BFD vrs. Deluxe BFD

[Revelation]

Do the Deluxe version sound more polished meaning there is less to work needed to get that polished sound, or do they just sound different? I was told it is a smaller room and a little EQ was done, but it is big enough of a difference that I should look into it, or should I just get the XFL?

[max cooper]

You hafta get BFD no matter what. The others (XFL/Deluxe/8 Bit/Jazz & Funk) are expansion packs.

It's definitely a smaller room. Eldorado is a big room. That's where BFD and XFL were recorded.

BFD basically comes up in your DAW the way drum tracks would. mono tracks with close mics and stereo tracks with room/overhead/pzm mics.

I think the only processing is a touch of compression on the PZM's.

BFD is great. It sounds like a bunch of mic'd up drumkits. The rub for some people is that drums on records don't sound like mic'd up drumkits as they've been heavily processed in one way or another.

[Revelation]

I have the BFD's already. Bascially what I do to get a polished sound is group the snare and toms and put a UAD Fairchild to dame the attacks. Then I EQ the snare top and bottom, and kick. But then do you EQ the room, and overhead outputs? Do you add compression on the overall overhead and room as well? I assume if so, the settings are the same?

I am bascially looking to get that nice polished sound, and I am not sure if the Deluxe will be much easier to work with to get there. If not the XFL may be a better option for me.

[ptbarnum]

definitely go with deluxe if you're doing rock. it's my favorite expansion of the whole lot.
extremely articulate.
i think you'll need to do some mixing regardless of which pack you choose

[gsilbers]

cymbals are a little more "polished " on the deluxe. and just more options on sounds. different kiks snare etc.

[I <3 The Beatle]

8 bit kit is cool too, just turn the PZM's down....WAY DOWN

[Revelation]

I wish the guys at BFD would give us some idea how to polish these mixes. (what is standard in a pro studio) Where you do add compression to give a big snare sound? If you just work with the snare top and bottom, they sound weak and not too impressive. Not really sure as many of us home studio types know how to get that nice polished sound.

How about Xpansion guys coming out with processed drums next. That would be great!

Does the XFL sound any more polished over the regular BFD's or is it just more kits?

[gfx]

The decision to not process was extremely deliberate.

Even when we have added some compression on drums we get complaints.

It is a no win situation for us.

If we dont process , some users complain .

If we do process then a different group of users complain!

Either way we cant win, so we stick with the original paradigm for BFD which is no processing.

Having said that , there is a touch of compression on the pzm channels in BFD original and Delux has some 1176 on the outside kick mic channel.

Other than that we have avoided it.

Also there is an argument that when it comes to compression single hits do not respond in same way as a played drum the compressor has time to fully recover from the previous hit, so it doesnt quite sound the same as a compressed kick as part of a mix.

We are not a large company and videos that offer any kind of quality content are very expensive and take a long time to produce. We just dont have the man power to undertake this kind of thing.

This issue has been raised on occasion over the last few years but the demand for it hasnt been huge. If we had been getting hundreds and hundreds of requests for it then it is something we would consider.

There is also a wealth of information not only on this forum but on many others on drum mixing.

If you have any specific questions on how to get certain sounds I can certainly try to help.

As for the 8 bit kit , yes turn the PZM's WAY down the PZM channels are very much a 'Husky'ism. Not to all tastes. You can of course use the trims instead if you are mixing 8 bit with normal BFD sounds and wish to retain the PZM channels on the none 8 bit kit sounds.

Cheers

GFX

FXpansion Audio UK Ltd.

[Revelation]

Thanks for your reply, I don't want you to read my thread the wrong way, I am not complaining about the BFD drums being not processed. I think the standard BFD's with the latest verision is brilliant! It's best not to have them processed since you can make them sound the way you want them to.

With that being said, now that you have unprocessed drums, there are many of us with home studios who want that more polished sound. I will be the first to admit most of us are not that good in getting the standard BFD drums to sound the way many pop or rock records sound like. The drums on a Cheryl Crow or current Eric Clapton CD for instance. I can add a little high end, damp the drums, and add a little compression to tame the peaks, but anything past that is a real challenge. I have a big client in my studio who prefers my LM4 II drums by Steinberg over the BFD's. How frustrating it is to use a inferior product that does not have the velocity slider, damping and numerous other features that the BFD has. The LM4 II drums do have a polished sound, but they also sound fake. But he is the client and i have to give him what he wants.

My feeling is now that you have all these great drum programs with wonderful natural soundis, having processed drums would be the next step. That way your company would offer the best of both worlds. Everything I have heard from your company has been first rate, no short cuts, and I can tell you take pride in your work. I liked the Stylus processing sound, but your drum grooves, fills and just everything about your BFD program really stands out to the top for me. You may refer to my review of the BFD's which you may include your web site if you so choose. http://www.studioreviews.com/bfd.htm But anyway, having some tips on getting a polished sound and coming out with a produced drums sound would make me very happy.

Could you explain wha the PZM channel actually is? Room mic's and overheads are pretty self explanatory, but the PZM is almost like working with the reverb in the room. Understanding this would help being able to work with it. I guess I will have to go to Sound on Sound magazine and other places on the net to understand how you compress or work with overhead mic's and room mic's a little more.

[proxy]

Thank you for not processing them!

Unprocessed it is more like a tool. I personally, don't want it done for me, and like the flexibility.

[gfx]

Dont worry, I didnt see it as a 'complaint'

As for the PZM's these are just another 2nd of room mics.

'Pressure zone microphones'

In 8 bit kit the PZM channels are used for alternate processing of the sounds for example distorted or weird microphones.

Cheers

GFX

FXpansion Audio UK Ltd.

[Revelation]

Here is a great article on mixing with drums. I have a feeling that with the real sound of a kit on the BFD we could use similar things mentioned in the article.
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb0...es/drummix.asp

[Anonymatt]

I've found that getting polished rock sounds with BFD is easy. Way easier than with conventionally-recorded tracks. Once the programming sounds okay, you're totally golden.

Most modern rock mixers compress and EQ the snot out of individual drum components, then buss those components together where they under go even more compression and equalization. Working ITB with any ol' plugins, you can get to the same neighborhood.

That said, given the original BFD kits, I've found that the DW kit yields the quickest, easiest results for generic rock music. All of the kit pieces do kinda exactly what you want them to do when compression is applied. They all sit down and stand up in the right spots with the correct prompting.

[pour the cure]

I can see both sides. Even as a newbie, however, I still appreciate the fact that the samples are not processed. Maybe right now my mixes won't sound as good, but down the line I'll have samples to grow with.

But, someone (FXPansion ?) should write a short book (not 'manual style') and include tips/tricks on getting the best sounds out of BFD's samples.

Include 'presets' to start from, suggest plugs that work well, etc. This (at least to me, who is a beginner) would be worth its weight in gold. Please?

[mayur_FX]

Revelation - yes this is exactly the point. In fact, you have to do a lot less annoying stuff (like gating bleed on toms for example) and can concentrate on shaping your drums.

You also have to bear in mind that a lot of modern production styles use things like layering/drum-replacement in addition to real drum-tracking.

Pour the cure - of course, this is a nice idea and we have considered it. However, it is quite a large undertaking and it's hard to find the time to do this when you are writing and supporting software. There is a wealth of free info on the net anyway... As has already been said, pretty much any advice applicable to conventionally tracked drums can also be applied to BFD.

[max cooper]

Originally Posted by Revelation

Here is a great article on mixing with drums. I have a feeling that with the real sound of a kit on the BFD we could use similar things mentioned in the article.
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb0...es/drummix.asp

In fact, I've come up with a few different techniques and tricks while messing with BFD that have worked well with mixing drumkits.

It's fairly interchangeable.

The one thing that seems pretty different is the way the drums are weighted thru the U87's if you have all the trims at default. In BFD, thru the U87's the snare is a lot louder than it usually is relative to the rest of the kit than when I put up an 87.

fortunately the trim controls allow for some adjustment.

[DAWgEAR]

Multiple posts.

[DAWgEAR]

Multiple posts.

[DAWgEAR]

Originally Posted by gfx

We are not a large company and videos that offer any kind of quality content are very expensive and take a long time to produce. We just dont have the man power to undertake this kind of thing.

This issue has been raised on occasion over the last few years but the demand for it hasnt been huge. If we had been getting hundreds and hundreds of requests for it then it is something we would consider.

A DVD would certainly be nice, but if it is prohibitively costly -- and I can understand how it would be -- how about a written tutorial and some audio links at your web site? Surely that wouldn't take too long ... I mean you are the folks that know the product better than anyone else.

Even some general tips about mixing drums for different styles and genres. Tips on programming drums? Downloadable plug in presets or screenshots for users of Waves, UAD-1, URS, Powercore, or other popular plugin packages?

Originally Posted by gfx

There is also a wealth of information not only on this forum but on many others on drum mixing.

I have read every article and purchased every book (not many) on drum mixing and arranging that I have been able to find. I've used BFD for 2 years and you would think that, by pure dumb luck, I would have discovered the secret, but I haven't. I'm still missing something ... there are 4 logical possibilities:

1. There is still some key piece of info that I have yet to discover and probably won't discover working ITB on my own
2. I unconditionally suck at mixing drums (quite possible)
3. I am using the wrong raw ingredients/samples for the sound I have in my mind and no amount of gear or skill will get me there ... kind of like making a Strat sound like a Les Paul, it can't really be done. Maybe BFD's samples are not compatible with my sonic vision and preferences ...
4. I must convince my wife that i need even more gear (this is gearslutz, after all)

I'm starting to believe 3.

Originally Posted by gfx

If you have any specific questions on how to get certain sounds I can certainly try to help.

Thanks for offering. I might just take you up on that.

[Methlab]

i really think you have to know how to mix drums well to get BFD to sound good. I spent a ton of time in the studio watching other mix drums and learned that way. It applied to BFD. Wehn i first got BFD, I couldnt mix it either, but now I am happy with the drum sound.

I have posted a lot of tips on this topic too because I love this program..but here are some again:

upgrade to ultra..use the bleed to primary direct function, if you can not find this, you need to spend more time in BFD's GUI and look around for it and learn how BFD works. This function will gate every drum for you and will save you a ton of time.

if you do rock, the deluxe has the best snares. these snares will sound great with no drumagog under them.

use the top mics only on snare 1. on snare 2,use the bottoms maybe a little,. but focus mainly on just using top mics.

dampen the snare so there is not a ton of ring in it..this is done in ultra using the knobs that were added in the upgrade.

compress your room mics...a great plugin is the SSL talkback comp..use that on your rooms or Oheads and to get a nice pump going.

use parallel compression

EQ the snares right..cut 200 or so out of the kick and boost that in the snare..boost 8k..**** with it..treat it like a real kit.


compress, then EQ then parallel comp and then mix through a 2 buss compressor.

use tape warming plugins..big difference here. i use Voxengo's on the kick and snare and put them in their respective groups at the end of the chain.

i hope this helps.

[Anonymatt]

Originally Posted by Methlab

compress your room mics...a great plugin is the SSL talkback comp..use that on your rooms or Oheads and to get a nice pump going.

Everything Meth said is true. BFD's strongest element is the room sound. As long as you can work it into the context of your mix, a little bit of compressed room can make BFD go from "fake to fab".

The SSL talkback comp loves the room at Eldorado. So does VintageWarmer, the Sonalksis SV-315, and the rest of their friends. Even the L1 or L2 can give ridiculous results.

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by max cooper

You hafta get BFD no matter what. The others (XFL/Deluxe/8 Bit/Jazz & Funk) are expansion packs.

It's definitely a smaller room. Eldorado is a big room. That's where BFD and XFL were recorded.

BFD basically comes up in your DAW the way drum tracks would. mono tracks with close mics and stereo tracks with room/overhead/pzm mics.

I think the only processing is a touch of compression on the PZM's.

BFD is great. It sounds like a bunch of mic'd up drumkits. The rub for some people is that drums on records don't sound like mic'd up drumkits as they've been heavily processed in one way or another.

I think my biggest disappointment with BFD (it's not huge but it's real) is the miking style/sound of the room. 15 or 20 years or so ago, I would have loved it... it was the sound I was going for then with drum mikings/mixes when I was still working out in the world ... but the amount of room in the samples makes them somewhat inflexible... it always sounds like BFD to me. I recognize BFD in OP's recordings... and that's always an uncomfortable moment when you have an investment in something you thought would give you the flexibility to sound (you should pardon the expression) unique...

I'm trying not to let Methalabs "buy the deluxe" advice get to me, here... I'm not spending on any more gear the rest of this year. Period.

I swear.

[gfx]

Ok heres a few random thoughts on how to use BFD in some perhaps not so obvious ways.

In no particular order.

For that drum replaced sound , try layering a 2nd snare into snare 2 slot , link that using the snare 1 link piece menu.

In the advanced keymap page set its velocity low and high limits to 127 which will force snare 2 to only ever play the loudest sample.

Turn velocity randomisation of and velocity to amplitude to +100 so that it still scales with volume.

Now whenever u play snare 1 you will get a triggered sample effect.

As already mentioned the bleed control plays an important part. You have full control in the output routing editor of which drums have which bleed and which dont , you can also send the bleed to the direct mic channel which can have a great effect when you compress and Eq it.

For more realisitic rolls , again the keymap page assign a 2nd key to the snare and play the rolls from a keyboard, or assign the same snare to a seperate kit piece slot and use 2 keys to trigger 2 samples.

How about some killer kicks????

Load a 2nd kick drum into kick 2 slot , set it to trigger from kick 1 as before , now mix the outside mic of the 2nd kick in with the first , perhaps add some detune. Boom boom huge kicks with thuderous low end......

You can do the same with snares I like to mix a 2nd snare in top mic only with lots of dampling applied.

Also try in the advanced keymapper setting velocity to damping. This can help change the way the drum sits .

Choosing the right kit pieces is paramount to getting the right sound , if you want a tight kick sound , start with a tighter sound kick , I know that sounds obvious but.....

The master dynamics trim control can do great things for example, program the drums as normal , then assign a controller to it , and pull the master velocity back a bit and keep that setting for the verse , when you hit the chorus , push the velocity back up to maxmum to give the drums more energy in the chourus... I think you get the idea. Want your drums to sound all mellow at the touch of a bottom? Pull this right down , its amazing the different feel you get from the drums at much lower velocities......

When it comes to Eq BFD sounds respond in much the same way as a normal drum , so the same types of Eq curves work well. For example scooping the mids on kicks helps to make then sit in the mix. Touch of cut in the mids on the snares, maybe some low end boost and a touch og top. Hi pass's on the hats and overheads etc.... Toms particularly like being damped using the damping controls. They are very resonant and can feel to 'long'. Some mid cut again can work wonders.

As for compression again similiar techniques to real drums but BFD can need a bit more than a real kit simply because you dont have the mass of resonances present from a real kit. Parallel compression works well , and dont be afraid of the room especially in lighter tracks or rock ,it responds well to compression and can really make the drums 'RAWK' ;)

To make the cymbals sit a bit better try using less direct mic signal and more from the overheads and room. These will make them spread a bit better and sit more realisitically. For the ride cymbal I like to have more direct and less room to give it more definition.

When it comes to programming its a very different matter , its a difficult subject to try to tackle on a forum. However , even if the grooves in BFD are not your cup of tea, they are worth looking at as midi in your host sequencer simply because they are unquantised and played by a real drummer , so you can see where the hits push and pull on the grid and also the differing velocity's being used.

Also dont underestimate the potential in some of these smaller pad controllers like the trigger finger the pad control ot mpd24 etc. A much better way to program the drums than the mouse or a keyboard. Fun as well!

Anywho I hope theres some useful ideas there to go with the good one put forward already.

Please feel free to ask any questions.

Cheers

GFX

FXpansion Audio UK Ltd

[narco]

thanks gfx!

some ideas I hadn't thought of there.

I much prefer the delux bfd pack, mostly because of the room sound, I suppose that's just a personal preference

narco

[DAWgEAR]

Gareth: many thanks for that reply!

I hope that you folks put something like that up at the Fxpansion web site in the form of a Drum Mixing FAQ or tutorial. I think many folks beyond those reading this thread could benefit.

I have an additional question concerning the hihat. Before I describe my problem, keep in mind that this could be due my inexperience and is not necessarily meant as a criticism of the BFD samples ...

The hihats in BFD pose a challenge for me to get the hihat part to sit in the mix and groove. The main symptom I have noticed is that my hihat parts sound hard, staccato, and in-your- face (for lack of better descriptive terms). Even at low velocity and V2A settings. It almost sounds like the hihat was hit very hard for all of the sample layers, if that makes sense. I can't seem to be able to program or dial in a very delicate and dynamic touch that still pokes out abover the mix.

For example, if I am programming am 8th note hat pattern and what I want is a breathing hihat part such as ONE and TWO and THREE and FOUR, I can't seem to avoid ONE AND TWO AND THREE AND FOUR. For one, it kills the subtley, dynamics, and breathing of the groove and two, I either end up with the hat barely audible if I turn down the fader or velocity, or else sticking out too conspicuously in the mix.

For hard rock, it's not such a problem but for more more sparse and traditional softer rock or country, this is a challenge for me.

My workaround is to assign the hat to two different midi notes and on one of them set the V2A parameter very low ... these would be for the "ands" or off-the-beat 8ths in my example. I also only use the overheads and or room/mics to get a softer hihat sound; the direct and bleed sounds are way too hard.

Also, I use EQ to cut the brashness in the midrange and compression and gating to get some "pump" coinciding with the groove.

I use Cubsae SX 3.1, but alas, no sidechain capability thus far ...

If you could give any more suggestions about alternate things to try or to help me focus the approach I am already using, it would be kindly appreciated.

I own BFD and XFL. Would Deluxe help here? I wish you guys had a demo!

[theblue1]

Just a quick addition to my previous comments which touched on what to me was a minor negative... I just ended up hearing one of my more recent work mixes using BFD and, while there were a few things I need to address in the balance of the drum mix -- I have to say the track has possibly the best ride I've ever gotten out of a drum machine or samples... and better than a lot of the real drums/drummers I've recorded, too...

[narco]

Originally Posted by DAWgEAR

I have an additional question concerning the hihat.

Often when recording drums the traditional way you don't use the high hat mic at all, and it often sounds alot more natural through the other mics anyway, perhaps give that a go

narco

[Revelation]

Originally Posted by gfx

Ok heres a few random thoughts on how to use BFD in some perhaps not so obvious ways.

In no particular order.

For that drum replaced sound , try layering a 2nd snare into snare 2 slot , link that using the snare 1 link piece menu.

In the advanced keymap page set its velocity low and high limits to 127 which will force snare 2 to only ever play the loudest sample.

Turn velocity randomisation of and velocity to amplitude to +100 so that it still scales with volume.

Now whenever u play snare 1 you will get a triggered sample effect.

As already mentioned the bleed control plays an important part. You have full control in the output routing editor of which drums have which bleed and which dont , you can also send the bleed to the direct mic channel which can have a great effect when you compress and Eq it.

For more realisitic rolls , again the keymap page assign a 2nd key to the snare and play the rolls from a keyboard, or assign the same snare to a seperate kit piece slot and use 2 keys to trigger 2 samples.

How about some killer kicks????

Load a 2nd kick d