for their business goals. InMusic could always dump it at some point in the future, and even claim it as a feature for BFD4 (as in iLok no longer needed).
still hoping for the best.
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Today’s vector graphics are often lazily drawn. No detail. Almost all of the flat/minimalist GUI design these days is ugly lazy garbage.
There’s also question about whether vector graphics use more CPU/GPU than just using large bitmaps (which can have more detail, without relying on skilled vector artists and dealing with drawing routines).
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I certainly want a light interface, nothing that needs a graphics card to stop the app from going into spasms.
There is just no need to make the interface heavier in anyway that takes unecessary extra processing power, GPU or otherwise. Yeah, I’m biased because of TINY BFD RPi edition
The point still stands tho, I still never want to have to buy anything other than the cheapest/minimal powered GFX card necessary for an audio machine. We dont really have much in the way of bottlenecks on computers these days, for audio apps like BFD (amount of effects is a different thing! ), so it would be madness to create a bottleneck just for having a heavier than needed interface. A graphically efficient interface, in terms of graphics processing power needed, doesnt mean skimping on info or functionality. Thumbs up all round 
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A sufficient set of differently-sized raster graphics would be fine (again, see Arturia’s approach - in the V Collection GUI - to providing usability on any size and resolution of display). As things stand now, BFD is torture when using a large, high-resolution monitor.
The other big problem with the product is that is crashes far too often. It cannot be relied upon, in my experience, and currently I consider it a waste of money (and maybe in a couple of years it will be fixed and improved… or maybe not… there’s no road map, virtually no communication and feedback from the “new” vendor). Too bad, the drums and cymbals generally sound great.
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fwiw, I see the benefit in a vector graphics approach. The fundamental usefulness of the program is what it -sounds- like. imho the only purpose of what it -looks- like is to make -using- the sounds as easy as possible. (I’m not one for the marketing of “meticulously modeled pixels”). A vector approach should enable faster UI scalability and increased productivity with a consistent display for any and every kit plus lower cost to develop/maintain and faster time to market (no bit maps to create, manage, scale),
…
The current implementation seems a bit unfinished, Would be nice to see;
intuitive outlines for -all- kit pieces
- a circle for percussion is just lazy.
- barring that, perhaps a user selectable fill color to help define a kit piece?
user defined location for -each- kit piece
- something a real drummer would find intuitive
- current display seems a bit random when adding kit pieces
scaling of line weight (not a current issue here, but perhaps for larger displays?
visual indication for linked kit pieces?
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Hello, my biggest request for BFD4 would be to be able to bounce individual drums separately from their own ambience channels to be able to mix them in my DAW and not in BFD itself. Right now the work around is tedious (soloing in turn each drum elements midi notes and setting the output buses to actual tracks in my DAW). Thank you for your attention.
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