Just Purchased BFD Eco! BFD vs Superior Opinions?

[Abery Clark]

I'm actually impressed for $29. As a drummer who lives in a condo, I have a new DTX Multi 12 (Yamaha). I was considering Superior Drummer. Now I'm looking at BFD2 full version since the Eco version was so cheap. I wish I knew about the limited EZdrummer special at the time. Anyone use both and have preferences?

[Leechlife]

Originally Posted by Abery Clark

I'm actually impressed for $29. As a drummer who lives in a condo, I have a new DTX Multi 12 (Yamaha). I was considering Superior Drummer. Now I'm looking at BFD2 full version since the Eco version was so cheap. I wish I knew about the limited EZdrummer special at the time. Anyone use both and have preferences?

Not the answer ur looking for, but I can only speak for Ni studio drummer, abbey road drums, BFD2, and now steven slates 3.5 & 4.0 and drumasonic

What made u pick EZdrummer or superior as the only alternative? - there are a few more.

I own and love bfd2 (there got 64 beta going at the moment) and steven slate drums 4 just hit a nerve as well, and besides the hihats (which aren't better in other drums libs) this lib is really one of the best.

bfd2 I would not want to miss either: the drums feel just right and the roominess is awesome. I think as a drummer u love bdf2 and as mixing engineer u pick ssd4, ... imho

Ni drums (as in studio drums and Abbey road once) sit somewhere in the middle ( I just trialed them quite a bit today and yesterday to compare to the new ssd4 ).

all of those libs are soundsvise very good, though the usage might differ and very much depends on ur requirements.


cheers

[Abery Clark]

I was looking at Superior based on what I've read on various forums. I only have the free version of NI Kontackt player, which will play the NI drums. BFD seems like a good fit because other sample makers produce BFD capable kits (example: sonic Reality Neil Peart kit). I really only need a few basic kits and then I adjust to my taste in plug in or DAW (logic).

So now I have Sampletank 2 with some nice kits. All the Apple Logic/Garageband/EEXS24 kits (a few good processed kits), BFD Eco and the drums on Demand samples. I can load the Drums on Demand into the EXS24.

Oh yes, I just downloaded a collection of Yamaha Acoustic kits into the DTX unit which sound outstanding. However, I can only record them as a single track (or stereo pair).

[AcoosticZoo]

My vote's to go with Superior Drummer. I've tried ECO didn't really like how it triggered in terms of velocity matching with an electronic kit (Roland TD-20).

Regards
Josef Horhay
Mixing Engineer
www.acoosticzoo.com

[anna_britbass88]

I can't decide either, had BFD 1.5 and it was great, so I can upgrade @ a discount - but why bother when Steven Slate Drums 4.0 EX is only $99?

anyone use EX?

[ivansc]

about the only Drum Romplers I don't have are Addictive Drums and Jamstix, neither of which I liked in demo.

EZD and Superior are my go-to's although I really like my early explorations with the very new Steven Slate Drums 4 EX.

I also got the $29 BFD, having played around with the free version that came with my Alesis trigger I/O years ago.

For electronic drummery it has to be Battery 3, but for acoustic drums I don't think you can have too many paints in your palette if most of what you do is acoustic drum type music.

I own Kontakt 4 and Steven Slate Drums 3.5 x which is a LOT more hassle to set up than the new version, which doesn't use Kontakt.

Also have experience with Sonars built in Studio Drummer 2.0 and several other smaller romplers.

Love Splitstix, which saved me buying the Americana and Jazz EZXs for EZD.
For the time being......

Before you buy anything else, sit down and decide exactly what you will be using acoustic drums for and then download a few demo versions and have a play.

Anna: I already had EX 3.5 so the new version cost me a measly $49.
what's not to like?

There seem to be a few negative rumours floating around but thus far I MUCH prefer the new interface and it doesnt seem to be a ram hog like some of the beta testers were saying.
Frankly it is worth the money just for the new playing engine and user interface.
Waiting to see what comes along in the way of a user manual and all the promised extra bits like more grooves, etc., but thus far I like it very much.

Had it running the same midi drum track as EZD Superior 2 and Splitsticks all at once so far and the total memory and cpu load on my AMD Phenom II 6 core with 8gb is minimal. 200mb of ram and about 5% cpu for the lot plus a couple of other tracks with VST FX added.

[gmontano]

I also have most of the drum packages (BFD2, SD 2.3, SSD 4.0, Abbey Roads 60,70s,80s, Modern, OWD Gold, Sonic Reality stuff, etc.) and use a Yamaha DTX 900.

BFD2 and SD 2.3 both play great with edrums. Most acknowledge that SD 2.3 performs a tad better in the hihat department because it loads its samples to ram and can change the sample as the hihat is closing.

I much prefer the BFD2 interface to the SD 2.0. For me, its much easier to build and use kits versus the SD 2.0 Xdrum feature.

The platinum samples libraries available for BFD2 put it over the top for me as the Andy Johns, Evil Drums (also available for SD 2.0) and Jim Scott packs are great.

I havent had a chance to put SSD 4.0 through its paces yet.

I don't think you can make a wrong choice as BFD 2 and SD 2 are ultimately both very good.

[Cover'd]

Some like one, some like another... so when it comes to subjectivity, there's no wrong or no right ultimately

However, this:

Originally Posted by gmontano

I don't think you can make a wrong choice as BFD 2 and SD 2 are ultimately both very good.

is fair comment

I absolutely love Superior, have a few of their expansions added on and have no reason to look elsewhere, but also know that others are equally happy with BFD

Keep an eye out for bundles and jump in is my advice

[Abery Clark]

I never heard of Steven Slate Drums. I'll check it out. There are plenty of electronic kits already in Logic, Sampletank, etc. The music I make is instrumental incidental music (think 60 sec CSi lab scenes that are in every episode).

[Saltcreek]

I have a TD-20 Kit and I really like the BFD2 drums, especially the Andy Johns Expansion kit. The drums have a slightly cleaner sound to me than the Superior drums. I would like to hear Andy Johns Drums on Superior to do a comparison.

I like the Superior interface better. I think the Cymbals in Superior are also a little better.

I gave up on the Roland VH12 hi-hat and just bought some Zildjian hat cymbals. I could never get the Roland hats to trigger correctly. The hi-hat is such an important part of the kit and has too many nuances to trigger with software. I think its better to get a good mic and record the hi-hat audio. There is more noise in the room now but its worth it.

I tried the Zildjian Gen16 cymbals but had to return them. The sound was too bright and bothered my ears. I tried to EQ and shape the sound but I found it too big a problem.

my 2 cents...

[thenoodle]

I bought bfd 1.5 a bunch of years ago + expansions and it's still pretty cool. I keep meaning to move up to bfd2 but just never do.

[samicide]

I have BFD2 and Superior 2, battery, stylus rmx etc etc but I started off with BFD1.

for me personally I've lost a bit of faith in BFD2 and fxpansion. It seems like it's in perpetual beta. BFD used to be their flagship product but ever since they started making synths and guru/geist and all that, I feel that bfd fell behind some of the competition, specifically toontrack. Toontrack is a lot easier to work with and mix, it sounds a lot more polished, and they're constantly coming out with nice new content. They have good sound designers. plus, superior2 seems practically bug free and is very easy on resources. I still like bfd2 and I would probably still update to 3 someday but for me personally my mixes sound better since I've been using superior. BFD does sound more raw and real to me though, but due to my inadequate mixing skills I can't get it to sound as polished and shiny as superior, it's almost too real for my needs, and I can actually play drums. If I was playing pads and performing I'd probably use bfd more but since I'm just trying to make some songs by myself I always use superior now.

on my youtube page there's a song called 'prove it' and that's bfd, even though in the video I'm pretending to play a real drum kit, people think it's real drums in the song so I guess that's a testament to how real bfd can sound. If I was better at mixing i would probably prefer bfd but since I'm not it's toontrack all day.

just my opinion..

[ryst]

I think Superior Drummer is the best of the bunch overall. Addictive Drums is great too. But if I had to choose between BFD and Superior...Superior by far.

[anna_britbass88]

thanks so much all of you!

[JohnRick]

I'm in the same seat as gmontano, having a YAMAHA DTX900 triggering various libraries.
My main one's are Superior Drummer 2.3, SSD 3.5, OWD Gold and Addictive Drums 1.5.
I have tried BFD before but never took to it. The sounds and interface did not appeal to me at all. 9 times out of ten I go with Superior Drummer. Then it's a split between Addictive and SSD actually. The cymbals in SSD 3.5 are quite poor, and the sound when doing fast 128ths does not seem that natural as they can do on Superior. Hopefully that one changed with SSD 4.0.

[ivansc]

JonRick Those cymbals sound like cymbals now.

Happy bunny here.

[skiltrip]

I had BFD 1.5 or whatever it was. Hated it. Hated the sounds, hated the interface. I paid good money for it and never actually used the drums on a single song.

Then I moved on to Toontrack and Superior Drummer. Man, that Superior Drummer interface is IT. I LOVE it. But I'm not crazy about the Toontrack sound. Though Metal Foundry is quite workable for most styles of rock. Just needs some elbow grease.

Then I just got Steven Slate 4.0. The sounds are awesome. Best I've ever used (my opinion of course). But the new player leaves a LOT to be desired. If I could put the Slate library into Superior Drummer 2.0, I'd be in heaven.

Slate should just go balls out and rip off the Superior interface as close as possible without getting sued. Because Toontrack has done everything right with that plugin.

If we're only talking BFD and Superior, I'd go with Superior in a heartbeat. Though I've never experienced BFD2, but I don't care to either based on my past experience with FXpansion drum products.

[Dean Roddey]

I think a constant problem with these discussions is that you have to understand that we live in a world where people don't want to have to actually learn anything, so any drum synth that has pre-processed drums that they can just load a kit, set up a repetitive beat and go will probably be preferred. BFD/BFD2 is not that kind of tool. The drums are not pre-processed, they are just raw recorded drums, which you can process in any way you like. It's very flexible and the results can be very realistic because of that, but you do actually have to learn to process drums just as you would if you were recording them yourself. 'All' it's done for you is good mic'ing of a kit in a really nice room.

So a lot of the comments you read won't have anything to do with the actual quality of the products, but that some people loaded up BFD, heard unprocessed drums and thought it sounded horrible. They they grabbed one that had completely pre-processed drums and thought it was better. But ultimately the former type of thing is much more flexible because you can swizzle them into any form you want, and any given rawly recorded drum kit can sound a lot of different ways depending on EQ and relative balances.

BFD2 adds some things that personally I'd have just left out, but you don't need to use them, e.g. it's own internal EQ, overdrive, compression, etc... I just turn all that stuff off. But, on the positive side, it supports more articulations and the internal mixer can be a very nice CPU saving benefit. I.e. instead of running both snares, three toms, both kicks, and three cymbal direct mics out separately just to do balance, just balance them on the internal and send out one output to the DAW for each, so two mono and two stereo outputs instead of 10 mono. It cuts down considerably on overhead.

* I've never used the 'eco' version, so maybe it differs from the full product in some important respect, I dunno.

[skiltrip]

Originally Posted by Dean Roddey

I think a constant problem with these discussions is that you have to understand that we live in a world where people don't want to have to actually learn anything, so any drum synth that has pre-processed drums that they can just load a kit, set up a repetitive beat and go will probably be preferred. BFD/BFD2 is not that kind of tool. The drums are not pre-processed, they are just raw recorded drums, which you can process in any way you like. It's very flexible and the results can be very realistic because of that, but you do actually have to learn to process drums just as you would if you were recording them yourself. 'All' it's done for you is good mic'ing of a kit in a really nice room.

So a lot of the comments you read won't have anything to do with the actual quality of the products, but that some people loaded up BFD, heard unprocessed drums and thought it sounded horrible. They they grabbed one that had completely pre-processed drums and thought it was better. But ultimately the former type of thing is much more flexible because you can swizzle them into any form you want, and any given rawly recorded drum kit can sound of different ways depending on EQ and relative balances.

A fair assessment. And describes my experience years ago when first getting BFD. At the time, I didn't know where to start with making raw drum samples sound good in a mix.

So for me, personally, Superior Drummer and Steven Slate Drums have been a better product.

I think most people that know how to mix real drums, must record real drums in the first place, and therefore have access to recording real drums, and have less need for a drum VI. Drum VIs are a godsend to those who don't have a place to record drums, and because of it have little to no experience mixing real drums. I'm included in that lot.

But to each their own. It's nice we have a wide array of product to choose from.

[Dean Roddey]

The thing is, if you use something like BFD, when the time comes, you WILL know how to mix real drums or pretty dang close to it, as long as you don't use any of the 'cheater' functions that BFD provides, which I don't.

When I first started, mixing the drums was the hardest thing. But, because BFD allows me to experiment so easily with a variety of kits, I'm now actually a pretty good drum mixer, and have started to learn this type of kit works good for this, that kind for that, how to use the ambience channels to place the kit front to back, how to use minimal processing to get the right sound, how to select a good snare and cymbals for the song, etc... It's become one of the easier parts of the process.

I'd still have to learn all the mic'ing issues when I can finally move to a real kit, but I'll still be a long way ahead.

[skiltrip]

Originally Posted by Dean Roddey

The thing is, if you use something like BFD, when the time comes, you WILL know how to mix real drums or pretty dang close to it, as long as you don't use any of the 'cheater' functions that BFD provides, which I don't.

When I first started, mixing the drums was the hardest thing. But, because BFD allows me to experiment so easily with a variety of kits, I'm now actually a pretty good drum mixer, and have started to learn this type of kit works good for this, that kind for that, how to use the ambience channels to place the kit front to back, how to use minimal processing to get the right sound, how to select a good snare and cymbals for the song, etc... It's become one of the easier parts of the process.

I'd still have to learn all the mic'ing issues when I can finally move to a real kit, but I'll still be a long way ahead.

You're a stronger man than me! Lol.

Sent from my LG-VM670 using Gearslutz.com

[Dean Roddey]

It's respect for music, not to be snooty about it. Unlike the conventional wisdom today, I don't think that music made without effort is generally very worthy. If you aren't willing to put in the time to become good as a musician (and/or as an engineer if you are going to do that part of your own music), then the music is probably likely to reflect that. People complain about the big bad studios and how they locked people out of the process, but the up side of that was that you had to have put in the work before you got the chance, and the music was the better for it really.

Today people seem to put in almost no effort. They seem to think it's all about just putting out songs with the least amount of work required, instead of working hard to be a musician and engineer, and they wonder why they get a few listens on Soundcloud and no more. How much passion can it have if you haven't lost any blood in the process?

[henge]

Originally Posted by Dean Roddey

I think a constant problem with these discussions is that you have to understand that we live in a world where people don't want to have to actually learn anything, so any drum synth that has pre-processed drums that they can just load a kit, set up a repetitive beat and go will probably be preferred. BFD/BFD2 is not that kind of tool. The drums are not pre-processed, they are just raw recorded drums, which you can process in any way you like. It's very flexible and the results can be very realistic because of that, but you do actually have to learn to process drums just as you would if you were recording them yourself. 'All' it's done for you is good mic'ing of a kit in a really nice room.

So a lot of the comments you read won't have anything to do with the actual quality of the products, but that some people loaded up BFD, heard unprocessed drums and thought it sounded horrible. They they grabbed one that had completely pre-processed drums and thought it was better. But ultimately the former type of thing is much more flexible because you can swizzle them into any form you want, and any given rawly recorded drum kit can sound a lot of different ways depending on EQ and relative balances.

BFD2 adds some things that personally I'd have just left out, but you don't need to use them, e.g. it's own internal EQ, overdrive, compression, etc... I just turn all that stuff off. But, on the positive side, it supports more articulations and the internal mixer can be a very nice CPU saving benefit. I.e. instead of running both snares, three toms, both kicks, and three cymbal direct mics out separately just to do balance, just balance them on the internal and send out one output to the DAW for each, so two mono and two stereo outputs instead of 10 mono. It cuts down considerably on overhead.

* I've never used the 'eco' version, so maybe it differs from the full product in some important respect, I dunno.

Could not have said it better myself.BFD2's learning curve is steeper but it's more than worth it.

[Mike P]

Originally Posted by henge

Could not have said it better myself.BFD2's learning curve is steeper but it's more than worth it.

BFD's learning curve is not steeper. Not by a long shot.

IMO, BFD sucks. Not only are they constantly in beta, their drum samples pale in comparison to Toontrack's samples. Furthermore, BFD offers less velocity hits, mic positions and mics.

I own every sample library for Superior along with Evil Drums. I've never had a crash or single issue, dating back to DFHS, yet BFD was a total nightmare.

I'd never recommend BFD to anyone.

[Dean Roddey]

Everyone has issues with this or that piece of software. It's the nature of the beast with DAWs. You are loading random pieces of third party software together into the same process space. They all likely have some bugs. Get the right combination together and they blow up. BFD (1&2) has been totally solid for me, other than the initial version of 2, which is not uncommon with any software for the first version of a major release to be a little tweaky.

So it likely has nothing to do with BFD (that isn't equally applicable to any other drum synth package), just the luck of the draw relative to what DAW and what other plugins and such you are using. I've had significant problems with things that other people never have an issue with.

BTW, the expansion packs have very high velocity layer kits, so maybe you are going by the smaller ones that ship with it? And of course you also have to choose to install the higher quality kits as well, since they let you choose a few different levels for disc/memory usage purposes. I've got lots of snares and hihats with full 127 layers, and others almost full. Plenty of kicks that have from 80 to 90 or so. Toms and cymbals tend to have fewer than that.

[Mike P]

Originally Posted by Dean Roddey

Everyone has issues with this or that piece of software. It's the nature of the beast with DAWs.

I completely disagree. I've used scores of third party plugins in the past 15 years that never made a single peep or cause a single issue.

Originally Posted by Dean Roddey

BFD (1&2) has been totally solid for me, other than the initial version of 2, which is not uncommon with any software for the first version of a major release to be a little tweaky.

My issues were so bad that I was corresponding with the president of the company and they had no solution.

As others have mentioned, it's always in beta and it's always been buggy.

Originally Posted by Dean Roddey

So it likely has nothing to do with BFD (that isn't equally applicable to any other drum synth package), just the luck of the draw relative to what DAW and what other plugins and such you are using. I've had significant problems with things that other people never have an issue with.

That's quite odd, indeed.

Originally Posted by Dean Roddey

So it likely has nothing to do with BFD (that BTW, the expansion packs have very high velocity layer kits, so maybe you are going by the smaller ones that ship with it? And of course you also have to choose to install the higher quality kits as well, since they let you choose a few different levels for disc/memory usage purposes. I've got lots of snares and hihats with full 127 layers, and others almost full. Plenty of kicks that have from 80 to 90 or so. Toms and cymbals tend to have fewer than that.

First off, they don't have 127 hits, nor do they have 80 or 90 hits. Secondly, the "better" expansion packs aren't created by BFD: They're created by an entirely different company that offers compatibility with BFD. Thirdly, you can ask Rail Jon yourself if you don't believe me: There are more microphones, mic positions and tweakability in Superior than BFD.

BFD is not nearly as deep, nor does the company release drum kits every 18-24 months recorded by top producers in the world.

Once again, I'd never recommend BFD to someone, unless I didn't like them, I suppose.

[Dean Roddey]

I guarantee you it's in the nature of DAWs. I know this for a fact as a software engineer. It's all luck, and almost all complex plugins will have bugs under some usage conditions. They just are generally benign until you put them in combination with the right other things, or use the plugin in the right way, then the wierdness starts. DAWs have to load plugins into their own address space, so the DAW and all of the plugins are sharing the same memory. When one of them has a memory error, and overwrites some bit of memory it shouldn't, the odds are reasonable that it won't cause any obvious problem. But sometimes it does. Sometimes it may change according to what order things are loaded. Sometimes the bug is actually in the DAW and will only whack certain plugs. It's a crap shoot because the DAW cannot protect itself from the plugins, and the plugins cannot protect themselves from the DAW or each other. It's sort of a messy situation.

As to the number of hits, either BFD is outright lying it or does. You can see the hit layers being reported, and the expansion packs have snares and hihats that report 127 layers. You do have to install the expansion packs in high quality mode to get them. Are you claiming that they lie about the number of layers involved?

Each expansion pack kit is about 5GB of data. If you assume that the average hit length is, say, 3 seconds at 44.1K/24 bit, then 5GB would be enough for about 12,600 such hits. The equivalent 14 mono channels (in whatever mono/stereo combinations they would come in) would be about 900 apiece at that rate, so that leaves a pretty good bit of fudge factor for longer hit samples.

If you assumed an average length of 5 seconds, that would be enough for 7560 such samples, which would be 540 of them spread across 14 mono channel's worth.

So it doesn't seem crazy to me that a 5GB kit would include 127 layer kit pieces.

[Mike P]

Originally Posted by Dean Roddey

I guarantee you it's in the nature of DAWs. I know this for a fact as a software engineer. It's all luck, and almost all complex plugins will have bugs under some usage conditions. They just are generally benign until you put them in combination with the right other things, or use the plugin in the right way, then the wierdness starts. DAWs have to load plugins into their own address space, so the DAW and all of the plugins are sharing the same memory. When one of them has a memory error, and overwrites some bit of memory it shouldn't, the odds are reasonable that it won't cause any obvious problem. But sometimes it does. Sometimes it may change according to what order things are loaded. Sometimes the bug is actually in the DAW and will only whack certain plugs. It's a crap shoot because the DAW cannot protect itself from the plugins, and the plugins cannot protect themselves from the DAW or each other. It's sort of a messy situation.

I'm sorry but I've never had an issue with Toontrack, Waves, PSP, Universal Audio, Nomad Factory and on and on and on.

Do you know what 3rd party plug in company I have had issues with? Fxpansion. BFD.

Originally Posted by Dean Roddey

As to the number of hits, either BFD is outright lying it or does. You can see the hit layers being reported, and the expansion packs have snares and hihats that report 127 layers. You do have to install the expansion packs in high quality mode to get them. Are you claiming that they lie about the number of layers involved?

So it doesn't seem crazy to me that a 5GB kit would include 127 layer kit pieces.

The hyper-detailed 55GB library features sounds with multiple articulations recorded with up to 96 velocity layers to open up new worlds of rhythmic expression

FXpansion - BFD2

I've been told that most of their kits have no more than 35 velocity layers. Now, is that enough to create realistic drums? Well, it should be, if they're recorded properly and not just differences in volume as opposed to difference in hits.

But does 35 = 127? No.

Furthermore, BFD isn't 64 bit so right there, it's off the list. As soon as Waves version 9 is released, I'll be working strictly in a 64 bit environment, as will most people.

[Dean Roddey]

I don't think that's true. There clearly appear to be more than 35 layers on the hats and snares of the expansion pack kits. OF course there are two to three toms and three cymbals in every kit, and they have lower layer counts and collectively would represent the bulk of the drums. But they are also the less important ones in terms of having more velocity layers.

If you use BFD1, it shows you the name of the layer wav you are getting when you use the mouse click kit piece preview thing, and it shows lots more layers than that for the expansion pack snares and hihats. It takes a very small move to go pixel by piexl in the hit test area, but on the better hihats I could see almost every possible layer wav. Thy seem to often skip some out at the very lowest velocities where it wouldn't much matter.

But if 96 is indeed the max, clearly the nicer snares and hats are that or close to that. And at least one of the hihats I checked seems more than that. This was on BFD1 so it wasn't showing any of the BFD2 kit pieces. BFD2 doesn't seem to have that same layer name display when you preview.

[Mike P]

Originally Posted by Dean Roddey

I don't think that's true. There clearly appear to be more than 35 layers on the hats and snares of the expansion pack kits. OF course there are two to three toms and three cymbals in every kit, and they have lower layer counts and collectively would represent the bulk of the drums. But they are also the less important ones in terms of having more velocity layers.

If you use BFD1, it shows you the name of the layer wav you are getting when you use the mouse click kit piece preview thing, and it shows lots more layers than that for the expansion pack snares and hihats. It takes a very small move to go pixel by piexl in the hit test area, but on the better hihats I could see almost every possible layer wav. Thy seem to often skip some out at the very lowest velocities where it wouldn't much matter.

But if 96 is indeed the max, clearly the nicer snares and hats are that or close to that. And at least one of the hihats I checked seems more than that. This was on BFD1 so it wasn't showing any of the BFD2 kit pieces. BFD2 doesn't seem to have that same layer name display when you preview.

Look Dean, I'm not going to argue with you. You made a statement and I linked you to the website which officially contradicted your statement.

I've been told that most kits don't have more than 35 velocity layers. Believe what you want. The bottom line is that BFD does not work for me and in my opinion, it's not even close to being on the same level as Superior, in any way, shape or form.

The fact that it's not even 64 bit should be a deal breaker for a new buyer, regardless of my opinion. One look at Toontrack's website vs. the BFD site should convince any potential buyer, but again, that's just my opinion.