FXpansion BFD2 User Manual

Name: FXpansion BFD2
Brand: FXpansion
SKU: 1603589
Rating: 4 (1 reviews)

4 (1)

2.0.1

Dec 2007

www.fxpansion.com

Contents

.MANUAL

6 chapter 01: INTRODUCING BFD2

6 1:1 An introduction to BFD2

6 • Welcome to BFD2 6 • Credits

7 1:2 BFD2 Architecture

7 • How BFD2 works 7 • Anatomy of a kit-piece 8 • Articulations 8 • Mic channels 10 • Microphone buses

11 1:3 Recording notes

11 • Personnel 11 • Kit preparation and tuning 11 • Recording path 12 • Microphones

13 1:4 Introduction to the BFD2 interface

13 • Control conventions 14 • Interface overview

14 1:5 Control bar

14 • Page buttons 14 • Preset indicator 15 • Load menu 15 • Save menu 15 • Gain 15 • Help menu

16 1:6 Status Bar

16 • MIDI Log 16 • Audio stream indicator 16 • MIDI stream indicator 16 • RAM indicator 16 • CPU and hard disk performance meters 16 • Ofﬂine switch 17 • Controller learn 17 • Context info display 17 • Transport 18 • Rude Solo light 18 • Beat light 18 • Tempo 18 • Time signature 18 • Playback position

19 1:7 Loading BFD2 Presets

21 1:8 Saving BFD2 Presets

21 • Elements saved with Presets

22 1:9 BFD2 Help functions

22 • Context info display 22 • Tool-tips 22 • Help menu 23 • Getting further help with BFD2

24 chapter 02: KIT PAGE building and adjusting your kit

24 2:1 Kit page overview

25 2:2 Kit Size

25 • 10-piece kit 25 • 18-piece kit 26 • 32-piece kit 26 • Switching kit sizes

27 2:3 Loading and saving in the Kit page

27 • Loading in the Kit page 27 • Saving in the Kit page

28 2:4 Loading and saving kits

28 • Loading kits – overview 28 • Controls in the kit chooser panel 30 • Saving kits

31 2:5 Kit display and kit-piece slot windows

31 • Kit display 32 • Kit-Piece Slot windows

33 2:6 Loading Kit-Pieces

33 • Overview 33 • Controls in the kit-piece chooser panel 36 • Possible problems when loading 36 • Building unorthodox kits

37 2:7 Importing your own sounds into BFD2

37 • Sample Import panel 37 • Import settings 38 • Photo settings 38 • Velocity layers 38 • Import & Cancel 38 • Progress bar

39 2:8 Kit page toolbar

39 • Select 39 • Link 39 • Note Learn 39 • Clear Kit

40 2:9 Kit-piece inspector

40 • Photo & star rating 40 • Kit-piece quick-load controls 40 • Kit-piece presets 41 • Basic kit-piece controls 42 • Ambience sends 42 • Advanced kit-piece controls 43 • Kit-piece bleed controls 43 • Articulation controls

45 2:10 Mini-mixer

45 • Mixer 45 • Master Dynamics 45 • Master Tuning 45 • Humanize

46 2:11 MIDI Note Learn wizard

46 • Initializing the MIDI learn wizard 47 • Next slot mode 47 • Wait mode

48 chapter 03: MIXER PAGE engineering your drum sound

48 3:1 Mixer page overview

48 • How to approach mixing

49 3:2 Loading and Saving in the Mixer page

49 • Loading mixer presets 51 • Saving Mixer presets 51 • Varying channels between mixer presets 51 • Loading/saving channel presets 51 • Loading/saving effect presets

52 3:3 Introduction to BFD2 mixer channels

52 • Channel views 52 • Types of channel strips in BFD2

55 3:4 Mixer toolbar and utility panel

55 • Reset Mixer 55 • Add Aux 55 • Remove Aux 55 • FX Power 55 • Mixer view switches 56 • Utility Panel

57 3:5 Mixer channel controls and indicators

57 • Controls/indicators in Regular and FX/Sends views 59 • Controls/indicators available in Regular view only 59 • Controls/indicators available in FX/Send view only

61 3:6 Using the mixer

61 • Selecting channels 61 • Rearranging channels on the mixer 61 • Channel processing order 62 • Keyboard shortcuts for mixer operation 62 • Channel context menu 63 • Signal Routing indicators

64 3:7 Using FX

64 • The FX rack 64 • Basic FX controls

65 • Managing FX with the Effect context menu 65 • Swapping and copying FX between slots

66 3:8 Using Sends and Sidechains

66 • Sends panel 66 • Send indicators 67 • Using sends for parallel processing 67 • Using Sidechaining

68 3:9 Mic tools panel

68 • Direct controls 68 • Ambience bus controls 68 • Master bleed controls

69 3:10 Mixer preset panel

70 3:11 Audio Export panel

72 chapter 04: GROOVES PAGE - overview an introduction to BFD2’s groove engine

72 4:1 Introduction

72 • Key concepts 72 • BFD 1.x users

73 4:2 Grooves page interface

74 4:3 Loading and saving in the Groove page

75 4:4 Undo function

75 4:5 Transport, tempo and time signature

75 • Transport 76 • Beat light 76 • Tempo 76 • Time signature 76 • Playback position

76 4:6 Using the Groove Engine

77 chapter 05: GROOVES PAGE part 1 palettes, grooves and ﬁlls

77 5:1 An Introduction to the Palette

77 • MIDI channels and key ranges 77 • Palette and info inspectors visibility

78 5:2 Loading Palettes

78 • Palette chooser 80 • Loading BFD 1.0 and 1.5 Bundles

81 5:3 Loading Grooves

81 • Using the Groove chooser panel to load Grooves

83 5:4 Playing Grooves in the Palette

83 • Triggering Grooves with MIDI notes 84 • Triggering Grooves with Preview buttons 84 • Auto-Play and transport controls

85 5:5 Working with Grooves in the Palette

85 • Selecting Grooves 85 • Operations on Grooves in the Palette 86 • Blending elements of other Grooves in the editor 86 • Slot context menu

87 5:6 Groove Actions

88 • Summary of available Groove Actions 88 • Start Actions for Grooves and Fills 89 • End Actions for Grooves 89 • Slot End Actions for Fills

90 5:7 Importing BFD 1.x Grooves and MIDI ﬁles

90 • Importing BFD 1.x Grooves and Bundles 91 • Importing MIDI ﬁles into the Palette 91 • MIDI Import panel

92 5:8 Groove and Palette Info Inspectors

92 • Documenting Grooves and Palettes 92 • Palette and Info inspector visibility 92 • Groove Info Inspector 93 • Palette Info inspector

94 5:9 Saving and exporting Grooves

94 • Saving Grooves 94 • Exporting Grooves as MIDI 95 • Export Groove as Audio

96 5:10 Saving Palettes

97 chapter 06: GROOVES PAGE part 2 editing, recording and groove FX

97 6:1 Introduction to the Editor

97 • Editor interface overview 97 • Other topics covered in this chapter 98 • Playing the currently selected Groove

99 6:2 Editor Grid

99 • Kit-piece and Articulation lanes 100 • Events

100 • Ruler and Groove length 101 • Velocity lane 101 • View controls 102 • Zoom and scroll controls

103 6:3 Grooves toolbar

103 • Left and right mouse button tools 103 • Hearing events during editing 103 • Select tool 103 • Draw tool 104 • Erase tool 104 • Mute tool 104 • Velocity tool 104 • Undo button

105 6:4 Other Editor functions

105 • Editor display settings 105 • Metronome 105 • Grid controls 105 • Grid-based destructive processes 106 • Edit menu 106 • Keyboard shortcuts

107 6:5 Combining elements of other Grooves

108 6:6 Recording Grooves via MIDI

108 • MIDI Mappings 108 • Initiating recording 108 • Recording modes 108 • Metronome button 108 • Record lead-in

109 6:7 Groove FX panel

109 • Show/Hide advanced Groove FX 109 • Groove FX power 109 • Apply: Groove 109 • Apply: All 110 • Quantize effect 110 • Double/Half time effect 110 • Simplify effect 110 • Dynamics effect 111 • Swing effect 111 • Humanize effects 111 • Humanize Velocity 111 • Humanize Timing

112 chapter 07: GROOVES PAGE part 3 auto-play, drum track and other ways of using grooves

112 7:1 Auto-Play mode

112 • Auto-Play vs. MIDI triggering 112 • Auto-Play modes

114 7:2 Drum Track Introduction

114 • Enabling the Drum Track 114 • Drum Track synchronization

115 7:3 Drum Track display

116 7:4 Working with the Drum Track

116 • Adding parts to the Drum Track 116 • Manipulating Parts on the Drum Track 117 • Part context menu

118 7:5 Loading, saving and exporting the Drum Track

118 • Saving and loading Drum Track contents 118 • Exporting the Drum track as MIDI 118 • Exporting the Drum track as audio

118 7:6 Combining playback methods

118 • Groove playback and MIDI triggering of articulations

119 7:7 Using BFD2’s MIDI Out

119 • Setting up the MIDI output function 119 • Using the MIDI output as a MIDI input in your host 119 • Latency of the MIDI Out

120 chapter 08: MAPPING PAGE key and automation mapping

120 8:1 Overview

120 • Loading and saving maps 120 • Key mapping view 120 • Automation mapping view 120 • Switching between views

121 8:2 Loading in the Mapping page

121 • Loading key maps 122 • Key map loaded when BFD2 is launched 123 • Loading Automation maps 123 • Automation map loaded when BFD2 is launched

124 8:3 Saving in the Mapping page

124 • Save Key Map 124 • Save Automation Map 124 • Save Key + Automation maps 124 • Save MIDI Event Log

125 8:4 Key mapping view

125 • Kit-piece listing 125 • Keyboard layout and keyrange selector 125 • Mapping inspector 125 • Clear all keys 126 • Key labelling 127 • Single-articulation previews 127 • Key context menu 127 • MIDI event log 127 • External MIDI Log

128 8:5 Working with the key mapper

128 • Mapping an articulation to a MIDI key 128 • Mapping multiple articulations to neighbouring keys 129 • Layering multiple articulations on a single key 129 • Special articulations

130 8:6 Mapping inspector

130 • Articulation list 130 • Low & High velocity 130 • Velocity Curve 130 • Delete articulation 130 • Variable articulation controls

131 8:7 Introduction to BFD2 automation

131 • Overview 131 • MIDI CCs and host automation 131 • MIDI note automation 131 • Parameter MIDI learn function in the status bar 131 • Automation mapping page 131 • Multiple mappings 131 • Setting a unique MIDI channel for MIDI automation 132 • Automation view interface

134 8:8 Mapping MIDI CCs to BFD2 controls

134 • Automation source table in MIDI CC view 134 • Mapping indication in BFD2 parameter table 134 • Mapping an already-mapped BFD2 parameter

135 8:9 Mapping MIDI notes to BFD2 controls

135 • Automation parameters table in MIDI note view 135 • Creating a MIDI note mapping 135 • Mapping indication in BFD2 parameter table 135 • Mapping an already-mapped BFD2 parameter

136 8:10 Mapping host automation to BFD2 controls

136 • Automation parameters table in host automation view 136 • Creating a host automation mapping 136 • Mapping indication in BFD2 parameter table 136 • Mapping an already-mapped BFD2 parameter

137 chapter 09: ELECTRONIC DRUMS & BFD2

137 9:1 Intoduction to using electronic kits with BFD2

137 • How electronic drumkits work 137 • Cross-talk between triggers and zones 137 • Double-triggering: setting the Retrigger threshold 137 • Latency

138 9:2 Simple hihat control

138 • Advantages and disadvantages of non-variable hihat

control

139 9:3 Variable hihat control

139 • Overview 139 • Assigning variable tip and variable shank articulations 140 • Assigning the hihat height pedal MIDI CC 140 • Customizing hihat pedal response 141 • All Hihats variable setting

142 9:4 Other settings related to hihat control

142 • Preferences 143 • Kit-piece Inspector

144 9:5 Positional snare control

144 • Variable snare controls

144 9:6 Controlling cymbals

145 chapter 10: BFD2 PREFERENCES customizing BFD2

145 10:1 Preferences page overview

146 10:2 Data preferences

146 • Preference Options 146 • Data Path 146 • Startup

147 10:3 Groove preferences

147 • Show Groove Session preferences 147 • MIDI Import 148 • Editor Preferences 149 • Metronome

150 10:4 Session preferences

150 • Session MIDI prefereces 151 • Session Playback preferences

152 10:5 MIDI preferences

152 • MIDI Channels 152 • MIDI Input Transformations 152 • MIDI display 153 • Key Mapping preferences 153 • MIDI Learn Note Wizard preferences

154 10:6 Engine preferences

154 • Streaming Engine 155 • Synth options 156 • Fade preferences 157 • Detail

158 10:7 GUI preferences

158 • Control behaviour 159 • Mixer GUI Options 159 • Kit Page 159 • Keyboard Shortcuts

160 Chapter 11: PROGRAMMING TIPS

160 11:1 Building the kit

160 11:2 Using Velocity layers

160 • The importance of utilising BFD2’s velocity layers 160 • Deploying velocity layers effectively 160 • Dynamics controls

161 11:3 Using articulations effectively

164 chapter 12: MIXING AND EFFECTS USAGE

164 • Overview 164 • D.CAM FX

165 12:1 Mixing basics

165 • Mic channel usage 165 • Panning 165 • Gain levels 166 • Approaching EQ and compression

167 12:2 EQ and ﬁltering

167 • EQ 167 • Filter 168 • Filter Mod

169 12:3 Dynamics processing

169 • Common compression parameters 169 • Advanced features in BFD2’s dynamics processors 170 • Comp Chan 170 • Comp Bus 171 • Noise Gate

172 12:4 Distortion

172 • Drive 173 • Bit Crusher

174 12:5 Other effects

174 • Gain 174 • Delay 175 • Flanger 175 • Chorus 176 • RingMod 176 • Frequency shifter 176 • TinCanVerb

177 12:6 Mixing each part of the kit

177 • Kicks 177 • Snares 177 • Hihats 178 • Toms 178 • Cymbals

179 12:7 Routing scenarios

179 • Creating sub-mixes for processing mic channels

together 179 • Mic channel separation 179 • Creating sends to an external reverb

180 12:8 External processing

180 • Artiﬁcial reverb 180 • Distortion and re-amping 180 • Noise 180 • Resampling and re-sequencing

161 11:3 Damping, tuning and tightening

161 • Damping kicks, snares and toms 161 • Tightening closed hihats 161 • Tuning the kit

162 11:4 Layering

162 • Introduction to layering 162 • Simple layering using the Link function 162 • Layering individual articulations in the Mapping page 162 • Creative and experimental layering

163 11:5 Programming patterns

163 • Drumming fundamentals 163 • Transcribe, study and edit existing drum parts 163 • Physical interfacing with the computer

2.0.1

Dec 2007

manual revision 2

chapter 01 INTRODUCING BFD2

1:1 An introduction to BFD2

Welcome to BFD2

Thank you for purchasing BFD2!

Welcome to the most advanced acoustic drum production environment ever. As you begin to explore the software and manual you’ll start to realise the sheer power you have at your ﬁngertips.

About this manual

There is a huge amount of functionality in BFD2, so please take the time to study this manual as you delve into the software. We realise it’s a rather large manual, but it is broken down into fairly easily digestible sections, logically structured for each part of the software.

Remember to use the PDF bookmarks integrated into the document to make navigation through the manual quick and easy.

Credits

SKoT McDonald Project lead, Programming (synthesis engine and mixer) Paul Chana Programming (kit page, panels and Installer) Steve Baker Programming (Groove engine) Andy Simper Programming (effect DSP & circuit modelling) Angus Hewlett Programming (adapters, licensing) Andreas Schnetzler Programming (website) Gareth Green Lead audio engineering, production, editing Alex Akers Graphic design (interface, 3D modelling) Rus Brockman Graphic design (packaging) Mayur Maha Documentation Rob Bantin Quality assurance engineering

Rhiannon Bankston-Thomas Marketing & Sales Julia Titchﬁeld Artist relations & Publicity

Emre Ramazanoglu Session drumming Darrin Mooney Session drumming Kevin Hay Assistant audio engineering Ben Ferns Photography and video Ryan Sellers Technical support Alex Volmer Technical support

Steve Duda & Husky Hoskulds BFD 8BK Audio Content (Electronic) John Emrich BFD PER Audio Content (Percussion)

BFD2 Grooves: Jacques Mathias, Patchen Preston, Mikael Adle, Jessy Schmidt, Derik White, Kevin Hay BFD1 Grooves: Chris Dagley, Mayur Maha

Recorded at AIR Studios Lyndhurst Hall, London

Thanks to all the beta testers, especially Rail Jon Rogut, Robert Sfeir, Ralf Steyrer, Jordan L. Chilcott, Christopher Reis, Oliver Kauert, Andrew Cordani, Mikael Adle, Murray McDowall and Hiroaki Honshuku!

Additional thanks to Apostrophe, BLT, Cay Tre, Karma, all pizza places in a mile for keeping us caffeinated and fed... to the Foundry, Charlie Wright’s, Bar Music Hall, Pool bar, Bricklayers and every booze emporium in Shoreditch for keeping us sane...

...to all our families and friends.... cheers!

www.fxpansion.com

1:2 BFD2 Architecture

How BFD2 works

Disk-streaming multi-channel sample playback engine

At the heart of BFD2 is a sample playback engine that streams multi-channel audio recordings of drum, hihat, cymbal and percussion instruments – called kit-pieces – being played in various ways, and recorded with multiple sets of microphones.

There is an inherent latency when accessing ﬁles on a hard drive. Because of this, BFD2 caches a short segment of the start of every sound in system memory. Therefore, even though BFD2 can use a lot of RAM, it allows you to use sounds with detail levels far beyond conventional RAM limitations. Hard disk space is far cheaper than RAM, and will be for the foreseeable future.

Dedicated interface for working with multi-channel acoustic drums

Rather than having to work with a generic sampler interface and sample libraries designed within its limitations, BFD2’s user interface allows you to work with its hyper-detailed sample library as if you were playing and mixing a real drumkit!

There are functions dedicated to building the custom kit of your dreams in seconds, tuning and damping kit-pieces, and high-end studio quality mixing tools. It features simple-to-use mapping tools, and dedicated support for electronic drumkit systems. Meanwhile, the ﬂexible Groove engine lets you lay down convincing drum tracks quickly and easily.

Anatomy of a kit-piece

Articulations

A kit-piece is made up of one or more articulations. These were referred to as ‘hit types’ in previous versions of BFD. An articulation is an individual way of playing a percussive instrument such as a drum, cymbal or hihat. For example, hihats feature up to 11 articulations – a pedal-down sound (‘foot-chick’) and tip and shank (edge) sounds when the hihat is closed, fully open and at three positions in-between.

Good use of multiple articulations allows greater realism than using conventional sample-sets, because of the expressive range possible on a drumkit.

Velocity layers

Each articulation is made up of a number of audio ﬁles, called velocity layers. These audio ﬁles are recordings of the articulation being played at varying intensities from soft to hard. As well as the amplitude (‘loudness’), the timbral response of percussive instruments varies greatly with playing dynamics.

The high amount of velocity layers in BFD2’s sounds lets you recreate the sound of dynamic drumming, giving convincing results when using accenting. This is very important in the formation of realistic grooves.

Multi-channel audio ﬁles

Each velocity layer is an audio ﬁle made up of multiple channels. These are recordings from several sets of microphones used to capture each kit-piece. Real drum recording situations commonly use multiple mic setups in order to capture a variety of different elements.

Firstly, a kit-piece may sound different depending on where a mic is placed. Snares sound very different when mic’d from above compared to from below – a mic placed on top captures the ‘pop’ of the skin being struck, while the crunch and sizzle of the mesh snare is captured at the bottom. Meanwhile, mics inside kick drums tend to pick up the ‘snap’ or ‘click’ of the beater striking the drum. The main ‘thud’ and low-end power is captured by a mic outside the kick drum.

Drum recording situations also make use of stereo sets of mics to capture the kit as it sounds as a whole within a space. They capture the projection of the kit and its reﬂections within the room much more effectively than individual directional close mics on various parts of the kit, which sound very dry in comparison.

Articulations

Here is a summary of possible articulations in BFD2. Please note that some kit-pieces do not contain all possible articulations.

Kicks

Snares

Hihats

Toms

Cymbals

Hit No Snare

Hit Rim Sidestick Drag Half-edge*

Pedal Closed tip Closed shank 1/4-open tip 1/4-open shank 1/2-open tip 1/2-open shank 3/4-open tip 3/4-open shank open tip open shank**

Hit

Hit Bell Edge

*Half-edge is the skin or head struck half-way between the centre and the edge. Most previous BFD libraries featured a ﬂam instead

** previous BFD libraries did not include an open shank articulation

To support electronic drums, all tip and shank hihat articulations can also be triggered via a MIDI CC and 2 ‘virtual articulations’ – variable tip and variable shank

3-articulation cymbals are new in BFD2

Percussion

Hit Alt [more...]***

***Percussion slots, like all slots in BFD2, can have more than 2 articula tions. This allows you to load large, complex percussion pieces from the BFD Percussion expansion pack, which required one of 2 snare slots in BFD 1.5.

Mic channels

Each velocity layer sample of each Kit-Piece articulation possesses 12 mic channels (3 stereo, 6 mono):

Ambience channels (stereo)

Overhead

Room

• M/S Room in BFD2

• Stereo room in most previous BFD libraries

Amb3

• Room2 in BFD2’s library

• PZM in most previous BFD2 libraries

The signal from the stereo Overhead mic set, above the kit.

The signal from the room mics. BFD2 features an M/S room mic set. BFD2’s mixing engine decodes each M/S-re corded kit-pieces on the voice level, so you can mix and match kit-pieces with previous BFD libraries, most of which feature a stereo Room.

The signal from the third set of ambient mics. The wide, high placed Room2 mics in BFD2 and PZMs in previous libraries all tend to sound huge!

Direct mic channels (mono)

Kick In

Kick Out

Snare Bottom

Snare Top

Snare Top2

Multi

The signal from the mic inside the kick drum.

The signal from the mic outside the kick drum.

The signal from the mic underneath the snare drum.

The signal from the ﬁrst mic above the snare drum.

The signal from the second mic above the snare drum. BFD2’s library is the ﬁrst to contain this mic channel, which does not exist in previous BFD libraries.

The signal from the direct mic for all Kit-Pieces except kicks and snares. This is usually empty for kicks and snares.

Primary direct and bleed channels

The kick and snare mics are used for all Kit-Pieces, as bleed signals are recorded through them.

A Kit-Piece’s own close mic’d direct signal is known as the primary direct mic channel. For a kick, this is in the Kick In and Out mic channels, and for a hihat or cymbal, it is in the Multi mic channel.

The Kick In/Out mic channels are the primary direct mic channels for the kick. Bleed from the kick appears in the Snare Bottom/Top mic channels. The Multi mic channel is empty for kicks, except on certain BFD XFL kicks, which feature bleed captured through the hihat mic.

The Snare Bottom/Top mic channels are the primary direct mic channels for the snare. Bleed from the snare appears in the Kick In/Out mic channels. The Multi mic channel is empty for snares, except on certain BFD XFL snares, which feature bleed captured through the hihat mic.

The Multi mic channel is the primary direct mic channel for all other Kit-Pieces, whose bleed appears in the Kick In/Out and Snare Bottom/Top mic channels.

Bleed is only present in the kick and snare mic channels. Bleed from the other mics is not included, because the levels were too low and not useful enough to justify the extra RAM and hard disk bandwidth required. In any case, bleed can be, in many cases, an annoying side-effect of the drum-recording process, which is often minimized during post-processing by using noise gates.

Microphone buses

As well as mic channels, when using BFD you need to be aware of the four microphone buses, which are ‘virtual groups’ of the mic channels.

Ambience buses

The ambience buses allow you to approach mixing in BFD2 in the same way as a real drumkit recording. Even though BFD2’s kitpieces possess discrete ambience signals, this is impossible to achieve when recording a real drumkit, when any ambient mics capture the sound of the whole of the kit.

Also, while you can manipulate each kit-piece’s direct mics as channels in the BFD2 mixer, there are too many ambience channels (three channels would be required for each kit-piece) to control each kit-piece’s ambience efﬁciently.

Therefore, the overhead, room and amb3 signals for all kit-pieces are each organized into groups called the ambience buses.

Please note that you can, in the kit-piece inspector, route the ambience signals to individual Aux channels on the mixer if you wish. This facility is provided for advanced and experimental mixing applications. If you do this, you can still control the Width of each ambience type using the Mic Tools panel in the Mixer page’s Utility panel.

Overhead

Room

Amb3

The Overhead mic channels from all Kit-Pieces.

The Room mic channels from all KitPieces.

The third set of ambient mic channels from all Kit-Pieces.

Direct bus

There is a fourth mic bus, called the Direct bus, which represents the direct mic channels of all kit-pieces mixed together. This does not have a dedicated channel on the mixer by default, although you can create one if you wish by adding an Aux channel and routing all kit-pieces’ direct channels to it.

You can, however, control the level of the Direct Master bus using the Direct fader in the Kit page’s Mini-mixer section, or using the Direct Master level control in the Mixer page’s Mic Tools panel.

How mic buses are used in BFD2

Mic buses are controlled via the Mic Tools panel, part of the mixer’s Utility panel. In this panel, you can control the level of the Direct bus, as well as the Width and Distance of the ambience buses.

The ambience channels that exist in the Kit page’s Mini-mixer and in the main Mixer page should not be considered as mic buses. This is because while ambience signals from individual kit-pieces can be routed to other aux channels, they are still considered to be part of the ambience buses. They are still affected by the Width parameters in the Mic Tools panel, although for technical reasons the Distance controls do not apply.

1:3 Recording notes

BFD2’s sounds were recorded in studio 1 at AIR Studios at Lyndhurst Hall, Hampstead, London.

AIR Studios was started in 1969 by George Martin, a producer famous for his work with The Beatles.

It moved to its present location at Lyndhurst Hall, a stunning grade II listed converted church in Hampstead, in 1991. It offers one of the best live rooms in the UK.

Studio 1’s recording room could be described as medium to large sized. It consists mainly of wooden surfaces with excellent dispersion characteristics and a fast decaying ‘explosive’ sounding reverb quality.

The size of the room offers a lot of options when recording, with very different reverb characteristics depending on the position and height of ambience microphones.

This room was portioned into a slightly smaller space more appropriate for drum recording, without losing its lush reverberant sound.

The mixing console in the studio 1 control room is a rather special custom Neve featuring ‘AIR Montserrat’ mic preamps. It was designed in 1989 by Rupert Neve with consultation from George Martin, and is a classic fully-discrete Neve design offering a bandwidth of 100 kHz.

Personnel

All sounds were recorded and edited by Gareth Green, with engineering assistance from Kevin Hay.

Drumming duties were shared between Emre Ramazonoglu and Darrin Mooney, both respected and experienced session players.

Kit preparation and tuning

During the sessions, the primary objective was to capture the instruments as organically and powerfully as possible, while covering different kinds of voicing and tuning. A lot of the drums, especially the vintage kits, have loose hardware and other supposed ﬂaws. These have all been retained, as there really is nothing worse than sterile, characterless drums.

The drums, hihats and cymbals themselves are a mixture of modern, vintage and custom instruments.

The library includes two historic and famous kits. Firstly, a classic Ludwig ‘Spiral’ Vistalite that was once owned and played by the late John Bonham and, secondly, Ringo Starr’s Blue Oyster Ludwig kit that was used on a number of classic albums.

The other instruments in the library were selected to offer a wide tonal and stylistic range, from the modern, tight punch of the DW Collector’s Series to the warm, rounded tones of the vintage Gretsch Round-badge kit. We even managed to drag our ‘house kit’ at FX HQ down to the sessions – a late 70s Rogers XP-8 with Bosphorus hihat and Brady jarrah wood snare.

Snares especially were carefully tuned to range from deep and loose to tight and ringy with lots of overtones. Drum heads were chosen in order to complement each individual instrument, while various types of damping were used when appropriate. The resulting library offers a very wide and varied selection of sounds, great for all kinds of music.

Recording path

All sounds were recorded through the Neve’s AIR Montserrat preamps into Pro Tools, via Prism ADA-8 XR converters, at 24-bit resolution with a sample rate of 44.1 kHz.

No EQ, compression or other processing was used on any channels.

Microphones

Several microphones were set up for many mic positions, with the most appropriate sets being used for each kit.

Some snares were mic’d using a slightly different technique involving the top snare mics pointing at the side of the snare shell instead of at the top skin.

BFD2’s snares offer two mics for the top snare position, allowing even more ﬂexibility than before when mixing.

Microphone delay was edited out from the direct channels so all kick and snare mic channels are time-aligned with reference to themselves.

Bottom snare and outside kick mic channels have been phase-ﬂipped to ensure they are already in phase.

No time-aligning of ambience channels was performed, as this would affect the natural stereo image provided by their timing discrepancies.

Directs

Kick In

The most appropriate inside mic from the following was chosen for each kick:

• AKG D112 on the beater side

• ElectroVoice RE20 inside the kick

Kick Out

The most appropriate outside mic from the following was chosen for each kick:

• Neumann FET 47

• CAD VX2

AKG D112 ElectroVoice RE20

Neumann FET 47 CAD VX2

Snare Top

Snare Top1: Shure SM57 Snare Top2: Neumann KM84

Snare Bottom

Neumann KM84

Hi Hats

Neumann KM84

Toms

Sennheiser MD421 on top skin only

Cymbals

Neumann KM84

Shure SM57 Neumann KM84

Sennheiser MD421 Coles 4038

Manley Gold AKG C12

Overheads

The most appropriate set from the following was chosen for each kit-piece:

• Coles 4038

• Manley Gold reference

Both sets were arranged as stereo spaced pairs, with the Coles in a Blumlein array as they have a ‘ﬁgure of 8’ response.

Sony C800

Room

For the ﬁrst Room mic set, original AKG C12s were used in M/S conﬁguration. They were placed in front of the kit, approx. 8 ft. away and aligned just above the kick drum.

The use of the M/S conﬁguration is intended to facilitate a good true mono room sound, something which is heard in many classic drum sounds.

It also has the beneﬁt of being used for widening the stereo image.

The BFD2 mixing engine handles the M/S decoding in real-time on the voice level to take advantage of this type of recording.

Amb3 (Room2)

For the Room2 mic set on the Amb3 mic bus, a stereo spaced pair of Sony C800’s was used, placed diagonally 23 ft away from the kit and very high up in the room – around 20-25 ft.

Compared to the Room set, this mic set has a more obvious room ‘slap back’ reverb effect. Because of the height of placement, it captures the size of the room well. It has a brighter, more dense sound.

1:4 Introduction to the BFD2 interface

Control conventions

Faders

Faders are controlled by clicking and dragging vertically.

Faders are oriented vertically but some controls, such as the send level controls in the FX/Sends mixer view, are horizontally aligned but are still controlled by clicking and dragging vertically.

Knobs

Knobs are controlled by clicking and dragging vertically (up/down) by default.

This can be changed to circular motion in the GUI preferences or with the startup wizard.

Graphs

Graphs can be oriented horizontally or vertically. They can be adjusted in 2 ways:

• Click anywhere over the range to jump to a value.

• Hover the mouse near the current value and click and drag in the axis in which the

graph is oriented (horizontally or vertically). This method is much like using the graph as a fader.

Vertical fader movement

Vertical knob movement

Jumping to a graph value

Adjusting with click and drag

Fine control and returning to default values

• Holding down the SHIFT key while adjusting a knob, fader or graph gives you ﬁne control.

• Double-click a knob, fader or graph to return it to its default value.

Drop-down menus

These are indicated by a downward-facing triangle – click to display the menu.

Click a menu item to select it and hide the menu again, or click elsewhere to just hide the menu.

Other drop-down menus do exist, located on buttons for example. These are detailed in the manual where necessary.

Click to display the menu

Click any item to select it

Numerical value boxes

These can be adjusted in 2 ways:

• click and drag vertically to adjust the current value.

Click and drag vertically to adjust

• double-click the box, type a new value and press ENTER or RETURN.

Double-click to type a value

Right-clicking

Right-clicks are used in several parts of the BFD2 interface, particularly for accessing context menus and the secondary tool in the Groove editing environment.

If you use a Mac and do not have access to a 2-button mouse, you can access right-click functions by holding down the CTRL key while clicking your mouse button. However, a 2-button mouse is highly recommended!

Some keyboard shortcut that operate with the CTRL key on Windows are accessed on Mac by using the COMMAND key instead. This is also known as the APPLE key.

Interface overview

Page buttons: These change the contents of the main interface.

See section 1:5.

Main interface: This changes according to the currently selected page.

1:5 Control bar

Control bar:

Features the Load, Save and Help menus, the Page buttons and other functions.

See section 1:5.

Status bar: Contains various displays and readouts, and several important functional controls.

See section 1:6.

Save

Help

Page buttons Preset

indicator

Load

Page buttons

Clicking these large buttons switches to one of the ﬁve Pages, each covering a different aspect of BFD2’s operation. Only one Page can be active at any one time.

Kit page – chapter 2

The Kit page is used for building and tweaking the kit, as well as providing very simple mixing functions.

Mixer page – chapters 3 and 12

BFD2’s advanced and full-featured mixer gives you access to virtually unlimited routing, mixing and effects processing. The built-in EQ, compression and other effects can be accessed here, as well as advanced mic manipulation and audio export functions. If you’re more of a writer than an engineer, a variety of professional mixer presets are at your ﬁngertips.

Grooves page – chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7

The Grooves page is an advanced drum sequencing environment allowing you to preview, load and play BFD2’s library of ready-made Grooves. It also includes an advanced Groove editor, humanization effects and a number of ways of varying Grooves over time, such as the Drum Track, which allows you to sequence a whole track of individual Grooves.

Mapping page – chapters 8 and 9

BFD2 features powerful mapping for playing its drum sounds and automating its parameters.

Gain

Preferences page – chapter 10

The Preferences Page allows you to customize BFD2 to your needs by changing a number of settings.

Preset indicator

The Preset indicator displays the name of the last loaded BFD2 Preset. You can also click it to manually type a new name for the current session, which is also used as the suggested ﬁlename when you next save a BFD2 Preset.

Load menu

Clicking the Load button shows a menu allowing you to load various elements into BFD2. The Load menu is partly contextdependent, varying according to whichever Page is currently in view. The menu has 3 sections:

1. BFD2 Preset

A Preset is a snapshot of the entire state of BFD. The Preset loader panel allows you to selectively load different elements of Presets. For a full guide to loading Presets, please see the ‘Loading presets’ section later in this chapter.

2. Page-dependent elements

Depending on which Page is currently in view, the next part of the menu shows the relevant Load items – the exception is the Preferences Page, which does not require any loading functions.

3. Commonly used elements

The next section of the menu allows you to load commonly needed elements from Pages other than that currently in view.

The Load menu allows you to load the following elements into BFD2:

• BFD2 presets

• Kits

• Mixer presets

• Palettes

• Grooves

• MIDI keymap

• Automation map – MIDI CC, note and host automation assignments

Save menu

Click the Save button in order to display the Save menu. The save menu is structured in exactly the same way as the Load menu.

The menu allows you to save the following:

• BFD2 preset

• Kit

• Kit-piece preset

• Mixer preset

• Groove

• Groove Palette

• MIDI keymap

• Automation map – MIDI CC, note and host automation assignments

• Keymap + Automation map

• MIDI event log contents

Groove engine export functions

When in the Groove page, the save menu also gives you access to the groove engine’s export functions.

• Export Groove MIDI

• Export Groove Audio

• Export Track MIDI

• Export Track Audio

Gain

Because it is possible to route audio out of 32 channels when running as a plugin within a host, BFD2 includes an overall plugin gain control which affects the level of all channels simultaneously.

Do not confuse this control with the Master channel level – the Master channel in the BFD2 mixer is simply a special Aux channel to which all channels are routed by default, set to outputs 1 & 2 – is all you need if you want to process all BFD2 sounds with the internal FX and simply output a stereo pair. If this is all that you need, you can use the Master channel level to control the overall volume of BFD2.

If, on the other hand, you set up more than a stereo output, you can use the Gain control to adjust the volume of all BFD2’s channels together.

Help menu

See section 1:9 for details of the Help menu.

1:6 Status Bar

RAM

indicator

CPU & HD

performance

meters

Controller

learn

Rude

solo light

Tempo

Playback

position

MIDI

Log

MIDI & audio

stream

indicators

Ofﬂine switch

Context info

display

Transport

controls

Beat light Time

signature

MIDI Log

Clicking this button opens an external MIDI log window, making it easy to view and troubleshoot incoming MIDI events. The contents of the log are identical to the smaller log built into the Keymap page.

See section 8:4 for more details of MIDI logging in BFD2.

Audio stream indicator

The Audio stream indicator lights up when BFD2 has successfully launched and been integrated into the host audio engine (when running as a plugin) or when the standalone version of BFD2 has successfully established communication with the speciﬁed audio device.

MIDI stream indicator

This indicator lights up whenever BFD2 receives any MIDI input.

RAM indicator

This indicator displays how much RAM is being used by BFD2. This includes the cached start portion of each sound, plus a small overhead for BFD2’s engine.

CPU and hard disk performance meters

The 3 horizontal meters in the status bar provide a performance guage for several aspects of BFD2’s system resource usage.

Synthesis CPU Mixer CPU Hard disk load

Synthesis engine CPU usage

The synthesis engine is involved in receiving MIDI input or generating Groove engine events and playing back the relevant articulations.

Mixer engine CPU usage

The mixer engine processes all routing, mixing and FX functions in BFD2.

Hard disk load

This meter indicates the intensity of hard disk resource usage. Do not be alarmed if this meter reaches high values, as your machine may well be able to handle a large amount of disk usage. It is intended as an indicator of the amount of hard disk activity that is occurring.

If your machine cannot handle the amount of disk usage required, the side-effects are usually clearly audible – tails may be cut or intermittent, and audio dropouts or other artifacts may occur.

Ofﬂine switch

This switch is intended for use with hosts that provide an ofﬂine (non-realtime) bounce or mixdown facility. When the Ofﬂine switch is on, BFD2 waits for all data to be properly delivered from the hard disk before allowing the host to continue, ensuring that sounds are not cut off before their full decay is complete.

Please note that Ofﬂine mode is non-realtime, and should only be used during ofﬂine mixdown or rendering in your sequencer, if it even offers this feature. Do not leave the Ofﬂine switch enabled during ordinary playback.

If your sequencer only provides realtime bouncing facilities (a good example is Pro Tools), you should leave Ofﬂine mode turned off at all times.

Controller learn

The controller learn function gives you a quick method of assigning BFD2 controls to MIDI continuous controllers (MIDI CCs) and even to MIDI notes, so that you can use physical keys, knobs, faders or other controllers to control BFD2 controls such as knobs, faders and buttons.

Using controller learn

1. When the controller learn button is enabled, an overlay appears on the interface, with all MIDI-controllable parameters highlighted in green.

2. Click the desired automatable control and then do one of the following:

• move the physical knob, fader or other controller to assign a MIDI CC

• play a MIDI key to assign the note – this is especially useful for buttons

3. The assignment is made, and the assigned note or MIDI CC number is overlaid on the control.

Please see section 8:8 for more details on automation of BFD2 parameters.

Controller learn context menu

While you are in controller learn mode, right-click on any assignable control to display the controller learn context menu.

Clear automation

This function clears the control’s current automation mapping.

If the parameter has not yet been mapped, this function is greyed out on the menu.

Context info display

The context info display provides information about the control currently under the mouse cursor. Parameter names and values are shown.

While a control is being adjusted, the context info display remains locked to the parameter until the mouse button is released, showing the value as it changes.

Transport

The transport controls are used in conjunction with BFD2’s Groove engine. Please see section 4:5 for more details about the transport buttons.

Rude Solo light

The Rude Solo indicator is always lit whenever one or more channels are soloed in the BFD2 mixer.

You can ALT-click this light in order to un-solo all channels currently in a solo state.

Beat light

This indicator ﬂashes on every beat when BFD2’s Groove engine is playing.

Tempo

When using BFD2 as a standalone application, you can enter a tempo for the Groove Engine by double-clicking the Tempo indicator. Simply type a new tempo and hit ENTER.

You can also click and drag this control up and down to adjust the tempo.

When running BFD2 as a plugin, the Tempo indicator is not editable because BFD2 is locked to the host tempo.

Time signature

Similarly to the tempo, you can enter a new time signature either by double-clicking this indicator and typing a new value, or clicking and dragging each number in the time signature up and down.

Playback position

This readout is an indicator of the current playback position, in bars and beats, of either the host (when using BFD2 as a plugin), the Drum Track or the current Groove.

1:7 Loading BFD2 Presets

BFD2 Presets store the entire state of a BFD2 session.

To load a Preset, click the Load button in the Control bar and click on Load BFD2 Preset... from the Load menu that appears. This opens the Preset chooser panel. Any available preset is displayed with an image representing its contents.

Delete Preset from database

Preset listing:

click to select or

double-click to

load

Sticky button

Photo & Star rating

Click a Preset to select it. A larger photo and rating information is displayed in the Info display to the right.

To load a preset, select it by clicking on it and then click the Load button.

You can also load any preset in the listing by double-clicking it.

View size

This drop-down menu selects the size of Preset images shown in the chooser panel listing. A range of settings are available, including text-only displays. Larger sizes result in larger photos but requires more use of the scrollbars in order to view all the available Presets. The ‘List’ and ‘Details’ settings result in faster operation due to the fact that images are not displayed. You can still see a photo for the Preset by selecting it – its details are displayed on the right side of the panel.

This setting is recalled between sessions. Its state is stored in the BFD2 preferences – therefore, if you re-initialize your BFD2 preferences this setting is returned to the default ‘Standard’ size.

Sorting

With this drop-down menu you can sort Presets either by ‘Name’ or ‘Star rating’.

Rating the Presets in the database and sorting the listing by ‘Star rating’ can make it easier to ﬁnd your favourite Presets.

Click to load the selected Preset

The Preset chooser panel includes a search facility in order to narrow down the amount of Presets shown in the listing.

Delete Preset from database

Clicking this button removes the selected preset from the BFD2 database. This feature is provided if you ﬁnd you have too many presets and you want to get rid of those which may not be to your taste, making those you do like easier to ﬁnd in the Preset chooser. You are asked for conﬁrmation before you can continue.

If you choose to remove a user preset from the database, you are also asked if you want to remove the preset ﬁles from disk – if

you click ‘Yes’, the preset ﬁle and its associated photo are deleted from the <user location>/BFD2/Presets folder. If you click ‘No’, the preset’s ﬁles remain untouched. If you leave user kit ﬁles on disk, they are scanned during the next full rescan of the database (Trash and rebuild all databases in the BFD2 Data preferences).

BFD2 never prompts to delete factory-installed Preset ﬁles.

Note that this function always leaves the actual kit-piece audio ﬁles untouched – if you want to delete these to recoup hard disk space, you must go into BFD2’s audio folder and delete the relevant folders.

Sticky button

Enabling the Sticky button results in the Preset chooser panel remaining open after a Preset is loaded.

This is useful if, for example, BFD2 is being played via MIDI and you want to repeatedly change Presets until you ﬁnd what you need. Clicking the Sticky button saves you having to keep opening the Preset chooser panel.

Load selective elements from Presets

A BFD2 Preset stores all of the following constituent elements:

• Kit (kit-pieces and kit-piece setups)

• Mixer

• Groove Palette, Drum Track and other Groove page settings

• MIDI keymap

• Automation map – MIDI CC, note and host automation assignments

• Session preferences

A button is provided for each of these elements in the Preset chooser panel, with the exception of embedded Session preferences. Each of these buttons, when enabled, tells BFD2 to load that constituent element of the preset. If an element’s button is disabled, it is not loaded from the preset.

For example, if you’re working in a session with the Grooves that you want, but you merely want to try out different kit and mixer settings from various Presets, simply disable the Grooves button – the current Palette in the Grooves page is unaffected when the new kit and mixer settings are loaded.

By default, the MIDI Map and MIDI CCs buttons are disabled, because you would normally want to stick with the same MIDI mappings when trying Presets.

Load BFD1

Original BFD 1.x Programs are very different types of ﬁles to the Preset ﬁles used in BFD2. Because of this they are not shown in the Preset chooser panel, even if you have speciﬁed a BFD data path containing valid BFD 1.x Programs ﬁles.

However, BFD2 gives you the ability to load a BFD program ﬁle through an additional ﬁle load dialog. To do this, click the Load BFD1 button to bring up a system ﬁle open dialog. Then browse to and select the BFD1 program ﬁle that you want to import.

After the program ﬁle has been loaded in this way, it is recommended that you re-save it as a BFD2 Preset, in order to be able to load it easily from the Preset chooser panel.

Load / Cancel buttons

To load the currently selected preset, click the Load button.

You can also load any preset by double-clicking it in the listing.

If you change your mind and decide you don’t want to load a new preset, click the Cancel button.

Keyboard operation

You can navigate around the available presets with the cursor (arrow) keys.

The selected preset can be deleted from the database by pressing the DELETE key.

Load the selected preset by pressing the RETURN or ENTER key.

To exit the Preset chooser panel without loading anything, press the ESC key.

Photo & Rating

The large photo of the Preset, showing a representation of the included kit-pieces, is especially useful when using ‘List’ or ‘Details’ View settings.

Above the photo is the star rating control, with which you can rate the preset by clicking on one of the stars. This is used as a ‘favourites’ system when the Sorting type is set to ‘Star rating’: Presets are shown in order of their rating. This means that those with a higher rating are shown ﬁrst.

When you set a preset’s Star rating, it is applied immediately to the BFD2 database.

1:8 Saving BFD2 Presets

To save the current state of BFD2 as a Preset, use the Save BFD2 Preset function on the Control bar Save menu.

A system ﬁle save dialog is displayed, prompting you to save the Preset to disk.

The suggested ﬁlename used for the Preset is that deﬁned in the Preset name box, although you can type a new ﬁlename if you wish.

When you are happy with the ﬁlename and location, hit ENTER or click the Save button.

Save location

When you save your own Presets, you are prompted by default to save them in the user level BFD2 folder as follows:

<user location>/Presets

It is recommended that you stick to this location, so that your Presets are accessible whenever you use the Preset chooser.

Wherever you save the Preset, it is added to the BFD2 database. It is very important to remember, however, that if it is removed from the database (or if you trash and rebuild your database), items not saved in the user location are not re-scanned.

Preset photo

When you save a Preset, a TGA graphic ﬁle is saved along with it, showing images of the kit-pieces it contains. This photo is then visible in the Preset chooser panel during future browsing.

Elements saved with Presets

When you save a Preset, all the following elements are saved with it:

• Kit (kit-pieces and kit-piece setups)

• Mixer

• Groove Palette, Drum Track and other Groove page settings

• MIDI keymap

• Automation map – MIDI CC, note and host automation assignments

• Session preferences

It is not possible to opt not to save any of these elements. You can, however, selectively choose to load only certain elements (with the exception of embedded Session preferences) when recalling Presets at a later time.

If you speciﬁcally do not want to save certain elements, for example Grooves or mixer FX, within a Preset, you should ﬁrst clear the Palette or remove the FX from the mixer before saving the Preset.

Alternatively, you may want to save a Preset with mixer settings but no kit-pieces, so that you can load whatever kit-pieces you want into a certain mixer setup. Since mixer channels are dependent on kit-pieces being loaded, it is necessary to ﬁrst create the mixer settings with kit-pieces loaded. However, before saving the Preset, clear the kit (remove all kit-pieces from their slots). The mixer channels remain, but they are inactive until you load kit-pieces into the relevant slots.

1:9 BFD2 Help functions

BFD2 offers a number of different help methods to make learning the software as painless as possible.

Context info display

The context info display in the BFD2 Status bar shows information about the control element currently underneath the mouse cursor.

This also displays the current values of controls, and updates to show any adjustments made while they are adjusted.

Tool-tips

Tool-tips are shown when the mouse is hovered over a control for a deﬁnable length of time. This time is set in the BFD2 GUI preferences, and is deﬁned in animation frames. A setting of 25 is roughly equivalent to 1 second.

If you prefer, you can switch off tool-tips in the BFD2 GUI preferences.

Help menu

Clicking the Help button on the BFD Control bar displays the Help menu.

Launch PDF Manual

This function launches the BFD2 PDF manual in your system’s PDF reader.

Start BFD2 setup wizard

The BFD2 setup wizard is provided as an easy way to set up BFD2’s preferences in order to achieve the best performance for your particular system.

When you use the Start BFD2 setup wizard function on the Help menu, the setup wizard panel is displayed.

Amplitude scaled response

This item affects Vel to Amp default amount setting in the BFD2 Engine preferences. With an amplitude-scaled response, the default Vel to Amp amount is set at 50%, meaning that whenever a kit-piece is initialized – in other words, when it has just been cleared – the Vel to Amp amount is set to 50%. Therefore, when you subsequently load a kit-piece, it is fully amplitude-scaled with incoming velocity.

If you un-tick this checkbox, the default Vel to Amp amount is set at 0%: no amplitude scaling is applied when a slot is initialized.

If you want to specify other values for the Vel to Amp default amount preference, it is necessary to adjust the preference itself.

This computer is connected to the internet

Ticking this checkbox enables the Launch web browser for images setting in the BFD2 GUI options. This results in launching factory Groove Palette and mixer preset authors’ websites when their images are clicked on the BFD2 interface.

I have BFD 1.x installed

If this checkbox is ticked, BFD2 adds your BFD

1.x data path and imports all the kits into the BFD2 database. If BFD2 detects a BFD1 installation on your system, this checkbox is ticked by default.

I like to use tool-tips

Ticking this checkbox results in tool-tips being displayed when the mouse cursor is held over a control for approx. 1 second. If you want to adjust the time it takes for tool-tips to appear, you must edit the Tool-tip appear time setting directly in the BFD2 GUI preferences.

When moving a control I like to drag... [up and down / around (circular)]

Setting this item to ‘up and down’ requires vertical mouse movement to adjust circular knobs in BFD2, while setting it to ‘around (circular)’ requires circular mouse movement. The preference that this item affects – Circular knob movement – is located in the BFD2 GUI preferences.

My main host application is... [BFD2 Standalone / various plugin hosts]

This item affects the -2 octave numbering and -1 octave numbering settings in the BFD2 GUI preferences. If you select the BFD2 standalone here, the -2 octave system of note numbering is used. If you choose one of the other hosts in the list, the note numbering preferences are set accordingly.

I am a... [keyboard/ﬁnger drummer / e-drummer / drum programmer] I use a... [various MIDI controller hardware keymaps]

These items in the wizard specify how you are going to control BFD2. Depending on the setting speciﬁed for the ﬁrst item, a number of hardware controller keymaps are listed in the second item.

Note that BFD2 overrides this setting if you subsequently load a new keymap, or if you set up a startup Preset with different keymap settings.

Getting further help with BFD2

Further information and help about BFD2 can be found at the fxpansion.com webpage. Internet shortcuts to all of these help methods are available on the BFD2 Help menu:

1. Launch online FAQ: www.fxpansion.com/bfd2faq

The FAQ is often updated with late-breaking information about BFD2. This includes common solutions to problems which are not covered in the manual – for example installation and authorization issues.

2. Launch online forum: www.fxpansion.com/forum

Our forum is frequented by our programming and technical support teams, as well as knowledgable and experienced users of BFD2. If you have a query which is not covered in the provided documentation or webpage FAQs, you can often ﬁnd an answer in the forum after a quick search. It is also possible to obtain answers to new questions from other users out of our usual ofﬁce hours.

3. Launch online support: www.fxpansion.com/support

If all other help resources have not yielded answers to your questions, you can ﬁll out a technical support request in the Support section at fxpansion.com.

You must register your copy of BFD2 before you can obtain technical support.

chapter 02 KIT PAGE

building and adjusting your kit

2:1 Kit page overview

1. Loading and saving kits – 2:3, 2:4

Use the Load and Save menus in order to load and save kits.

2. Kit Size – 2:2

This selector lets you choose between 10, 18 and 32 piece kits.

3. Kit display – 2:5

This changes for each kit size. Click a kit-piece in the display in order to select it. Each kit-piece in the display ﬂashes when it is played.

4. Kit-piece slots and loading kit-pieces – 2:5, 2:6, 2:7

The number of kit-piece slots shown depends on the kit size. Each slot features a controls for loading a kit-piece into the slot and clearing its contents, as well as trim and direct pan controls.

5. Kit page toolbar – 2:8, 2:11

The toolbar features tools for selecting and linking kit-pieces.

It also features a wizard tool for easy MIDI learn-based key assignments for kit-piece articulations.

6. Kit-piece inspector – 2:9

This inspector features a multitude of ways to tweak the sound and response of the selected kit-piece and its articulations.

A preset system is also available for kit-piece inspector settings.

The inspector includes the kit-piece quick-load controls, allowing you to ﬂick through available kit-pieces without opening the kitpiece chooser panel.

7. Mini-mixer 2:10

The mini-mixer contains a number of useful functions.

Firstly, the master tune, master dynamics and humanize controls offer a number of ways of changing the way the kit sounds and plays.

The mini-mixer itself allows a quick way of setting the mix between direct and ambient mic channels without having to switch to the Mixer page.

2:2 Kit Size

You can choose between 3 kit sizes using the selector buttons on the toolbar.

All slots have an intended purpose – when the kit-piece chooser panel is displayed for each slot, it sets the Type and Search controls to show the intended variety of kit-piece.

However, you can load any kit-piece into any slot by changing the Type and Search criteria.

10-piece kit

1 Kick1 2 Snare 1 3 Hihat 4 Floor Tom 5 Mid Tom 6 High Tom 7 Crash 1 8 Cymbal 1 9 Ride 1 10 Perc

When the load kit-piece button is clicked for the tom slots, the kitpiece chooser defaults to the appropriate type of tom by setting the search criteria automatically as required. To view all toms, clear the search text-box.

When loading a kit-piece into the cymbal slots, the kit-piece chooser defaults to the intended cymbal type by putting the relevant search criteria automatically into the search text-box. To view all cymbals, clear the search text-box.

The Cymbal 1 slot (slot 8) chooser defaults to showing all cymbals.

18-piece kit

1 Kick 1 2 Snare 1 3 Hihat 4 Floor Tom 5 Mid Tom 6 High Tom 7 Crash 1 8 Cymbal 1 9 Ride 1

When the load kit-piece button is clicked for the Floor, Mid and High Tom slots, the kit-piece chooser defaults to the appropriate type of tom by setting the search criteria automatically as required. To view all toms, clear the search text-box.

When loading a kit-piece into the Tom 4, Tom 5 and Tom 6 slots, the kit-piece selector defaults to displaying all toms.

The Cymbal 1 and Cymbal 2 slots (slot 8) chooser defaults to showing all cymbals.

10 Kick 2 11 Snare 2 12 Perc 13 Tom 4 (all toms) 14 Tom 5 (all toms) 15 Tom 6 (all toms) 16 Crash 2 17 Cymbal 2 18 Ride 2

32-piece kit

1 Kick 1 2 Snare 1 3 Hihat 4 Floor Tom 5 Mid Tom 6 High Tom 7 Crash 1 8 Cymbal 1 9 Ride 1

The 32-piece kit features the same ﬁrst 18 slots as the 18-piece kit, but with an extra 14 percussion slots as shown above.

These slots have no default mapping, due to the fact that they potentially need lots of MIDI keys, so it would really be necessary to ﬁrst set the Groove Palette to another MIDI channel.

If you need this many kit-pieces, please set up your desired mapping and save a Program so that it’s set up for future use.

While these slots are intended as a percussion rack, especially for use with the BFD Percussion expansion pack, you can of course use them to load any kit-piece you like.

10 Kick 2 11 Snare 2 12 Perc 13 Tom 4 (all toms) 14 Tom 5 (all toms) 15 Tom 6 (all toms) 16 Crash 2 17 Cymbal 2 18 Ride 2

19 Perc 2 20 Perc 3 21 Perc 4 22 Perc 5 23 Perc 6 24 Perc 7 25 Perc 8

26 Perc 9 27 Perc 10 28 Perc 11 29 Perc 12 30 Perc 13 31 Perc 14 32 Perc 15

Switching kit sizes

If the kit size is changed to a larger setting, any currently loaded Kit-pieces are unaffected - you simply have more slots available to you.

If you change to a smaller kit size, the slots which still exist in the smaller size are unchanged. However, any slots that do not exist in the smaller size are lost – the kit-pieces and any settings made to the slot are cleared from memory.

For example, if you change from an 18-piece kit to a 10-piece kit, slots 11-18 are discarded.

2:3 Loading and saving in the Kit page

Loading in the Kit page

You can load and save a number of different elements in the Kit page:

Kits (section 2:4)

A kit is comprised of a number of kit-pieces loaded into kit-piece slots, as well as any Link setups and additional parameters for each kit-piece (adjustable in the kit-piece inspector). You can, if you wish, choose to load only the kit-piece arrangement, and dispense with the additional settings.

Kits are loaded and saved using the Load menu in the BFD2 control bar.

Kit-pieces (section 2:6)

You can load individual kit-pieces into the available slots in order to build a custom kit.

This is achieved via the Load buttons on each kitpiece slot, or by double-clicking anywhere in a slot.

You can also use the kit-piece quick-load controls at the top of the kit-piece inspector as an alternative way of loading kit-pieces.

Kit-piece presets (section 2:9)

These are presets of kit-piece inspector settings for each kit-piece class – kicks, snares, hihats, toms, cymbals and percussion.

Kit-piece presets are saved using the ‘Save kit-piece preset’ function on the BFD2 Load menu in the control bar.

You can load kit-piece presets via the kit-piece preset loading controls, located in the kitpiece inspector.

BFD2 Presets (section 1:7)

You can also load BFD2 Presets using the Load menu on the BFD2 Control bar. Presets contain a snapshot of the entire state of BFD2. In the Preset chooser you can load any or all of the following:

• Kit (kit-pieces and kit-piece setups)

• Mixer

• Groove Palette

• Keymap

• Automation map

• Session preferences

Rather than be able to load default kits, mixer presets, Grooves and mappings when the software is launched, BFD2 instead only allows you to set up a default Preset to load whenever it is launched. This is to avoid having too many default settings speciﬁed, and also due to the sheer variety of possible kit, mixer and mapping setups that might conﬂict with each other.

Saving in the Kit page

You can save the following using the Save menu:

Kits: section 2:4

Kit-piece presets: section 2:9

BFD2 Presets: section 1:8

2:4 Loading and saving kits

Loading kits – overview

To load a kit, click the Load button in the BFD Control bar and click on Load Kit... from the Load menu that appears. This opens the kit chooser panel.

Delete kit from database

Kit listing: click to select or double-

click to load

Sticky button

Info

Click to load the selected kit

All available kits are displayed with an image representing its contents. To see more information about a kit, click it to select it. Detailed information about the kit and a larger photo is displayed in the inspector to the right.

To load a kit, select it by clicking on it and then click the Load button.

You can also double-click any kit in the listing in order to load it.

A kit ﬁle stores a set of kit-pieces in either of the 3 available kit sizes, as well as further settings in the Kit page, such as Link and kit-piece inspector setups.

Controls in the kit chooser panel

Load Audio Only button

You can choose to load only the kit-pieces in a kit by clicking the ‘Load Audio only’ button. Leaving this button off results in a kit’s Link and kit-piece inspector settings being loaded with it.

Slot Load switches

The Slot Load switches allow you to specify which kit-piece slots are replaced by new sounds and settings from the loaded Kit.

Turning off a Slot Load switch results in the current contents of that slot remaining unchanged when a kit is loaded.

View size

This drop-down menu selects the size of kit images shown in the chooser panel. A range of settings are available, including text-only displays. Larger sizes result in larger photos but requires more use of the scrollbars in order to view all the available kits. The ‘List’ and ‘Details’ settings result in faster operation due to the fact that images are not displayed. You can still see a photo for the kit by selecting it – its details are displayed in the inspector.

Sorting

With this drop-down menu you can sort kits either by name or by star rating.

Rating your favourite kits and sorting chooser contents by Star rating can make it easier to ﬁnd your favourite kits.

The kit chooser panel includes a search facility in order to narrow down the amount of kits shown in the chooser panel.

Quick-search

Useful search terms are stored in the quick-search drop-down menu to the left of the Search text-box.

Delete kit-piece from database

Clicking this button removes the selected kit from the BFD2 database. This feature is provided if you ﬁnd you have too many kits and you want to get rid of those which may not be to your taste, making kits you do like easier to ﬁnd in the chooser panel. You are asked for conﬁrmation before you can continue.

If you choose to remove a user kit from the database, you are also asked if you want to remove the kit ﬁles from disk – if you click ‘Yes’, the kit ﬁle and its associated photo are deleted from the <user location>/BFD2/Kits folder. If you click ‘No’, the kit’s ﬁles remain untouched. If you leave user kit ﬁles on disk, they are scanned during the next full rescan of the database (Trash and rebuild all databases in the BFD2 Data preferences).

BFD2 never prompts to delete factory-installed kit ﬁles.

Sticky button

Enabling the Sticky button results in the kit chooser panel remaining open after a kit is loaded.

This is useful if, for example, BFD2 is playing a sequence or Groove and you want to repeatedly change kits until you ﬁnd what you need. Clicking the Sticky button saves you having to keep opening the kit chooser panel.

Load / Cancel buttons

To load the currently selected kit, click the Load button.

You can also load any kit in the listing by double-clicking it.

If you change your mind and decide you don’t want to load a new kit, click the Cancel button.

Keyboard operation

You can navigate around the available kits with the cursor (arrow) keys.

The selected kit can be deleted from the database by pressing the DELETE key.

Load the selected kit by pressing the RETURN or ENTER key.

To exit the chooser panel without loading anything, press the ESC key.

Info

The Info area displays information about the currently selected kit and allows you to rate it.

Photo & rating

The large kit photo shows a representation of the included kit-pieces. It is especially useful if you are using the ‘List’ or ‘Details’ views.

Above the kit photo is the star rating control, with which you can rate the kit by clicking on one of the stars. This is used as a ‘favourites’ system when the Sorting type is set to ‘Star rating’: kits are shown in order of their rating.

When you set a kit’s rating, it is applied immediately to the BFD2 database.

Info

The info display shows information about which kit-pieces exist in each of the kit’s slots.

• Valid kit-pieces’ names are shown in black

• Empty slots or those with unidentiﬁable contents are shown in grey

• Invalid kit-pieces are shown in red – this usually means that the kit-pieces have not been authorized or are somehow corrupt.

If you suspect they are not authorized, exit BFD2 and run the FXpansion License Manager to verify their authorization status. If necessary, authorize the expansion pack containing the kit-pieces. Then re-run BFD2. It may also be necessary to trash and rebuild the BFD2 database.

Import BFD1 kit

Original BFD kits are very different types of ﬁles to the kit ﬁles used in BFD2. Because of this they are not shown in the kit selector panel, even if you have speciﬁed a BFD data path containing kits made for BFD

1.0 or 1.5.

However, BFD2 gives you the ability to import BFD kit ﬁles to the BFD2 database. To do this, click the BFD1 Kit Import button to bring up a system ﬁle open dialog. Then browse to and select one or more BFD1 kit ﬁles that you want to import. The kits are converted into BFD2 format and added into the database so that they can be loaded in the kit chooser.

If you specify that you are a BFD1.x user during the BFD2 setup wizard, BFD2 automatically imports any BFD1.x kit ﬁles it ﬁnds in the current data paths.

Saving kits

Use the Save Kit... item in the BFD2 Save menu in order to save the current kit. Clicking this menu item opens a system ﬁle save dialog allowing you to save the kit to any location.

Save location

When you save your own kits, you are prompted by default to save them in the user level BFD2 folder at the following location:

<user location>/Kits

We recommend that you save your kits into this folder in order for them to be visible in the Kit chooser panel.

Wherever you save the kit, it is added to the BFD2 database. It is very important to remember, however, that if it is removed from the database and you trash and rebuild your database, items not saved in the user location are not rescanned.

Kit Photo

When you save a kit, a TGA graphic ﬁle is saved along with it, showing images of the kit-pieces it contains. This photo is visible in the kit chooser panel during future use.

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