I’m not having stability issues at all from BFD3 that I can discern. I like this. I’m saying I think at this juncture that looks like a bad idea, at a crucial transition time. I would like the business to stay in business, it seemed very likely to me it would vanish soon.
also interpretative is ascribing “Whats going on with other DAWs isnt an indication of what goes on with BFD.” to my remark per Cubase. I did not state it was, that isn’t in there. I said please do not do this kind of reach, and gave what to me is a bit of a cautionary tale as an example of my own thinking.
“don’t be steinberg and pander,”
and I get “Regarding Steinberg: I’m a Cubase, Dorico and Wavelab user and I experience their products as being very reliable and stable - maybe because I’m a musician (and IT guy) - and not a drummer:-)”
I’m a musician.
I’m out of here. that’s not collegial worth a damn.
I getcha. But we will be out of that transition period. This is a thread for what we would dream about having in BFD4, and obviously top of everyones list would be stable and solid
There is a whole bunch of apps that do this already. And with a gate set to particular frequencies, one can fairly easily get just the kick coming thru, or just the hihats. Obviously this method becomes less useful around toms and snares, but Drumagog was surprisingly good when I tried it a while back.
My main beef about using BFD3 in VE Pro is the lack of mono channels. Having to fake them with half a stereo is totaly non-portable and counter-intuitive. It makes setup such a chore. Also, since the grooves and groove engine are part of the composition, it’s a nuisance to have them outside of the project.
I did not intend to be offensive in any way. Initially I just answered the OP’s question: “What do people want from a BFD4? Let’s get some ideas going!” And the audio to midi thing is something I want. I think it was You who started to qualify my wish as “strange” …
Agree with the name prefix for locating and identifying which kit/preset belongs to which expansion pack.
I would like to see an update to the GUI so it is adjustable in size and also it is scalable so the while you could drag out corners/top/bottom/sides you could zoom in and out to meet your needs and also have a Save View function.
Is colour coded mixer faders available in BFD3? If not then a good idea.
Able to use 3rd party fx plugs in the fx on all channels in the mixer eg UAD McDSP plugs.
Thanks
I loved the ambience sounds in bfd2 so could you make those available as an option in BFD4. Maybe multiple ambience options like a few different overheads to swap out in the mixer. Instead of loading verbs as sends. Possible or not I don’t know. Are they recorded sounds or fx?
I loved BFD from the very first time I tried it years ago with BFD1 so any improvement is awesome.
I would like to have BFD4 in a drum module for E-drums. Our drummer uses a roland TD50 with BFD3 on his MacBook and it sounds better than the TD50 for our requirements. So much more natural and musical. The only option to compare to BFD is the Pearl Mimic and that has a limit to it and the sounds are great but a BFD version of this would be the new standard I think. Everyone has there own needs but BFD is so versatile and natural and musical it would be our pick of the (small) bunch available. I would want to see high end converters with a strong power supply to make them work properly, enough storage space for expansion kits and updates, USB3 for eternal drive, more than 5 snares as that is an average for drum modules from what I’ve seen so far, and individual outs . Trigger Inputs - 2 snares, 5 toms, 6 cymbals, hats, 4 percussion, and anything else you come up with. Mixer needs the basics like the OH Room and Ambience. The Pearl Mimic is almost there but lacks some extras including BFD. Also it should be compatible with usb/digital snare/hats/rides etc. The module could even be a half or full rack unit, possibly a versatile variation with expansion cards and TB I/O connection. Thanks for listening to all of us BFD users.
I often wondered why Roland or Yamaha or any of the other popular eDrum manufacturers didn’t approach FXpansion to go into some kind of partnership and build a BFD3 eDrum.
That said, doesn’t running BFD3 from your laptop give you more editing options with presets and effects than you’d get from an eDrum box? I’ve never played one so can’t say.
I think it would need to be a separate project or partnership though.
Thanks Steve. Yeah I thought the same. Maybe there is a story there we haven’t heard about.
Yes we do that ATM but the issue becomes more cables, 3 seperate boxes(module > computer> good I/O box) so the gear is more to setup, backup, look after(protect basically) and connect with more cables. It does give you a backup with the module being available quickly, but it is more to carry around and keep working and more complicated for live work for both the drummer and mixer. The Pearl Mimic got it pretty close with one Room Ambience fader and that makes it easier for drummers and live work to turn it off quickly. Laptops with track pads etc and the current BFD setup is very slow when playing live if you know what I mean. It’s amazing how that can become an interference with what seems so basic in a studio/rehearsal environment. Still love the sound though.
Being able to collapse specific kit piece channels, in the mixer, instead of collapsing the whole thing would definitely help with workflow.
For example, when I’m balancing my kick channels. Once I’m done, I could consolidate them into the Kick Master and then move on to the snare and do the same, etc.
Customizeable Mixer Groups. This would be a quicker way to adjust the volume of a group of kicks, snares, toms, etc, rather than selecting all of them.
Another benefit, is when your using post fader sends. Say I have my snare master sending pre-fader to an aux track for parallel compression. Having a group for those two channels would allow you to adjust their channel faders simultaneously.
Converting Mac & Windows software to be standalone in embedded hardware is… probably not an expense they wanted to consider. It would probably end up being done the overly complex & problematic (and cheap & lazy) way: Receptor-like linux computer, running the existing VST in a WINE environment.
BFD1 is the only BFD that was ever ported to the Receptor, if I recall correctly. I can’t even remember if mine has BFD1 on it. Receptor was so problematic. What a waste of money that device was overall (for me; I know some people used it live and liked doing so). It’s never been recorded into any of my projects.
BFD4 on iPad?..BFD4 as new standard for live sound?..easy/fast switching between presets??
I am excited! I am finally on the cusp of using BFD3 for live sound (probably late to this party). This is something i have wanted to do for years = bringing great studio sounds to live setting (independent of production = stage size, speaker dimensions, and PA mixing person etc) as raising the standard of drum production this way lifts the whole band sound quality and lowers stage level…prior to now the sounds and the latency hasn’t been up to it. Audiences are so used to listening to high quality production that I am committed to reducing/ removing my acoustic spill. The recent appearance of the M1 chip in the iPad Pro (and M1 in MacOS) suggests there is a bigger convergence of live tech apps and we might anticipate a version of BFD on that OS?? (or wait for apple to homogenise it)…i.e. BFD4 on iPad 2022?
Why??..i am using alesis DM10 module (yes old but actually pretty good detector) as trigger interface to drive BFD3 via usb on my MacBook (2020) and its great…actual drum kit i use is my original 80s Tama kit fitted out with a new flexible piezo sensor config i’ve invented (i work in advanced materials … if you want to know more please message me…basically i can literally flip/180 deg rotate my acoustic kit from electro to acoustic at will at gigs and most people think im playing an acoustic kit…feels great too)… live i/we often use Mackie DL16 mixer driven by iPad for simple gigs … (or other digital desks ie Allen & heath for bigger gigs)…whats stopping me at present using BFD live regularly is i’m loathe to take my MacBook to ‘rock’ gigs (get damaged, bits lost, or stolen) although some of our sound guys are happy to do this (but don’t have BFD)… i would take an iPad…
i am currently trialling my exist DM10+BFD+MacBook live setup in ‘soft’ live gig settings (low risk of damage gear loss) … so far people love it …& especially at rehearsal …i’m contemplating running a longish usb cable to mixing station and handing over to mixer…if more PA people had BFD drums (and i could easily/confidently share my key map and kit arrangements) all i would need is my old module/trigger unit…that be great
this is the future …more and more often we are streaming and BFD is great for streaming sound…acoustic drums are a struggle venue to venue for streaming.
cheers
R
PS: i am a drummer and was largely happy with my live acoustic kit sound for 20+ years…but no more!..great drum production is THE KEY to great live sound (guitars keys vocals are easy to mix)
pps sorry for long post…as i said…im excited!
ppps…i realise alesis flirted with iPad dock and it wasn’t a great success…too early and tooo much change in iOS and formats… …convergence of trigger speed, processor speed, drum sound quality, availability and cost of tech means BFD live use is now go for me …
OK, after my recent trials and tribulations, I would like BFD4 to be able to launch WITHOUT scanning. Let it launch, perhaps warn you of missing content and that you need to scan, but then do nothing. Allow the user to then manually scan.
As it is I had a terrible time as I needed to delete some content paths from BFD as I’d rearranged my library, but I couldn’t delete them because the scan couldn’t find the content paths I’d deleted and left me in a scanning loop of doom! If I could have deleted the paths from the BFD window and then scanned it might have solved the issue. As it is auto-scanning just creates a Catch-22 like the circling path to Dante’s Inferno.
Well no it’s not a bug report, I would like BFD to not scan on start up. Although I have arrived at that conclusion because of a bug, even when fixed I would like this as a feature, as it’s poor design that if left any future bug introduction could break it again. At least if you could load BFD you might be able to do something, rather than it just sitting there in a recursive loop.
It seems silly to me that it has to do a full scan and complete it without error before you can even use it. I mean sure, Cubase does a scan when it loads, but if there are any issues it just let’s you know what they are and loads anyway, allowing you to fix it afterwards. With BFD’s system, any error stops you being able to use the software completely.
I can’t imagine this hasn’t be requested so +1 on a scalable UI. Full screen anyone? Separate window possible for the mixer and / or the keymap or for that matter UI elements that would be nice to see in tandem with the mixer like the groove editor?
At the very least the key map should be something we can see in total, and not be required to scroll through. I’m aware that it will auto scroll upon hitting a controller - but sometimes I’m not using a controller. Side note: Would love to see an official key map for Maschine
The whole thing just seems cramped by today’s standards. Frankly I’m usually using BFD through Cubase so I’m okay with it as is, but recently I was using it stand-alone and in that modality I feel like we can benefit from a more luxurious layout.
