i’d pay 2X for a robust rock solid “pro version” focused solely on integrating samples into a daw.
key features being the tech/model panels and somewhat the fx and mixer. could get by without any fx, but tbh, find them useful for “engineering” presets for a project.
no grooves, groove editor, automation, jukebox, electronic kit integration, pretty bitmaps, whatever…
and no drm requirements that would put my work at risk in the event of an “external business event” beyond my control.
For these ‘troubles’ I have been using the Default Folder program since time immemorial. irreplaceable.
I fully agree on this point!
I think two things:
M3 is about to be born, bfd3 can’t support apple sillicon yet, it’s really helpless，，，
Are you able to get hold of the M1 compatible beta version?
If not you should contact @BFD_Drew to see if he can let you have one.
I’m a PC user so don’t have to stuffer Apples continual updates but from what I’ve heard it’s running well with the exception of a few DAWS and it should run fine on the M2.
Is there sand M3 in the pipeline?
Steve
To break the monotony of complaining I have an actual feature request… I had to go back to a session from 20 years ago and noticed it was using DFHSuperior. Seeing that’s a PPC plugin I instead loaded the library into Superior 2 and noticed immediately the drum/hit smoothing engine doing wonders for those samples.
So yeah, I would love it if BFD4 had some kind of smoothing for repeated hits on drums (the cymbal swell feature is great already and I use it all the time). Especially since some libraries, even when sampled with hundreds of RRs, can sound robotic without messing with the volume envelope and meticulously hand drawing every velocity for a bit snare or tom roll/fill.
I’d like to see kits put together, that sound like certain famous sounds - a ‘Sting’s Greatest Drummers’ compilation expansion, for example.
To include such family favourites as:
and
and of course:
All artists welcomed:
Excuse me…Just whiling away my Sunday, before braving a completely new BFD install 
What I want in BFD4? If I had to summarize everything in one word, it would be COHESION. The sound and sampling depth in the articulations and dynamics of BFD3 are still unmatched even to this day. I believe the only thing left to say to the developers is to maintain that level of quality. However, there is one thing regarding the expansions that I think will be very difficult to address but should be taken into account for future expansions, and that is sound cohesion. There are notable variations in volume, velocities, and articulations between different expansions. This becomes evident when comparing, for example, to the main competitor, Superior Drummer 3. While many of its expansions sound quite similar (I think for others reason too), there is a compatibility and coherence between them, allowing for better mixing and pleasant sounds by simply browsing the presets. I don’t feel the same level of consistency in BFD3, and from my perspective, most of the presets are not useful, even though I work with many genres and styles. It’s great for building from scratch, no doubt about it. But in order to make BFD more accessible to all types of users, I believe you should work on offering presets that are more sonically appealing. I think this is intrinsically linked to the coherence and the way you have been sampling each library. Although I’m sure you have established certain recording standards for each one, beyond the particularities of what you want to capture, I believe it’s something that needs to be perfected.
Another thing, although many people ask for a GUI as attractive as EZdrummer or Superior Drummer, which I think is nice to have a high-quality reference like those libraries, I would still prefer something more technical like BFD3, with vector graphics. So, if you include a more graphical view, please don’t dismiss the possibility of offering and even further improving the current view. However, I would reconsider the way the elements are organized. BFD is a powerful tool that includes modeling and sampling, along with various parameters, effects, mixing, sends, and more. It’s challenging to achieve an interface that doesn’t overwhelm the user, but even for the biggest enthusiasts of these aspects, it can be a bit confusing. I believe you can work on improving the distribution of the different elements. Here, I would opt for a more modern style, like what Superior Drummer has, to continue mentioning the competition. Although BFD surpasses it in many aspects, I think they have the advantage in this regard, and something more modern and ergonomic GUI is needed. Think about a new vectorial and user expandable GUI refresh
Another aspect to consider is the inclusion of electronic elements. Almost all genres today use them, and it would be great to have the ability to combine them with slots for electronic elements and/or triggers for the snare and kick drum. That would be excellent. One thing I really like about BFD is the ability for users to create their own instruments, not just one-shots. This feature alone sets it apart from the competition. I have created many electronic elements and layered drums using this functionality. However, it would be good to have it organized by default by you, with a dedicated slot for this purpose. I don’t like that when adding a trigger or a layer element, it becomes part of the visual drum set. I would prefer it to be separate, not necessarily displayed as another snare or kick drum. There should be an option to add an element either as another drum piece or as a SONIC ENHANCEMENT ELEMENT (LAYER).
I used to think this as well. It’s very noticeable, but some of that comes down to different devs making expansions for BFD, i.e. Chocolate Audio, Sonic Reality, Platinum Samples. However, there is still inconsistencies among the Fxpansion BFD expansions as well. Some of that may have to do with some being created for certain versions of BFD as the engine and whatever else changed between iterations.
Though it’s annoying in a way and detracts from BFD being a seamless and well-integrated experience, I actually think that this flaw makes each expansion unique in some ways and not sound so cookie cutter like SD3, et al. Sure it sucks to not have expansions work and be flawless right out of the box, but with a little tweaking and saving presets, you can wind up with a kit that doesn’t sound like any other. There’s still going to be some little quirks and flaws here and there, but it’s no different than when you mix live recorded drums… they are all going to have a uniqueness to them and maybe some issues as well, like a piece of the kit being too loud, an articulation not coming through well, or a weird resonance, etc.
I know it’s a drum sampler and they are supposed mitigate the the potential issues of a real live drum recording, but for me I believe that these flaws are helping to make these kits sound like actual live drums. I haven’t tried Dark Farm yet, but I’m going to assume that it doesn’t have the issues that plagued the older expansions and would expect the same for any new kits moving forward. That is until other companies start making expansions for BFD4.
Not all of the FXpansion packs were recorded by the same people either. Anything before 2013 wasn’t myself or Mike - our first pack was Oblivion, and we’ve been making packs ever since and our packs are quite consistent - you can more or less interchange Crush, Horsepower, Vintage Recording Techniques, Metal Snares, Wooden Snares, Jazz Noir, and Dark Farm, and get very similar playback levels and dynamic responses.
Always room for improvement. But a lot of those unique things are what make drum samples so cool. I wouldn’t want to completely discard everything natural about the drum and just map to a known playback curve. That’s how you get … some of the other competition
Dude, I am so loving Oblivion right now. This is my first time using it in a full production and it is sitting so well in the mix, even dry. There is this lively energy to the kit, especially the cymbals.
All I want is a snare that can handle that Bobby Jarzombeck Metal V2 4/4 212.0bpm groove without exhausting every single RR and sounding like an Akai XR10.
The MIDI Groove pack was recorded using Joe Barressi Evil Drums (SD 2.0…BFD2) with a Yamaha DTXtreme III Special Kit.(SD2.0 Performance).
You should be able to replicate the performances considering the MIDI Groove Library was made with old Tech…(well over 10 years old) The BFD installer will install a preset named “EJB Bobby Grooves Preset”.This preset requires the Platinum Samples Evil Drums library.
The Snare used is the Kit 1 LUDWIG Black Beauty 14 x 6.5 REMO Control SoundHead…Coated Black Dot…
Starts at 2:14 Platinum Samples: Bobby Jarzombek Multi-Format Metal MIDI Demo
If you don’t have the Evil Drums Expansion…
The BFD3 Core library has a TAMA Bell Brass Snare…which is very,very similar…
If it’s a performance issue… machine gunning etc…(since you to referred to the AKAI Drum Machine.)
Check the Velocity Layers…Polyphony setting…in the BFD3 Engine.
Try setting the Engine to Full Detail.Velocity layers to 256 and Voices to 128.
(If you currently have it at 128 Velocity layers or less increase that first before the Polyphony)
I have set the Velocities to 512 and the setting stayed ,but I can’t comment on if there is an actual difference between 256 which according to the manual the setting range is 1-256.
I am waiting for MIDI 2.0 to be implemented in Drums…I have made some libraries that I tested in a STRIKE module and I just split the velocities odds and evens for layers A and B
The Yamaha Kit used had a max of 64 Bit Polyphony…but if BFD3 Polyphony is maxed out during playing…(anything playing simultaneously) High BPM Triple Beater kicks/Drum Roll etc…hard to achieve but not impossible especially with speed metal drummers…and using stereo articulations with long tails (some as long as 30 seconds including 5-10+ seconds of silence) in software (and drum modules) you’ll exceed the 64 Polyphony.Keyboards/Synths/Workstations are now being produced at 256 Polyphony…
An extreme example for Polyphony would be …Triplet 32nd at 212BPM = 42.40 nps (notes per sec) and if stereo articulations = 84.8 nps…a 32nd Note at 212BPM = 28.27nps…(divide in 1/2 going down…16th =14.13nps,8th = 7.07nps and so on) add the articulations that are still playing that you can’t hear and polyphony will start to run out and start cancelling notes,usually by priority…1st note played …1st note cancelled etc.Typically Cymbals and Floor Toms ring out for a long period.
Advanced Drum Modules have priority settings for Polyphony…
If system resources get taxed and you are using 24 bit = 32 Bit Floats…16 bit halves the memory footprint…
My comment was more of a lighthearted jape intended to point out that Bobby Jarzombek is such an insane drummer that his dynamics and timing are drum machine-esque. But having such a detailed response is appreciated.
I would appreciate, if the graphics were not so techno computer like. Visuals give a feeling and BFD 2 had more this acoustic look. I got to admit that I don’t like to work with the BFD 3 Interface, cause it’s so cold.
Hope you feel me.
On top of much of the stuff that’s already been requested, i’d like more and different options for the ambience or rooms. The current one does work for most styles of music, but i’m after that late 70’s/early 80’s ‘peg board and hessian’ type, damped room sound.
Ok you can send kit pieces out to things like UAD2 Ocean Way, Capitol Chambers, Relab VSR24 etc, but it would be great to have it contained within BFD itself.
I tend to write drum parts as a piece progresses, i use the drum editor in Cubase as the BFD one is just too small for my eyesight, so an enlargeable drum editor would be another request right up there for myself.
With working the way i do, it’s a bit of a pain having to export the dry drums to send to ‘my room mic channel’ before i start to process the individual outs for each kit piece in Cubase, having different rooms in BFD would negate this for me, guessing i’m not the only one who does this either?
I love it the way it is, it would be cool to incorporate all of them in one 