FXpansion BFD Percussion User Manual

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BFD Percussion

Welcome and thank you for purchasing BFD Percussion! Please read through this manual
carefully. The installation process and the Hit types used in this expansion pack differ from
previous products in the BFD range. Reading through this manual will ensure that you get the
most out of the sounds.

The FXpansion team

www.fxpansion.com

Installation

• BFD v1.5.45 or higher is required in order to use BFD Percussion. Please make sure it is
properly installed before you proceed. Obtain the latest version from your FXpansion.com
user account.

• The data on the BFD Percussion DVDs is compressed (using a zero-loss algorithm), to
facilitate the delivery of the highest possible level of detail. You must run the installers in order
to successfully install the sounds. You cannot simply copy the data to your hard drive.

Mac users: during the installation process, you may be asked for your Admin password. You

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must have Admin rights in order to install this software.

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Each DVD contains an installer specific to the contents
of that DVD. Please follow these steps for each DVD !

1. Insert the DVD and run the BFD Percussion installer.

• Windows:
If the installer does not auto-run, explore the DVD contents in My

Computer and double-click BFD PER Win Setup.exe to run it.

• Mac:
Open the DVD contents and double-click BFD PER Mac Setup.

2. Follow the on-screen instructions until the ‘Installation Path’ stage appears.

3. Select your BFD folder: this is the

folder which contains the Data folder in
which the sample data resides. Make
sure you select the BFD folder, and
not BFD/Data or any other folder. If
you do not select the correct folder, the
new sounds will not be available within
BFD. Click Next when you’re ready to
proceed.

4. You now need to specify the Installation
Size: you can specify the detail level
and which Kit-Pieces to install.

• First, select a detail level. BFD

Percussion can be installed with one
of three detail levels, determining the
maximum amount of velocity layers
(and consequently affecting the hard
disk space usage) that are installed
for each Kit-Piece on the DVD.

Higher detail levels have a higher
impact on system resources.

Small:
Medium: a maximum of 24 velocity layers will be installed
Large:

a maximum of 16 velocity layers will be installed

all velocity layers will be installed

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• Next, deselect the Kit-Pieces which you do not
want to install by clearing the check-boxes. All
Kit-Pieces on the DVD will be installed with the
same detail level during the installer routine. The
info display on the right shows information about each Kit-Piece and the Hit types it
contains. Use the scroll-bar to scroll through the list.

The installer program calculates disk space requirements dynamically, so please be
patient when selecting and deselecting Kit-Pieces.

Click Next when you’re ready to continue.

HINT: If you would like to install different Kit-Pieces from the same DVD with different

detail levels (for example, using a higher detail level on snares can be useful),
simply re-run the DVD’s installer as many times as necessary, de-selecting the
appropriate Kit-Pieces each time.

5. Enter your BFD Percussion serial number (located on the inside front cover of the
digipak containing the DVDs). You will only need to enter your serial for the first DVD
you install. Click Next to commence installation.

Installation of each DVD can take quite a while, as a large amount of data needs to

be de-compressed and installed.

To register your copy of BFD Percussion, or if you experience any problems

during the installation, please consult our support page:

www.fxpansion.com/support

You MUST be registered to receive support. Registering also means we have

a record of your serial if you lose it. Lost serials will NOT be replaced!

Registering also allows you access to the download area,

containing free bonus content.

Recording notes

BFD Percussion was produced by John Emrich and the same team responsible for BFD Jazz
& Funk Collection, at Omega Studios in Rockville, Maryland. The session was recorded at
Omega’s Studio B, the recording room measuring 27 ft. x 24 ft. with a 12 ft. ceiling. This setting
was chosen because the nature of the instruments demanded a smaller, more intimate setting.
The sound characteristic of the room is very similar to that in Jazz & Funk Collection, so it’s
perfect to use with it, although the instruments in BFD Percussion Collection sound great
when mixed with any other BFD kits, or anything else for that matter!

Digidesign HD 192 A/D converters were used for all the channels. Royer 122 ribbon mics were
used almost exclusively for the direct mics, capturing the harmonic intricacies of these organic
instruments without colouring the sound. No additional processing was applied, except for
some very subtle compression on the Room and PZM channels. The channels were set up as
follows:

• Direct

A Royer 122 was used for the direct signal.

Instruments that are classified as kicks or snares also used either a second Royer 122, a
Neumann U84, or a Neumann FET47. These mics were fed into a set of API preamps.

There are no bleed channels, as only one instrument was recorded at a time.

• Overhead

Pair of Neumann KM184s through Focusrite ISA 115 mic preamps.

• Room

Pair of Neumann U89s, approx. 20 ft. from the kit, into Focusrite Red 1 preamps and an SSL
FX G384 bus compressor (set to 4:1 ratio, 1ms attack, auto release).

• PZM

Pair of Crown PZM 30Ds, approx. 18 ft. from the kit, through Focusrite Red 1 preamps and a
pair of linked Urei LA4 limiters (set to 4:1 ratio, 9:00 threshold, and 10:30 on the gain - there
were no units on the front panels!).

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Using BFD Percussion

Pre-made Kits

All Kit-Pieces on all DVDs must be installed in order to use the pre-made Kit definitions. If
you’re only installing a selection of Kit-Pieces, you need to compile your own Kits from the
installed Kit-Pieces, something which takes a matter of seconds in BFD.

Hit types and Kit-piece types

• The Kit-pieces in BFD Percussion are organized according to the number of Hit types
present.

• The Hit types also differ from those in previous BFD libraries, due to the different and varied
nature of these instruments.

• With the exception of the Hihat slot, Snare slots offer the most Hit types. Instruments with five
Hit types are provided as snares.

• In the case of instruments such as congas, 2 snare slots will be required for a set of two
congas, if you need all the Hit types available for both.

• Bongo sets are classified as toms, and should be loaded into the tom 4, 5 and 6 slots if both
of the two available Hit types are required.

• Most of the other instruments have two Hit types and are classified as kicks, cymbals or
percussion.

• Make sure you know how to use the ‘Type’ drop-down selector in the Kit-piece Selector
panels to enable you to access all the available Kit-pieces. You can load any Kit-piece
into any slot, although the number of Hit types will be reduced if the chosen slot supports
fewer Hit types. For example, loading a Bodhran, which usually has five Hit types, into the
percussion slot will mean that only the first two Hit types can be used. You will also lose the
control over the top and bottom mic channels.

• Read the Kit-piece info displays and the listing in this manual for more specific information
on the instruments, including Kit-piece type categorization, the available Hit types and
differences from usual BFD Hit type conventions.

Using multiple instances of BFD

If you want to simply drop a few percussion sounds into an existing BFD drumkit setup, then
you can use the percussion and extra kick, snare, tom and cymbal slots in the same instance
of BFD.

However, if you are going to require more than the first 2 Hit types for the percussion
instruments, you will need to load a second BFD instance in your host.

Please bear in mind that this can be too resource-intensive for less powerful systems.

The high levels of detail in these sounds can cause significantly higher RAM overhead
compared to the content in the original BFD library, especially when using them alongside
drumkit sounds. When using smaller amounts of RAM (768MB to 1GB), you should either
install BFD Percussion with Small or Medium detail levels (see the Installation guide for
details), or use ‘Max layers’, ‘16-bit mode’ and other settings described in the BFD FAQ for
reducing RAM usage.

More usage tips

Some sounds in BFD Percussion, like the flexatones, waterphones and bowed gongs, are
atmospheric ‘effect’ sounds, intended to be used incidentally rather than rhythmically. It may
not be a good idea to load these into slots referenced by Grooves, although by all means do
experiment! With adjustment of parameters such as the damping settings, you can use these
sounds in many different ways.

Percussion instruments with a lot of high frequency content, like triangles and shakers, sound
more natural through the ambient buses rather than the directs. These types of instruments
are rarely mic’d closely as they can sound too messy and resonant. It can be a good idea to
mute the direct channels for any slots filled with these instruments, using the Output matrix
in the Output Options panel, or by turning down the Direct Trim control for the slot in the BFD
Mixer. Direct channels are still provided, of course, to give you the freedom to use the sounds
in any way you like.

Grooves

BFD Percussion includes a library of Grooves, and presets with which to use them. Please see
the BFD Percussion Grooves PDF manual on DVD1 for more details.