Fxpansion BFD User Manual

CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION 3

CREDITS 3

2. WHAT IS BFD? 4

The BFD concept: 4 Multiple microphone positions 5 Hyper-realistic kits 6 Easy compilation of new kits 6 Flexible play modes: introducing the Groove Librarian 6 Endless variety of sound and feel 7 Potential uses for BFD 7 A note about the manual 7 Technical Support and Updates 8

3. INSTALLATION AND GETTING STARTED 9

System Requirements 9 Installation 10 USING BFD IN YOUR SEQUENCER OR HOST 11 Using BFD in Steinberg Cubase SX and Cubase VST 11 Using BFD in Emagic Logic Audio 12 Using BFD in Digidesign Pro Tools 13 Using BFD in Image-Line FL Studio 13 Using BFD in Sonic Foundry Acid 4.0 14 Using BFD in Cakewalk Project 5 14 Using BFD in Cakewalk Sonar 15 Using BFD with ReWire 16

4. USING BFD 17

Part One: FIRST STEPS… 17 Part Two: IN THE MIX… 20 Part Three: INTRODUCING THE GROOVE LIBRARIAN… 24 Part Four : USING YOUR HOST'S MIXING CAPABILITIES 31

5. REFERENCE 33

INTRODUCTION TO BFD's INTERFACE 33

LOADING KITS AND KIT-PIECES 33 MIXER SECTION 37 GROOVE LIBRARIAN 43 QUANTIZATION PANEL 47 HUMANIZATION PANELS 48 PLAY OPTIONS PANEL 50 AUTO GROOVE REPEAT BUTTONS 53 OPTIONS PANEL 54 TRIGGER KEYS PANEL 56 TEMPO DISPLAY 56 LOADING AND SAVING PRESETS 57 OTHER FILE TYPES USED IN BFD 58 MISCELLANEOUS FUNCTIONS 59 DRUM RECORDING NOTES 60 BFD's LIBRARY OF GROOVES 62

6. APPENDIX 63

Host-specific issues 63 Troubleshooting 63

7. NOTES 66

1. INTRODUCTION

Thank you for choosing FXpansion's BFD! We hope you will agree that the painstaking effort of putting it together has resulted in the most realistic acoustic drum machine ever.

CREDITS

Lead Programmer: SKoT McDonald (www.vellocet.com) Audio Engineering: Steve Duda Additional Programming: Angus Hewlett Design and Graphics: Adam Ferns ( Project Management: Rhiannon Bankston-Thomas Manual and Groove Engineering: Mayur Maha Session Drumming: Chris Dagley

With thanks to:

Andy Simper, Matt Hooper, Swedish Moose, Tom Santamera, Bat, Simon Allen, Monkey, Shane Chambers, Lighthouse Guy for watching over us, WonderBorg, The Cove Pasty Shop, and of course our Long Suffering Significant Others.

www.raresense.co.uk)

Recorded at Eldorado Recording, Burbank CA

www.eldoradorecording.com

ReWire is a trademark of Propellerhead Software. VST is a trademark of Steinberg Media Technology AG. ACID is a trademark of Sonic Foundry Inc. Windows 2000/XP are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. RTAS is a trademark of Digidesign. Other trademarks mentioned are held by their respective owners. © 2003 FXpansion Audio. All rights reserved.

2. WHAT IS

BFD is a high-quality acoustic drum module. It concentrates on impeccablyrecorded multi-velocity acoustic drumkits, with some crucial differences to using a general-purpose sampler with sample-CDs, or using pre-recorded acoustic drum loops.

BFD

The BFD concept:

• Flexible mixing of multiple microphone placements

• Hyper-detailed kits: up to 46 velocity layers and a wide selection of hit

types, all recorded simultaneously through eleven microphones

• Easy compilation of new kits without wrestling with time-consuming

editing and combination of sampler programs, or having to load multi-

ple whole kits

• A versatile automated drummer in the Groove Librarian

• Endlessly variable sound and feel

All this and more is provided in an intuitive, highly integrated interface, plugged into the heart of your favourite sequencing environment, via the VSTi, DXi, RTAS, AudioUnit and ReWire interfaces. A standalone version is also supplied, which uses the ASIO and CoreAudio protocols. BFD supports Windows and MacOS-X operating systems. While BFD should work in Windows 98SE and ME environments, we only recommend and officially support its use in Windows 2000 and XP.

When designing BFD, we tried to make it easy to use for people who prefer to write music rather than mess with the inner workings of a plugin, while still allowing a great deal of control and flexibility for the habitual tweaker.

Multiple microphone positions

Each drum component in BFD is sampled with a number of microphone place- ments simultaneously:

Direct: a clean, close-mic'd signal. A variety of microphone types were used for this, including Sennheiser MD421, Neumann KM81 and M49, ElectroVoice Re20, AKG 451 and Shure SM57. They were recorded through custom modified API preamps.

Overhead: a lush set of overhead mics - namely AKG C-12's (which, incidentally, cost around $15,000 each), recorded through Summit MPC-100A tube preamps.

Room: a room ambience signal, recorded with Neumann U87's and Avalon preamps.

PZM: Crown PZM microphones placed at floor level, tracked with API preamps and an additional compression stage (Empirical Labs Distressor set at 3:1 ratio) for added body and sustain.

These signals can be mixed together as desired, so you can 'dial in' exactly the amount and type of natural ambience you need, without having to use CPU-heavy reverb plugins. The ambience in BFD is totally natural and the result of pain-staking recording in high-quality spaces. Any reverb processor can only try to emulate such a space, while BFD gives you the real thing. There is additional control over the distance placement of each mic-set, and the width of its stereo field.

The ambient send levels of each kit element (such as kick, snare, toms, hats and cymbals) can be adjusted in the detailed mixer section, resulting in exceptionallyversatile control over the final drum sound. The mixer section even has controls to handle the blend between mics inside and outside the kick drum, and above and below the snare. In addition, each individual microphone bus, and even each individual dry drum component, can easily be routed to an individual output into the host sequencer's mixer for further sound processing. The mixer section has an

integrated, intuitive preset system, facilitating the ability to save your favourite mixer configurations and flick through them with ease.

Hyper-realistic kits

As well as the flexibility offered by the multiple microphone positions, BFD's high quality drum sample library has an unparalleled degree of realism. For each type of drum type in each kit, there are a number of different styles of 'hits': for example, the snares offer flams, drags, rims and side-sticks, while the hihats include closed and half-open tip & shank, open tip and pedal. Each of these 'hits' is sampled at up to 46 velocity layers, resulting in drum parts of unparalleled detail and expressiveness.

Easy compilation of new kits

Ever tried to edit and combine elements of large disk-streamed sample libraries? You'll know that it isn't exactly the most productive use of creative time in the studio. To save you this tedious, time-consuming process, BFD allows you to easily mix and match the kicks, snares, toms, hats and cymbals of the various supplied kits to create custom kits. All this within seconds, and with just a few mouse-clicks! You can preview any potential kit changes in real-time and in context, leaving you free to concentrate on the sound rather than losing your creative flow through excessive file and sample management operations.

Custom kit creations can be easily saved into a small preset file, so it's easy to create a library of drumkits tailored to your requirements, and the small size of these files makes it simple to share your kits with other users online.

Flexible play modes: introducing the Groove Librarian

In addition to functioning as a single-hit module which can be triggered via the host sequencer's MIDI engine, BFD also incorporates an extensive library of 'Grooves', in a number of different styles, feels and time signatures. There is also a comprehensive fill library. What makes BFD so powerful is that these 'Grooves' are imple-

mented using standard MIDI files, so it is incredibly easy to create and import your own, or use commercial MIDI-file libraries, such as the Kenton and Twiddly Bits products. BFD conforms to the General MIDI (GM) standard, making it very easy to import standard MIDI drum parts as Grooves.

Endless variety of sound and feel

BFD's intelligent humanization techniques inject that elusive 'soul' into your drum parts. The provided MIDI Grooves are dripping with a variety of feels, and the integrated swing controls make it easy to tighten or relax the vibe as much as required. On top of this, the sound of the Groove can be further humanized through the controlled variation of velocity and timing.

Potential uses for BFD

BFD has the ability to be many things to many people. As well as catering for composers who require 'ready-rolled' but flexible drum accompaniments in order to facilitate song-writing without interruption to the creative flow, it also provides convenient access to the very highest quality sampled drum sounds for producers without access to a real drumkit or good recording facilities.

BFD's sounds and Grooves are perfectly suited to rock, jazz, funk, hip-hop, blues, drum & bass… in fact, anything that may require a real drumkit. It can be used for anything from auto-accompaniment, traditional song-writing and production, to modern techniques such as creating new drum breaks to use in hip-hop and drum & bass production.

A note about the manual

We have designed BFD to be as intuitive as possible, to the point where it is possible to fire it up and be up and running within seconds for instant gratification. However, it is recommended that you go through the tutorial chapter ("Using BFD") which introduces the plugin's variety of features in a logical and straightforward

way, so that you can make sure you understand all the concepts crucial to the way it works.

It is also highly useful to be aware of the Appendix, which contains notes on a number of technical issues regarding performance and troubleshooting.

We also hope that you don't find the size of this manual intimidating, as there are several sections (for example, the host-specific Quickstart guides) which you may not need to concern yourself with, depending upon your level of experience.

Technical Support and Updates

Before contacting our support department, please make sure you have fully read the manual, and in particular, the technical appendix. If, after following the manual's advice, you still cannot resolve your problem, our support department will be only too happy to help.

Our primary technical support channel is our support forum at kvr-vst.com:

http://www.kvr-vst.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=13

This forum is monitored by FXpansion technical support staff, as well as the developers themselves; it is also home to many highly knowledgeable users and answers to your questions can be found quickly at all hours of the day. If, for whatever reason, you are unable to access the Forum, or cannot get a satisfactory answer there, feel free to contact us at:

support@fxpansion.com

Please be aware that we are continuously working on updates to BFD and its content, so please be sure to keep checking our website (http://www.fxpansion.com in order to download updates, new Groove bundles and more!

Many thanks,

The FXpansion team.

)

3. INSTALLATION AND GETTING STARTED

System Requirements

BFD requires a substantial amount of computing power. Here is the minimum recommended specification:

• 1 GHz Pentium III or Athlon (for Windows platform)

• Apple PowerMac G4 733 MHz (for MacOSX platform)

• 512 MB of RAM (preferably 768 MB or more)

• DVD drive (for installation)

• Windows 2000 or XP, or MacOSX

• 9 GB of free hard disk space

• 800x600 resolution with 16-bit colour graphics (1024x768 or higher rec-

ommended)

On the Mac, it will not work on OS9 or earlier versions.

BFD works by streaming all its samples from the hard disk, so in order to prevent glitches during playback, please follow these guidelines.

• Try to install the BFD audio data on a clean, defragmented hard disk.

• If possible, install BFD on a dedicated drive, separate from those used

for the computer's operating system and any audio data used with the

sequencer.

• If you use a notebook or laptop, try and use an external FireWire drive

for the audio data. Laptop drives (often as slow as 4200 RPM) can be

quite slow for BFD's disk-streaming technology.

Installation

BFD comes on two DVD’s which are installed separately. The first DVD contains the stand alone program, plugins, and several drum kits. The second DVD contains only drum kits.

Windows installation

Insert the first DVD labelled “BFD Install DVD 1” and run the “BFD Windows Setup 1” program. The default options will allow you to access multiple outputs from BFD in most hosts.

Note: if you are using Digidesign ProTools or Sonic Foundry Acid and want multiple outputs from BFD you will need to install the ‘BFD ReWire’. See ‘ReWire installation’ below for help setting your ReWire options.

Follow the prompts to choose your main BFD data directory, VST plugin directory and directories for the other plugin formats.

Note: the BFD data directory needs to be on a fast disk with lots of space.

To install the remaining kits insert the second DVD labelled “BFD Install DVD 2” and follow the prompts.

MacOS installation

Insert the first DVD labelled “BFD Install DVD 1” and run the “BFD MacOSX Setup 1” program. The default options will allow you to access multiple outputs from BFD in most hosts.

Note: if you are using Digidesign ProTools and want multiple outputs from BFD you will need to install the ‘BFD ReWire’. See ‘ReWire installation’ below for help setting your ReWire options.

Follow the prompts to choose your main BFD data directory, VST plugin directory and directories for the other plugin formats.

Note: the BFD data directory needs to be on a fast disk with lots of space.

To install the remaining kits insert the second DVD labelled “BFD Install DVD 2” and follow the prompts.

ReWire installation

If you choose to install the ‘BFD ReWire’ during the installation process you will be prompted to set your ReWire options. The main reason to use ReWire is to support BFD’s multiple outputs so you will probably want to choose ‘All outputs’ or ‘Group outputs’. You can change the other check boxes if you need to disable ReWire support later (Enable BFD ReWire device) or are having problems with graphics redraws (Alternative pannel mode).

USING BFD IN YOUR SEQUENCER OR HOST

If you are familiar with using plugin instruments with your chosen sequencer or host, you can skip the following tutorials, and go straight to the next chapter, "Using BFD". Below are guides to using BFD in the most popular sequencing hosts. BFD will also work perfectly well in other hosts which support the VST, DXi and AudioUnit plugin formats, and those which support ReWire.

Using BFD in Steinberg Cubase SX and Cubase VST

As long as the installation went smoothly, you should now have three new plugins available to you: BFD Stereo, BFD Groups, and BFD All. To use BFD, please do the following after launching Cubase:

1. Bring up the VST Instruments panel.

2. Click on an instrument slot and choose one of the BFD plugins.

3. Depending on which plugin you choose, you will have a number of channels added to the mixer.

4. Assign a track on the Project Window to BFD.

Using BFD in Emagic Logic Audio

As long as the installation went smoothly, you should now have three new plugins available to you: BFD Stereo, BFD Groups, and BFD All. During the first launch of Logic after installing BFD, it should detect the plugins, after which they will be available in the VST plugins list. To use BFD, please do the following after launch- ing Logic:

1. Bring up the Audio environment (the mixer).

2. Find an unused Audio Instrument channel (or create one if there are none available - see your Logic documentation if you are unsure of how to do this) and click-hold on the instrument plugin slot (just above the output slot).

3. The Master output version of BFD (BFD Stereo) can be found in Stereo/ VST, while the multi-channel versions (BFD Groups and BFD All) can be found in Multi Channel/VST.

4. Create a track in Logic's Arrange window, corresponding to the Audio Instrument object on which you inserted BFD. You can now operate BFD from this track.

5. If you want to access the various multiple outputs if you load a multi-channel version of the plugin, create some Aux objects if you have not done so already, and assign BFD to them by click-holding on their input slots and choosing Instrument n, where n is the number of the Instrument object on which you inserted BFD, and selecting the required output. The output configuration in BFD All is different in Logic, because it has a limitation of 16 VST outputs. To get around this limitation (BFD All has 17 outputs), BFD outputs Cymbals 2 and 3 on the same direct output channel. The BFD All plugin automatically detects if Logic is the host, and adjusts the output configuration accordingly.

6. If an aux channel has not been opened and assigned for a particular output, that output is routed automatically to the master instrument output. Therefore, if you have not opened an aux channel and assigned it to the PZM bus output, for example, it will still be played through the instrument channel for BFD, assuming the PZM fader is not turned all the way down.

Using BFD in Digidesign Pro Tools

As long as the installation went smoothly, you should now have a new RTAS plugin available to you: BFD Stereo. At this time, outputs from instrument plugins. The term 'multi-channel plugins' in Pro Tools refers to stereo-output plugins. If you need to use multiple output versions of BFD, please see the section below entitled "Using BFD with ReWire".

To use BFD, please do the following after launching Pro Tools:

1. Add a new Audio Track or Aux channel using the File/New Track menu item.

2. Create a new MIDI track.

3. On the mixer view, click an insert button on the Audio channel you just inserted, and select BFD from the 'multi-channel plug-in' menu.

4. The MIDI track you created will also appear on the mixer: select BFD as the output port for this track.

Pro Tools does not support multiple

Using BFD in Image-Line FL Studio

As long as the installation went smoothly, you should now have three new plugins available in your Vstplugins folder: BFD Stereo, BFD Groups, and BFD All. To use BFD, please do the following after launching FL Studio:

1. Add BFD to the project by adding it as a channel. Select the ‘Channels’

menu then choose 'Add one…'

2. BFD will not be in the list displayed by default. To make it part of the list select ‘More…’ to popup a list of all available plugins. From the bottom-right of this window click ‘Refresh’ then ‘Fast Scan (recommended)’.

3. Now enable the checkboxes next to the three BFD plugin names which are red to show they are newly found plugins.

4. Now you can add BFD to the Step Sequencer by selecting ‘Channels’ then ‘Add one…’ then select the version of BFD you want.

5. Assign BFD to an FX track, using the Channel Settings window.

6. If you are using a multiple-output version of BFD, enable the multiple outputs (using the down-arrow menu, just underneath the red plugin icon in the topleft corner of the plugin window). The additional outputs will occupy the FX tracks after the FX track you specified. For example, when using BFD Groups, assigning the main FX track to track 4 will lead to the other three stereo outputs to tracks 5-7.

Using BFD in Sonic Foundry Acid 4.0

As long as the installation went smoothly, you should now have three new plugins available in your Vstplugins folder: BFD Stereo, BFD Groups, and BFD All. As long as you have pointed Acid to your Vstplugins folder, it should detect the BFD files. To use BFD, please do the following after launching Acid:

1. Load BFD using the 'Soft Synth' entry on the Insert menu.

2. Choose BFD Stereo. At this time, VST instruments. If you need to use multiple output versions of BFD, please see the section below entitled "Using BFD with ReWire".

3. Create a MIDI track using the 'MIDI Track' entry on the Insert menu.

4. .Assign this MIDI track to BFD by using the Device Selection button- BFD should be on the list as 'Soft Synth N (BFD Stereo)' where N is the number of the Soft Synth.

5. If you intend to play BFD from a MIDI input device such as a keyboard, click the 'Enable Real-Time MIDI' button at the top of the BFD plugin window in its 'Soft Synth Properties' dialog.

Acid does not support multiple outputs on

Using BFD in Cakewalk Project 5

As long as the installation went smoothly, you should now have three DXi entries available to you: BFD Stereo, BFD Groups, and BFD All. Because BFD installs a set of DXi plugins, you do not need to run the Cakewalk VST Adapter in order to wrap the VST versions into DXi format.

To use BFD in Project 5, simply click the Insert Track button and select one of the BFD plugins which should be visible on the menu.

Using BFD in Cakewalk Sonar

As long as the installation went smoothly, you should now have three DXi entries available to you: BFD Stereo, BFD Groups, and BFD All. Because BFD installs a set of DXi plugins, you do not need to run any extra utility such as Cakewalk VST Adapter in order to wrap the VST versions into DXi format. To use BFD, please do the following after launching Sonar:

1. Insert BFD as a DXi plugin. To do this, use one of the following methods:

• Open the Synth Rack (using the Synth Rack entry on the View menu)

and choose one of the BFD plugins from the 'Insert' button's drop-

down menu.

or:

• Use the Insert/DX Instruments menu command to display a list of

installed DXi's, and choose one of the BFD entries.

or:

• You can also right-click on the Fx field of an unused audio track, aux

bus or virtual main bus, in either the Track or Console view. Under

'DXi Synth', choose one of the BFD plugin entries. This method is

limited to using only the first stereo output pair of the DXi, so is not

recommended when using BFD Groups or BFD All.

2. If you used one of the first two methods, bring up the Insert DXi Synth Preferences dialog (using the Insert DXi Synth Options button in the Synth Rack view) and use the 'Create These Tracks…' options according to which BFD version you are using. If you used the Fx field method, click the Out field of a MIDI track and select BFD.

3. If you intend to play BFD using a MIDI controller such as a keyboard, ensure that the Audio Engine button on the Transport toolbar is enabled, and the required track is in focus (its titlebar will be gold).

Using BFD with ReWire

You should have already setup ReWire during the installation process. You can change your settings at any time by running the BFD ReWire Configuration Applet (BfdRewireApplet) at any time.

You have three options for output configuration: ‘Stereo outputs’, ‘Group outputs’, and ‘All outputs’. You will probably want to select ‘All outputs’ to allow for individual processing of every drum sound through your host.

If you experience graphics problems you can try enabling the ‘Alternative pannel mode’ option. Once you have the BFD ReWire device enabled you can start your ReWire host and access BFD through it. Please see your ReWire host's documentation on how to initiate and use a ReWire device within it. At this time, we have tested the ReWire functionality in Sonic Foundry Acid 4.0 and Digidesign Pro Too ls .

4. USING

If you're not familiar with using plugin instruments in your host, please make sure to read the Host Quickstart guides in the previous chapter. During the tutorial, there are references to opening various panels, which should be fairly intuitive. If you are in any doubt at any stage during the tutorial, please consult the Reference section later in the manual.

BFD

Part One: FIRST STEPS…

When you try to launch BFD as a plugin instrument in your sequencer, you will notice that there are three different versions of the plugin: BFD Stereo, BFD Groups and BFD All. Each of these is essentially identical in functionality, with the crucial difference between them being the output bus configuration. To start with, load BFD Stereo, which mixes all buses to one stereo output pair.

When the BFD plugin is first initiated, it won't make any sound! Loading a kit takes a while so it’s only done when you want it done.

To load a drumkit click the Kit Selector button. This brings up a projected panel showing the various supplied drumkits, along with useful information about each one, which is displayed when you move the mouse over any kit.

After you click on a kit in order to load it, you will notice that the indicator is displayed to the left of the status window. You may also notice that, gradually, the little red lights, underneath the red (Solo) buttons in the Kit-Piece area of the mixer section, begin to each turn orange, yellow, then a stable green. These lights indicate the loading status of each Kit-Piece (i.e. the kick, snare, hihat, floor, medium and high toms, and cymbals 1-3). If there is nothing loaded into a Kit-Piece 'slot', the indicator light is red. When a light turns orange, BFD is queueing up the samples to be loaded, while a yellow light shows that the KitPiece is in the process of being loaded. After a Kit-Piece has finished loading, its

light will turn green. When the entire kit (i.e. all the Kit-Pieces contained within it) is

fully loaded, the indicator disappears, and all of the kit indicator lights [fig.1] will have turned green.

In order to make sure all Kit-Pieces are loaded, the currently-loaded kit layout can be viewed by clicking on the main drumkit graphic, upon which the Kit Display [fig.2] appears: an overhead view of the kit, with a box for each individually-loadable Kit-Piece.

fig.1

fig.2

Each Kit-Piece box contains a graphical representation of whatever is loaded into

it (it will be blank if nothing is loaded into it), and an button. You can now

quickly audition each part of the kit by clicking on its graphic, the click position maps from bottom to top for increasing velocity. You can clear individual Kit-Piece

slots by clicking the in the corner of each box. Clicking on the Kit-Piece name

labels in the mixer area also previews sounds – this time left to right for increasing velocity. When you have finished with this view, click the graphic again in order to exit the Kit Display.

Customizing your drumkit…

You can customize the loaded drumkit by replacing individual Kit-Pieces. To do this, click the Kit-Piece Selector [fig.3] buttons. Each of these brings up an individual

panel with which to select from the numerous included kicks, snares, hihats, toms and cymbals.

For example, to replace the snare, firstly click the snare icon : you will be presented with a panel similar in appearance to the Kit Selector panel, except that it contains different types of snares instead of whole drumkits. When you move the mouse over each snare type, the information display is updated with useful data regarding each one. One of the most important pieces of information to be aware of in the Kit-Piece selectors is the display of each Kit-Piece's 'hits'. This shows which types of hits are present in the data for each drum. For example, most snares have a standard hit, drag, flam, rim and side-stick. Similarly, most kick drums have the kick recorded with and without the snare present, while there is a range of different hihat hits. Some kits do not have recordings of certain hits - for example, side-stick is missing on some snares, while some kicks do not have an individual hit for 'kick with snare'. On these occasions, an intelligent substitution method is used, where a suitable hit is used for the missing one. Please see the

fig.3

Reference section for a summary of substitutions.

There is a handy preview function for each Kit-Piece in the library: hold down the [SHIFT] key and click on any Kit-Piece in order to hear a simple preview (a typical 'hit' is used, at the highest velocity).

Ready to play!

When you are done with loading and modifying the drumkit, you are ready to start playing! You can play the plugin live via MIDI input (for example via a MIDI keyboard, or an electronic drum input device such

as Roland's V-Drums), or program a drum sequence using your sequencer's editing tools, for example the piano-roll (also known as the key editor in Cubase, and the matrix editor in Logic). Some sequencers have editors which are more geared towards drum parts (Cubase's drum edit and Logic's hyper edit). As mentioned above, each Kit-Piece contains a number of 'hits'. You can view which hits are

assigned to which keys by initiating the Trigger Keys panel, brought up by clicking the icon.

It is recommended that you spend a little time at this point in getting acquainted with how BFD sounds and how it reacts to velocity. If you really don't feel like pro- gramming or recording a drum sequence at this stage, then you can also drag/ import one of the supplied MIDI files (located in the BFD/Grooves folder) into the arrange page of your sequencer, or briefly skip forward to the Groove Librarian tutorial, which shows how BFD can function as a drummer, as well as a drum sound module.

Before we continue the tour of BFD by looking at the mixer section, it

may be a good idea to know how to save the drumkit combination you built earlier. To do this, click the save kit combo icon (located underneath the kit display window), point it to a location on your hard drive and provide a filename.

• hint: if you save your kit file (.bfk) in the BFD/Kits folder, it will be selectable via the main Kit Selector panel.

BFD's .bfk files are small files which only reference the bulky audio data which contains the actual sounds.

A .bfk can be loaded as the default kit via the Options panel which is covered later in the manual.

Part Two: IN THE MIX…

Once a sequence or internal Groove is playing through BFD, it is possible to explore the plugin's extensive mixer section.

The most prominent controls are the main level faders for the Direct Master and ambient (Overhead, Room and PZM) microphone buses. By using these faders, you adjust the level of each mic bus to create an overall drum mix. For convenience when mixing, Solo and Mute buttons are also present. The Master fader adjusts the overall level of BFD's output.

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