Fxpansion BFD

BFD is a software acoustic drum module featuring multiple articulations and mic positions, sampled with superior expressive detail. Integrating directly into your sequencer environment, its flexible and intuitive interface allows you unprecedented freedom to build varied and stunningly realistic drum tracks.

Features

• 7 premium vintage and modern drumkits: 9 GB of 24 bit, 44.1 kHz audio recorded with $150,000 worth of microphones, preamps and converters
• Multiple articulations such as tip, shank, closed, half-open and open hihats and snare rims, sidesticks, drags and flams
• Eliminate the ‘machinegun’ effect: up to 46 velocity layers
• Multiple mic channels: mix between direct, overhead, room and PZM mics
• Dampen, tune and adjust the velocity response of the sounds
• Custom disk-streaming playback engine dedicated for multi-channel acoustic drums
• Flexible output routing: stereo, 8-out, 17-out and 34-out plugins provided*
• Trigger BFD with hardware MIDI controllers and MIDI tracks in your sequencer, or use the built-in Groove Librarian to quickly build convincing drum parts
• Advanced keymapping system with MIDI learn, allowing flexibility for any input device, from electronic drums to finger-drumming MIDI keyboard setups.
• MIDI automation of BFD Mixer parameters with MIDI learn
• Realistic drum performances on demand: Groove Librarian allows auto-accompaniment and quick sequencing of MIDI drum parts
• Use the library of over 2000 MIDI Grooves or import your own
• Intelligent humanization system injects realism into your drum parts.
• MIDI Out and drag and drop from Groove Librarian*
• Provided in VST, RTAS, AudioUnit, DXi and ReWire formats and as a standalone application, for MacOSX and Windows platforms.

* functionality depends on host support

Loading kits and kit-pieces

BFD puts a large, expandable library of expressive, expensively-recorded drums at your fingertips. Load up to 18-piece kits, or quickly compile custom kits from the variety of provided instruments. Mix and match toms, build experimental layered kits and more with just a few mouse clicks, assisted by the descriptive information display and clickable previewing.

Kit-piece damping controls

Dampen drums by subtle to extreme amounts, while retaining BFD's natural ambience.

2 mixer pages

The mixer area has 2 pages, each showing the controls for 9 kit-piece slots. You can load 2 kicks, 2 snares, 6 toms, 6 cymbals, a hihat and a percussion instrument. These categories are not, however, hard-wired - you can load virtually any combination of kit elements.

Kit-piece mixer area

Tune, velocity-scale and control the ambience levels for each part of the kit.

Direct mixer area

Adjust direct (close) mic levels and pan. Additional kick and snare controls blend between and flip the phase of inside and outside kick drum mics, and top and bottom snare mics.

Ambient bus controls

Mix levels of direct, overhead, room and PZM mic buses. You can even move mics further back to create the impression of larger rooms, and adjust the stereo width.

Keymapping and outputs

Setting up BFD for triggering and remote control couldn't be simpler. Extensive MIDI learn makes it quick and easy to map any electronic drum triggers and keyboards, and any control or fader on BFD's interface can be remote controlled via MIDI. Advanced keymapping tools let you set up multiple keys for individual articulations, with optional layering, adjustable velocity curves and ranges, velocity-sensitive damping and much more.

The comprehensive output routing matrix makes it possible to route individual direct, bleed and ambience channels from each part of the kit to individual plugin outputs. Create custom submixes and isolate individual kit elements for further processing through plugins in your host mixer, or outboard equipment.

Groove Librarian

As well as working as a triggerable sound module, BFD can function as a synchronized automated drummer using the substantial and varied included library or by importing your own MIDI files. The Groove Librarian lets you intuitively build drum parts by triggering patterns with MIDI notes in real time. It can also just keep playing along with your sequencer, cycling or shuffling between patterns with adjustable fill periods. If your host supports it, you can drag and drop Grooves into your sequencer's arrange page, or record the entire output of the Groove engine as a continuous MIDI stream.

Advanced humanization

Adjust the feel of the Groove Librarian's drumming in real time to make it more tight, loose or syncopated. Additional timing and velocity randomization including the 'anti-machinegun' mode, contributes further realism to your drum parts.

Integration and recall

Individual kits, banks of Grooves, keymaps, MIDI remote control layouts, mixer setting, output routings and entire plugin states can be loaded and saved as presets. When BFD is used as a plugin, the entire plugin state is saved and recalled with your host project. BFD works as VST, RTAS, AudioUnit and DXi under Mac and Windows, and can also be used as a ReWire slave or a standalone application.

System Requirements

• BFD System Requirements: 1 GHz Pentium III or Athlon (Windows)
• Apple PowerMac G4, OSX 10.2.8 733 MHz (G4 1.2 GHz recommended) (MacOSX)
• 512 MB of RAM (1GB Recommended)
• DVD drive(For installation)
• Windows 2000 or XP or MacOSX 10.2.8
• 9 GB of free hard disk space (Separate drive recommended)