FXpansion's BFD: Top VSTi?

What is BFD?

BFD is an acoustic drum studio from FXpansion.

Unlike other drum studios, such as Linplug's RMIV, NI's Battery or FXpansion's own DR-008, BFD comes with complete with seven famous name real drum kits, with each drum or cymbal sampled at 46 velocity levels for the most extraordinarily sensitive expression.

It also comes with thousands of professionally produced ready-to-play grooves. And BFD has a mixer like no other.

So what does it sound like?

Like nothing I've ever heard before. It's a stunning instrument! Just have a listen to it

Look at it. Gorgeous and logical.

Rather than list all its features one by one, I'd like to look at how BFD is used and how it measures up on the way (unless you want to hear about installing 3 DVD's worth of data :)

These are the main ways if using BFD:

BFD as a Drum Kit

Let's say you want make up your own groove, whether using a step sequencer or playing a keyboard or controller. Start by loading one of three versions of BFD, the Stereo, the Groups or the All. I'll explain these later. Then load one of the kits. There's a choice of seven kits to begin with.

You get Leedy, Ayotte, LudwigB, Pearl, Lucite, DW and Slingerland kits. Describing the differences between the different kits is too difficult to even begin.

It's like trying to describe the difference between a Strat and a Tele. Possible but pointless, as they are both inhumanly great electric guitars.

Personally, I like the Pearl kit as I like its hard but neat kick sound and its snare seems to work better for me. But since I've never played a Ludwig I enjoy that too because Ringo used to play one (Ringo? The Beatles drummer?)

Loading a kit takes a little while, maybe a minute, as BFD is massive. Each kit is over a gigabyte in size, and the whole BFD programme, kits and all, is over 8 gig, so it comes on 3 DVD's (It's also worth mentioning that mine installed okay across a network as I don't have a DVD player on my main audio PC).

BFD turned out so big that I had to buy another drive. This bigness is a blessing and a curse.

It's a curse when you figure that BFD is going to eat a lot of system resources, and that sooner or later you're going to need some sort of Freeze function.

But the bigness is a blessing when you listen to the sound, which is like no other drum kit I've heard. So consider now: If you don't have a particularly powerful computer, then now is the time to think about getting one.

I think it's fair to say that BFD is a commitment. It costs $329 which is a reasonable price for what's on offer, but three hundred bucks is still a serious purchase. Then you might want to upgrade your PC in some way, with more ram, or like me, another 120gb drive.

But the sound is the reward. A live kit, with explosive toms and unparalleled sensitivity. So having selected a kit, play your groove in your sequencer. BFD responds to the standard midi drum map, but you can customise it easily enough to whatever suits you best.

Now edit your groove. Play with the velocity curves in your editor. Try dramatic velocity curves. Tappy-tap-tappity-tap on ride cymbals starts to take on a whole new meaning.

Same for snare flams. Unparalleled velocity response means more realistic sounding drum playing. While we're on the subject of snares, let's say the snare you've selected isn't quite right for what you want.

Let's load another.

There are another eight additional snares you can select, from a 1920s wooden snare, to a 1957 Buddy Rich Classic, to a modern brass piccolo style snare.

This is absolutely spoiling us for choice.

Same for kicks: A modern Lucite kick or a 1940s Radio King kick, or six other equally prestigious and great sounding kicks. Ditto toms etc. Choice!

Where some people will look for extra choice is the cymbals. There are 8 additional cymbals to choose from, including a Zildjian 20" High China, a 1960s Zildjian Thin Crash, a Zildjian 18" A-Series Rock Crash, and so on. Personally I find this ample, but I know others will want more, as cymbals are one of those things people do get greedy for :)

But there are more BFD kits and extras planned for later release, so this isn't a big worry for now. What you'll notice more than anything else is that your velocity mapped drum beats will sound different. Much better.

Adding a tom roll will demonstrate this easily. Mega power on tap. While a jazzy swing ride will get you that swishy relaxed cool feeling. The sensitivity and the power comes out in every direction. And you can save your favourite kits separately for later recall.

So much for playing with drums (for now)

Using BFD as a Groove Player

The Groove Player was where I got my biggest surprise with BFD. It now comes with almost 2,000 grooves!

You can see a few of the Groove types above. They cover a wide range of tastes including many different types of rock and hip-hop beats, and endless funk beats, and even jazz and swing beats.

To play a groove you grab one of the groove bundles with your mouse and drop it into Bank A or Bank B, then press the appropriate key, say C3.

Instant groove. Hit C#3 for an instant variation. Play the whole octave. It's compelling. It hits you right here!

These grooves are magic. If you want to understand a particular groove, or change it, you can import it as a midi file into your sequencer for editing, then save under a different name, and put it back into the BFD groove folder. BFD grooves are just midi files, with no special format or tag attached to them.

If you want to improve your own drum programming then studying these grooves is an education in velocity mapping and timing. With each groove bundle comes a suitable set of Fills. Again these are just grabbed with the mouse and dropped into the Fill Bank and triggered from the keyboard.

This feature is very important, as so often it's the fills that are found lacking with groove based systems. Every fourth bar needs some sort of fill no matter how slight. You can never have enough fills.

The first time you play around with the grooves I can almost guarantee that you'll be knocked out. They made me go and buy a new bass guitar sample for jamming with (Wizoo's 434mb Fender Precision Roundwound for $30)

There is so much variety and quality on offer. These are not just your average beatz. No way. This is pro drumming at the touch of a key, with all the interest and expression that a pro can put in. You can use the grooves as starting points for writing a new song, or slap a groove under an existing song for a remix. This is a new world of cool.

There are lots of useful ways you can use grooves too, ranging from simply triggering each groove note by note, or having a full blown autoplaying drum machine which will intelligently play a series of grooves from whatever you've loaded into the Groove Banks, complete with Fills. All from one key press. And there are a variety of different degrees of automation in between.

The full blown autoplay is great for developing new tunes. Hit one key and BFD will play and play, inspiring you to jam along with guitar, synth, bass or whatever you fancy.

You can also import your own midi files as grooves into BFD if you want. No problem. This flexibility in the Groove Player has to be experienced. Importantly, what it does is take BFD from being a top flight drum machine better suited to the expert, to a machine that anyone can play and still get great pro sounds.

So BFD is not just for artful pros, but beginners too, people who can hardly play a note, but want a great sound.

Adding More Expression

Music, any music, can never be sensitive enough. Right? BFD provides unique quantise and randomising options.

Playing around with the two sliders above will add more or less swing to your beats. Then there's the Humanise Velocity function (see lower right of picture)

You can shape this curve by dragging with your mouse to control the variation in velocity and make your groove more interesting or suitable. Adding strength to some beats and underplaying others makes for better music. The Humanise Velocity lets you do this in quite a precise and easy way.

The same thing applies to the Humanise Timing function. Very easy and precise to use, and it will give that extra variation to your beatz. I've seen Humanise options with drum machines before, but BFD's really work, and they're very accessible through the mouse curve.

Humanise that beat!

Using BFD as a Drum Mixer

With the supplied kits and grooves alone, BFD is worth the money. But hold onto your hat. It also comes with a mixer like no other we've ever seen. I've used the word awesome a few times already, so let's use it again.

Awesome mixer.

First off, you can select your mic placements, whether inside or outside the kick, or top and bottom of the snare, or both. Then you can adjust the height of the overhead mics. Then the distance and width of the room mics. And the PZM mic too.

Each time you adjust these you can hear the difference in the room, in the sound. And the on-screen graphic lets you visualise exactly where these mics are situated in your room. This visualising-the-room-and-mics feature might sound toy to some, but I like it.

More importantly, the mixer sliders let you precisely select the combination of direct, overhead, room and PZM mic you prefer. You get the ambient sound levels you want, without the need for reverb. Add a touch more overhead, or a smidgeon extra room ambience. You don't need golden ears to play with this and get it right.

It's the closest thing to recording a full kit in a professional studio I've ever seen. And it's not a gimmick. It really makes a difference. As you would expect.

The mixer, besides offering the usual solo/mute buttons and level/pan knobs, lets you selectively balance your instruments. Like give the kick a more direct punchy sound, while allowing the cymbals to have a more natural lingering room ambience.

It means you may well not need any additional reverb with BFD unless you're looking for something particular. You can also tune each individual instrument in cent degrees, and set its dynamic scaling or velocity response.

Unless you have to have that old mattress behind you when you're playing, you can get the perfect mix. And once you've found the perfect mix, you can save it for use with other projects. The mixer for me is the real heart of BFD. Whatever kit is chosen or grooves selected, the mixer lets you get it right for the song, so it feels it belongs there with the rest of the band.

The next question is how does BFD interface with my existing sequencer's mixer? BFD comes in three versions and offers you a choice.

This matters to me, as I hate VSTIs that just give me stereo outs only and assume I don't need to play with my mixer after the sound has gone through their wonderful machine. I love mixer outs and hate restrictions.

The first version, BFD Stereo, is easier on your system, and gives simple stereo outs. Nice and easy for getting a tune started. And if all you did was slap a comp over the stereo outs it would be quite adequate for a lot of things. BFD Groups sends the Direct, Overhead, Room and PZM lines straight into your mixer for more control.

BFD All, as the name suggests, sends everything into your sequencer's mixer, including each of the different group levels, plus the kick in and out mics, and snare top and bottom mics, plus each of the toms, hats and cymbals. Complete control in your own mixer. Cool for massive gated snares, or flanging hi-hats, or eq'ing kicks. You choose.

 

An Overall Look

BFD is greater than its parts suggest. While any one of the parts is desirable in itself, eg, fantastic kits, great grooves, humanise options, and a realistic mixer, when you take the whole thing into consideration, it has to be a quantum leap in how we perceive drum machines. So much power and flexibility, yet so easy to use.

I already own DR-008, RMIII, SampleTank, Halion, and have used Battery, and I've got some nice rock kits, and so on. But none of these give the perfect kit in the perfect room, and an almost endless supply of pro grooves, or the unique mixer.

None of these have such quite explosive toms. While I'm obviously very happy with BFD, pro drummers I know have remarked on the cymbal tails not being perfect. I guess we're getting into the fussy details here. It's like arguing which guitar strings are best.

For most people, whether beginner or pro, BFD will give a degree of realism and flexibility that hasn't existed before.

The Problems & The Future

There have been problems with BFD. Since its release there have been a number of update fixes, especially with the Mac and DirectX apps.

Half of the problems have been to do with users simply not having enough system resources, while other problems have been bugs that needed fixing. My BFD now runs fine in Cubase SX on a 2.4 PIV with 1gb ram and an Audiophile 24/96.

But because it is a big cpu and everything-else hog, I have to freeze it sometimes, or increase my latency. And I had to buy a new disk (which I needed anyhow). Now BFD can stream separately from my audio tracks, which is a must do. For a lot of VSTIs I simply wouldn't bother with all this fuss in the first place. But BFD is special and the resulting sound is worth it.

As to the future, I think we can expect a few more bug fixes, as some users are still reporting problems. Check out FXpansion's Forum over at K-v-R for the current state of play.

But FXpansion's response has been fast. As soon as there's a problem, they're onto it. And every user has had a reply from one of the programming team. I think with a revolutionary machine like BFD then some of this has to be expected.

And mine now works fine. Looking ahead, we're told that there will be more kits and more grooves on the way. I believe Derik White here from Traxmusic already has some new grooves ready to roll.

This is great. BFD is a very expandable platform. And knowing FXpansion's excellent record for support and updates I don't doubt it will prove true. But personally, BFD already has plenty enough to keep me going. I don't need any new stuff just yet.

Summary

BFD is a must-have if you want a live kit in a live room sound. It's also great for all the grooves that come with it. And the unique mixer lets you recreate the precise room ambience you want.

But you'll need a reasonably powerful system to run it without compromise. And Mac and Direct X users need to check the latest state of play vis-a-vis bugs, though hopefully by the time you're reading this, all will be sorted out.

What are the alternatives to BFD?

Drumkit from Hell springs to mind. It's got massive live kits, it's big and it comes with Kompakt so filtering and mangling is possible. But DFH doesn't have the grooves.

That said, Stylus has 1,000 sampled grooves, and everything in Stylus is pressed from vinyl, with lots of different kicks and snares and such. Both of these have good names.

But neither is like BFD with its unique mixing facilities, or its endless supply of grooves and fills, or expandability. BFD has no actual competition as the whole concept is new. Pro or beginner, you can probably use BFD, today.

Rating

These are based on a scale of 1-4
4 - Outstanding.
3 - Good.
2 - Okay.
1 - Not so good.

No hesitation here in giving BFD a 4 out of 4 for an overall rating, in spite of its system hog nature, or few outstanding bugs.

Value

For value-for-money I give it a 3 out of 4 as it's not cheap, but worth it. Here are lots of demos so you can listen for yourself , and a guided tour.