Ah, gotcha. I misunderstood. You can’t get the sound by nudging the flam hits a little, so they’re closer together?
I’m not sure if it’s already been mentioned, but I think there should be an undo/redo function inside the mixer. For the volume faders especially, so you can quickly compare volume changes and revert if necessary, but if it carried over to the ambient mic send levels as well, that would be good. Really, for it to encompass as many different parameter moves as possible would be ideal. A shortcut for that function would also come in handy when working in standalone.
Please, please, please-please-please?
RESTORE the ability that both BFD3 & 2 had for save / recall / and apply mixer routings discreetly from an entire preset.
Many times a kit can be selected which perfectly fits a purpose, only to find ourselves having to once again re-invent the outputs wheel we have so painstakingly set up for ourselves because one cannot save or apply those selections independantly.
Unless I’m misunderstanding you, you can do that.
Make your changes to the mixer.
From File menu select Save Preset, and add a name
To load your custom preset, go to File > Load Preset from File… and select your preset. Or select from the User section in the browser. The main thing is you need to have the Mix button highlighted to load the mixer portion of the preset:
So in this picture I’m showing that when I load a preset it will load the Kit, Mixer, Groove, KeyMap and Global settings (blue highlight), but not the Automation Map (no highlight). I’m guessing you probably didn’t have the Mixer button highlighted in blue when you loaded your preset.
Let me know if I got your point wrong.
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To add on to that… after you have a preset saved with the routing you want, then you can go up to the file menu and just load a different “kit” on top of the routing/FX, Grv, Key. I think the main issue is that expansions have different direct and ambient mics, so I’m not sure things will always line up with the routing, but it can probably get you most of the way there.
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Ahh! Thank you both SO much! I don’t have BFD open right now but I will later, and I’ll be very interested to try this out.
To be sure that I’ve described my scenario in clear terms:
I wanted to overlay my custom routing onto a kit already in place – taking of course F_B’s point that the variation between direct & ambient mic’ing in different expansions will create a small amount of inconsistency. But I think he’s on the right track that getting at least most of the way there is very desirable.
I failed to appreciate that the functionality is still in place because the explicit “Load / Save” options that used to be present in the dropdown aren’t there any longer, and not seeing those, I guess I foolishly assumed that those options were lost.
Again, thanks – this is going to be an enormous time-saver for me, and as we all know, time is the most precious gift a person can get.
o-2k
YES!
All functioning just as you both described.
Additionally, I note that this isn’t always what’s called for – some of the native preset routings produce a result that sounds more interesting than my own.
It will be worth diving into what makes those tick, and see whether I can perhaps try to come up with hybrids that give me the control I’ve customized my setup for, while retaining the sonic characteristics that distinguish the original presets.
Thanks so much again!
o-2k
Glad you got it working the way you wanted. I think most users, including myself use the custom outputs to route into audio tracks in a DAW to process and mix there. If you’re working solely in BFD3, then it still can be useful to route certain things to an aux bus that isn’t automatically created, like the toms for instance. Cymbals are also something I would route to a bus, just to have more control.
I find a lot of the BFD3+expansion presets to be kind of meh tbh. They tend to have most of the faders at unity gain and that really sounds terrible across the whole kit, especially having the ambient channels jacked up. But even the direct mics for kick and snare shouldn’t all be at unity. They need to be balanced to get the optimal tone of the kit piece. Like, there’s no logical reason you’d want the kick sub mic as loud as the in and out mics imo. Generally, the direct mics should be the loudest overall and the ambient mics much lower and blended in to taste.
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Good points, all – I’ve often found myself feeling that BFD is rather more complex than either of my DAWs! 
As a fader-pusher at The Record Plant once told me many centuries ago, “You do know that drums are the single most important element in any track, right? Cause if those aren’t good…”
Now, whether he was saying that simply to flatter a drummer, or because he meant to instill a certain sense of responsibility in one and felt impelled to impart that precious knowledge, I’ll never know for sure.
But I did take his point that getting them right, right from the start, is “how we do.” (And that any need to “fix them later”… should be… avoided if at all possible, let’s say). Thus it is that, encountering the complexities of BFD, I just shrug and say “Yup… the shoe sure fits, all right.”
FWIW, I have many times made great sport of BFD’s room & ambient mics, occasionally even mixing them louder than the direct channels for that “baked garbage” quality I’m so fond of.
With warm thanks once again,
o-2k
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he was right, even more important, you can have good drums but a crap drummer and the track will suck all over again no matrer how good everything else is lol
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Think of it this way…
The drums are like the bricks in the foundations of a house and the bass is like the mortar, if the foundations aren’t right then your house is likely to fall over.
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Just out of curiosity, is there any projected date or timeframe when BFD4 is scheduled for release as this thread is over three years old and contains many good suggestions that would greatly improve the instrument?
I’d love to see a completely overhauled GUI with scaleable components and a much clearer menu structure.
Cheers!
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Mid to late 2025 perhaps?
Well it’s now 09:49 here and STILL nothing
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Please add AAX Support, AAX SUPPORT PLEASE!!!
3 things please.
- A resizable GUI. I think I may need readers on top of my readers.
2 Docking/undocking outside of the GUI. things like “model/tech”, think photoshop and many DAW’s
- Make BFD1.5 (Eldorado) BFD2 (London Sessions) content migrate into 3.4 without bothering poor Mr. Drew.
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I want a Multi outputs to my DAW particularly Cubase so i can compress and eq my BFD drums with proffessional tools for each Drum and each cymbals
Have you seen these - Recording from multiple outs into DP - #3 by josephlevie
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Hi deangersmith,
Did you know there is an oldest joke in the book?
Look over there…Ah.
Yes, yes.
Kind regards,
Living Room Rocker
Hi
Not quite sure what you mean?